Lesson 5

After my last lesson my instructor, C, mentioned that I should check out some of the other Skyhawks so I wouldn't get too used to just one aircraft. So this time out we used N432SP which is a 1999 Skyhawk 172S with 4000 hours on the Hobbs. Preflighting this plane was just what I expected ... everything is a little looser, a little noisier, a little faded. And little things are different. Like the headset plugs are near the armrest and have little metal flaps over them. In N2160Q they were on the panel.

It took two tries to get the engine started this time. But I wasn't blanking on what to do this time. The mixture control on this plane feels like it's rusted so you really have to put some muscle behind it to move the thing. So the first starting attempt I couldn't get the mixture rich fast enough to keep the engine alive. But the second time went great.

I called up ground control and taxied us out to a hold position at taxiway A, which is the main taxiway paralleling the runway. There we had to let a Citation X go by first before we were cleared on A in front of a helicopter. I'm not sure the make but it looked sort of like a Bell Agusta. In the runup area we were second in line behind a Mooney. But behind us was a King Air, then a Pilatus, then a couple more Cessna piston singles. I suppose that we had clear skies, 60-degrees Fahrenheit, and bad weather projected for tomorrow had something to do with it.

Soon we were cleared to take off on runway 15 and so I taxied out following the short S-turn from the runup area onto the runway, kept it moving and lined up and let her rip. C told me to hold a constant 75 kias climb out and I had a little trouble with that. Instead we were mostly between 80 and 85 kias. Later, C told me that since there's a lot of buildings south of the airport when he says hold 75 he means 75, not about 75. Point taken.

Today we went to the far northern edge of the north practice area where we had the fewest homes and we did turns about a point on the ground and s-turns over a road. C did the first turn-about-a-point and ran me through the whole process, which involves a lot more than just turning. In the future, if an instructor asks me to show a turn-about-a-point I am to ...

1) Decide what altitude I will do the maneuver (approximately 1000' AGL) and announce it
2) Pick out a spot on the ground and announce it
3) Determine the wind direction and announce it
4) Clear the area and descend to my target altitude, noting any obstructions in the area, such as towers
5) Announce where you'll go if the engine quits (this is Texas cattle country, there's lots of level open space ... just watch out for the cattle)
6) Reduce speed to 100 kias and trim for level flight
7) Enter the maneuver on the downwind ... I can take as much time as I want for this because it is important that I enter the maneuver in stable level flight with a tailwind
8) Maneuver so that the chosen point is 3/4 the way up my left spar
9) Begin a turn to the left and look for my first target point
10) Fly arcs from one target point to another keeping an even distance from the chosen center spot
11) Exit on downwind

Once C flew the circumference of the first circle he turned the controls over to me and I continued the circle around the point two more times. Then I exited on downwind and started the whole process over again looking for my own spot.

You know, it was really hard picking out a spot! I finally chose a road that made three 90-degree bends with the center bend being my target. Of course, I didn't make a perfect circle but I at least got halfway around before my circle turned into an oval. At least it was a parallelagram!

Next we went and found a pretty decent road and did S-turns. C did a couple and then turned the controls over to me. I managed to do a couple of decent turns and then a couple of bad ones. For two of them my wings were just not quite lined up with the road. On the last one I flattened out waaaay before I got to the road. But by that time we realized that the wind had swung around from South to North! No wonder I flattened out!

After that we climbed up to 3000' and C asked me to demonstrate a power-off stall. I managed to do it correctly but I fumbled my way through it. C has switched teaching tactics on me. During the last lesson he talked me through the steps but this time he just said "show me" and sat there and watched. Ohhhh the silence!

I climbed back up to 3000' and he said, "show me a power-on stall". So I set it up but, again, I was slow bleeding off my airspeed and wasn't forceful enough on the controls and ended up uncoordinated during the stall. After recovery, C walked through the steps again and then had me demonstrate it and I got it right ... mostly. I still didn't get the airspeed down quickly enough, but I did do a better job of using the rudder to keep the ball centered and the wings level.

And it wasn't nearly as stomach-churning as the last time.

Then, alas, our time was up and we had to book it back into Addison. It was just as busy as when we left and the traffic was just as interesting. On the way back in we passed the Cavanaugh Museum's T6 out giving a joy ride and holding at runway 33 was their bright yellow Stearman. What a beautiful plane.

Sure enough, Addison had switched from using runway 15 to runway 33. Entering the pattern C demonstrated a forward slip to get us down from 2500' to pattern altitude of 1600'.

So, my big lesson I learned today ... besides how to make turns-about-a-point and s-turns over a road ... was that I need to be more forceful about flying the plane. C isn't going to talk me through stuff I've already practiced. I know the steps, I just need to do them and stop looking to him for hints or approval. I need to start acting like PIC ... this is my plane because I'm flying it.

C suggested I have one more lesson where we practice more maneuvers using ground reference (and stalls I added) and also have a talk about spins. Then after that one I need to schedule a progress check ride with one of the senior instructors.

This flight: 1.7 hours
Total time: 6.4 hours

Lesson 4

Today's weather is beautiful (Sunday). Clear skies, high of 56-degrees Fahrenheit, calm wind from the north/northwest. Monarch is super busy because everyone and their grandmother wants to go flying. I show up early and before my ride has come back from the previous lesson, so I hang out in the pilot store looking at the books.

I'm both excited and anxious about today's lesson because I know we're going to cover stalls.

I have experienced a stall in a small plane before. For my last birthday my wife and her sister bought me a ride in a Stearman Biplane at Addison's Cavanaugh Air Museum (http://www.cavanaughflightmuseum.com/CFMMain.html) and during that ride the pilot did two stalls, some lazy eights and a chandelle. But I was along for the ride and not at the controls.

The plane arrives and I get checked out and start the preflight. There are three other planes getting preflighted at the same time. Plus one is leaving just as I walk out there. I have to call the fuel truck because the tanks are half full (or half empty? =;-0) and C arrives after I've finished everything but sumping the tanks. We talk while we wait for the truck. He asks me how it went with M. I didn't tell him about how rattled I was during the whole thing but I do tell him about the crosswind touch-and-goes. He says not to worry because we won't be doing any landings today ... well, ok, just one.

The truck arrives and we get fueled. The engine start goes much better than the day before, though I push in the mixture too early. I just can't quite the timing of it right! My new headset works great and so I call ground control and request to taxi. I then move us out to the runup area of runway 33. The runup goes OK and I request clearence for takeoff. We get it and I move us out on the runway and we take off. After we pass through 1100' MSL I make a small turn to the right so we're heading due North at 2000'.

Since there's so much traffic out there we spend quite a bit of time clearing the area once we get to the practice area. Then C asks me to show him slow flight. So I pull back power to 1500 RPM and pull the nose up to maintain my altitude (which I actually manage to do!). Then I add in some power to maintain 45 kias ... actually it was more like 48. Then C asks me to make some turns and I do that, using a 10-degree bank. "Ok, that's good". Now comes the fun part.

I do a cruise climb to 3000' and then C takes over and shows me a power off stall. Power back ... nose up ... under 110 kias put in first step of flaps ... in the white arc put in full flaps ... hold speed at 65 kias ... put the nose down like we're landing. "Let's pretend that 2700' is the ground. At 2800' I'll power back to idle and start my flare," C says. Then when flaring he pulls the nose way up and we stall. Nose down, full power, right rudder, but don't let the nose drop too far, try to stay above 2700'. We pick up speed and then start climbing, pull in the flaps one step then wait three seconds and do it again. Then once we're over 65 kias and have positive rate of climb we pull in the last bit of flaps. And we're climbing back to 3000'. "That's it, any questions? Now you do it."

Hmmm this isn't too bad. I can feel the plane buffet just like books say and the nose drops like a rock, just like the books says. This is kinda like riding a roller coaster. So we three or four power off stalls.

Then C says, now let's do a power on stall. We clear the area again and he pulls the power back and slows to 65 kias. Then he both pushes in full power and pushes on the right rudder and we start climbing at this absurd angle until the speed falls off and we stall. Wooooooooooaaaaaaaaahhhhh I think I'm gonna hurl!

It's not the nose drop so much as it is the wing drop that is making my stomach heave.

"The important thing here is to keep the plane coordinated up to and during the stall and don't turn the control wheel. It's a natural reaction when a wing drops but it'll just make it worse. The first thing you will always do is drop the nose. Now you do it."

Well, I'm still a little timid at the controls so when I put in full power and started the climb I wasn't pulling back on the yoke fast enough and so we'd just climb and climb and climb until finally I'd feel the buffet and the nose would drop. The problem is that cold air out there and the fact we're in a Skyhawk which is built to climb. It just doesn't want to stall. So the longer we're in the climb trying to drain off airspeed the more time I have to get the plane uncoordinated which is exactly what I did one time.

I'd feel the buffet and then I'd drop the nose just enough that we'd pull back from the stall and so C would say, "pull the nose up". I think in all we did four or five power on stalls before we had to head back.

For the first time I thought, "Chester, wtf are you doing out here?" But I know that this is really important. I need to master this so that I never put myself in a position where I can unintentionally stall. And I need to master it because I can't be afraid of it. If I'm afraid of it then I'm going to get myself killed some day. So during the debriefing I asked C if we could do more stalls during the next lesson. "Don't worry," he said. "There'll be lots more stalls." !!

He told me that he thinks there are two things that you really must learn inside and out ... stalls and landing. If you've got them mastered then you'll have no problems with everything else. And he mentioned that I won't be working on landings for another three or four lessons, so for now I can just focus on stalls and slow flight.

Good! Now I'm actually looking forward to the next lesson (2 days from now) and doing some more stalls.

This flight: 1.2 hours
Total time: 4.7 hours

Lesson 3

It's Saturday morning, 0800 local (1400Z), and the sun has risen to crystal clear skies above and to the south and high clouds and colder air coming from the north. My instructor, C, has arranged for another instructor (let's call him M) to take me up when C has the day off, which he often does on the weekends.

So I arrive early and start preflighting the plane, 2160Q again, and it goes fine. M arrives and asks me what C and I did during the last lesson and then he asks me some questions about the plane, which I get right and wrong. He asks me how the control services are connected to the flight controls and I say the rudder and elevators are by cable and the ailerons are by push rod. Wrong! They're all connected by cable in a Skyhawk. Doh. Now, remember that it has been a full week since my first two lessons and now I'm a little rattled.

We get in and do the before engine start checklist and then I try to fire up the engine. My brain farts and I have my right hand on the throttle instead of the mixture so the engine dies. M reaches up and pushes in the mixture quick but it's too late. So we try again and this time I get the timing right. So now I'm a little more rattled.

Then I use the radio communication cheatsheet that C gave me last week to request permission to taxi. M is giving me this funny look and the ground controller asks me to repeat my request. I thought I sounded funny in my borrowed headset but what I didn't realize is that the microphone is cutting out so only 1 of 3 words is getting out. We discuss shutting down and swapping them out, but M suggests we keep going and I just focus on flying and he'll handle the radio (though I'm suppose to write down what I hear). That's fine by me. So we get clearance and start taxiing. Dang, I just can't find the right amount of nosewheel pressure to hold a straight line so we're all over the place. Now I'm even more rattled.

During the runup we discover that the left magneto is fouled again. I discover that M's technique is different from C's in that he does the steps in a different order. With the engine at 1800 RPM he leans the mixture until we get an RPM drop and then we run the engine up to 2200 RPM. C does it the other way around. Of course, it works and the next test shows a minimal RPM drop on the left magneto.

After we get clearance I taxi out onto the runway and manage to perform a decent takeoff. We turn to the East and climb to 2000' and cruise out to the East practice area which is over and beyond Lake Lavon. The view is spectacular of the Dallas skyline and I can easily see all the major landmarks ... Lake Lavon, Downtown Dallas, the tollway corridor (tall buildings that mark where Addison Airport is located), Lake Lewisville to the north, and Lake Ray Hubbard, which is south of Lake Lavon.

Now I'm starting to calm down and I feel more comfortable. I trim the plane to fly straight and level at 2000' and now we're, sort of, chatting about what we're going to cover in the lesson and sightseeing while we scan for traffic. I notice that I've got a bit of a breeze hitting me in the face so I reach over to roll the air vent away from me and the little vent ball pops out and into my hand! Now I've got a blast of air hitting me in the face! All I can do is look at M and say, "ummm sorry." He says, "don't worry about it" and takes the ball from me.

After passing over Lake Lavon we do some clearing turns and then we practice more slow flight. Power back ... raise the nose ... maintain altitude ... put more power back in once we pass 50 kias. Then we try some gentle turns, a 180-degree turn and then 90-degree back to the right. This is pretty easy except I have trouble keeping my altitude, though I don't think we lost more than 200-300'. And I don't think I consistently held the speed down to 45 kias like M wanted, I think the airspeed hovered around 50 mostly.

Then M had me to some constant-speed ascents and descents. All pretty easy. So then we decide to head over to Collin County Regional Airport (KTKI) to fly around the pattern. We descend to pattern altitude and are given clearance to enter on right base for runway 35. We enter the base leg and slow under 110 kias and drop the first 10-degrees of flaps. At 80 kias we turn final and I get introduced to crosswind landings! I can't remember the wind speed but it was strong and coming from 330 degrees. So M talked me through doing a touch-and-go and I had a really hard time keeping the plane centered on the runway. M never stated that he had the controls so we both kept our hands and feet in the right places and guided the plane down, but I could tell that he really did have control of the plane. Which is fine, because though I've read about this a million times it's not anything like experiencing it for the first time.

We've got all three wheels down and we're rolling and M states that I have control and says "give it full power and let's go around." So I do just that. Flying the pattern turns out to be pretty easy. I raise the flaps and push the throttle all the way in and give it some right rudder. We lift off and ascend to 500' above the ground before turning to the right (yep, non-standard pattern) on crosswind. After a few seconds, because we've now got a healthy tail wind, we turn to the right again and line up parallel to the runway. We reach 1600' MSL and I level off, trim and pull the power back so we stay at around 90 kias.

I can hear over the radio that there's another Cessna on final so we look for it and spot it by the time it's on short final. Then the tower clears us to land so we turn base when the runway is at a 45-degree angle from our tail. I pull back the power and put the flaps down 10-degrees. We start to descend and I turn final after a few seconds. I leave the plane crabbed into the wind until we're about 500' AGL and then I push in the right rudder to point the nose down the runway and then start dancing with the ailerons to keep the plane headed the right direction. Well, dancing isn't the right word. It feels more like I'm flapping my wings like a goony bird. So M steps in and helps me keep the center line. About 100' above the runway we start the flare and just as we're about to touch down a bird appears out of no where flies across our nose. We're both startled and so we balloon a little before touching down.

I know that bird was small but at the time it looked HUGE. Like a condor. =;-)

I raise the flaps and put in the power and we're off again. At some point there M requests clearance to depart the pattern and we turn to the left to return to Addison. By now the cold front is getting closer and it feels like the clouds are just looming over Dallas. All too soon we're back at Addison and landing. This landing goes much smoother as the runway is oriented towards 330 degrees and again I'm not actually doing the landing but I've got my hands and feet on the controls to feel what's going on.

I taxi us back to Monarch and secure the plane.

During the debriefing M tells me not to sweat the touch-and-goes at TKI. He said that crosswinds aren't even introduced into the training until much later and so it really wasn't fair to throw me into that situation. But then, on the other hand it was realistic and I still managed to fly a good pattern even though I needed a lot of his help on the actual landing phase. By the time I got home I needed to lay down for a while to decompress!

Overall, this was still a lot of fun. Overwhelming, but fun. As I laid there running over the lesson in my mind and trying to relax I had a huge grin on my face.

But the really good news of the day was that my new headset arrived later that afternoon, so no more borrowed headsets!

This flight: 1.3 hours
Total time: 3.5 hours

Lesson 2

Wooohooo! This is a blast!

Had my second lesson this morning. It went great. Like I mentioned yesterday the weather is perfect, clear sky, only a slight southern wind and temperature in the mid 50s (Fahrenheit). I was the first lesson of the day and got there just before sunrise. C had me go out and start the preflight. I was a little nervous doing this the first time alone and I probably checked everything three times. I had to call the fuel company to get a truck sent over. C came out about the time the truck showed up and followed me while I finished the check. I noticed that he also checked some things like the fuel and oil.

We tugged the plane out onto the line, got in and I ran through the startup checklist. Note to self ... gotta remember throttle in = more power, throttle out = less power. I keep pushing it in when I mean to pull it out.

Starting with the taxi C had me do everything from then on. He only took over control when we were on short final to land. Today was a repeat of what I learned yesterday except this time C would call out and altitude and then I had to ascend or descend and trim out the plane to straight and level. We did a couple of those, then he threw some ascending and descending turns in there. We also pretended like he was ATC and was giving me vectors to fly, so I had to repeat his commands to him with our callsign. We also did slow flight and a go-around at 3000'. Man, during the go-around you really have to put some muscle into it to keep the nose of the plane up ... at least, until I could trim some of that out.

It was surprising to me just how much noise full flaps produce. C mentioned that when I start practicing landings I'll be restricted to just 10-degrees of flaps.

We basically just flew around the practice area so that I could get a feel for the boundaries.

I know I'm getting a better feel for how the plane responds to the controls. I had less of a problem getting to and holding an altitude or a heading, but I had to think real hard to perform the steps in the right order, or not skip something. I know that'll get easier with practice.

I need to get my own headset now. So far they've loaned me different headsets and they've all been OK until today. The cheapy pair I wore really pinched my head and by the end of the flight it was a huge relief to take them off. I'm sold on getting an ANR set but now I gotta shop for the lowest price. Comfort-wise I really like the David Clarks and the Flightcom Denali. I have a Sporty's rebate on the Telex Stratus 50-D model but when I tried them on at Monarch I didn't like the feel at all. The holes in the padding for your ears is too small so the padding actually sits on my ears. I'd have to fold my ears to fit them inside the padding. Ick!

The hardest part about the lessons so far is that now I have to wait five whole days before my next lesson!!! At least I've got MS Flight Simulator to sorta fill the gap.

My First Lesson

I now have 1 hour in my logbook.

It's been over two hours since I returned from the airport and I'm still grinning ear to ear. My instructor, I'll call him C, and I went through a detailed preflight of Cessna 172S N2160Q. This went pretty much as I expected and he said that I would be responsible for this from now on. He didn't introduce me to any of the mechanics but he told me they are all approachable and that I shouldn't hesitate to ask him or them questions if I found anything during a preflight.

60Q was manufactured in 2003 so it's in pretty good shape with 879 hours on the hobbs.

We followed two other Monarch planes up and to the practice area north of Dallas. Of course, C had me taxi the plane part of the way and then handed over control on the runway so I could perform the takeoff. This time it didn't seem as much of a blur as during my last discovery flight. We departed runway 15 (no flaps) with a slight wind coming from 160-degrees. I did raise the nose a bit too much at one point but quickly brought it back down. At 500 feet AGL we made a moderate 90-degree turn to the left and then leveled off at 2000' MSL. We turned left again to follow Preston Road (a six-lane thoroughfare) north out of Dallas.

C showed me and then had me practice straight and level flight, turns, ascents and descents. And he also gave me pointers on how to scan for traffic and how to visualize straight and level. A couple of times we did ascents and then he'd cover the altimeter and attitude indicator and have me put the plane in straight and level flight. I did ok, though I usually ended up slightly nose down.

Then we returned to Addison just in time for a georgeous sunset. Not that it was better than any other sunset, just that it seemed more beautiful seeing it from 2500'.

Highlights:

- A FedEx DC-10 crossed our path about 2000' above us. I guess he was headed to DFW.
- During the runup the left magneto was running really rough so we ran up the engine to 2200 RPM and pulled the mixture out to heat up the cylinder for about a minute. That did the trick, C said that the last person to fly probably never took the mixture out of full rich and so a lot of carbon had built up.
- Takeoff ... what a rush!
- C said I did a good job and he was impressed that I got a grasp on trimming so quickly. He said some students take until the third or fourth lesson to get the hang of it.

Next lesson, tomorrow morning at 7 am local time.