Stage check flight
Lesson 27 - Stage check
Stage check time. In the Cessna curriculum this check is over cross-country flight planning, weather info, cockpit management and then various x-country flying tasks ... course interception, vor navigation, pilotage, estimating groundspeed, diversions, lost procedures, emergency operations, etc.
My instructor, C, told me to prepare a flight plan from Addison to Bowie (0F2) and calculate takeoff and landing distances as well as aircraft weight and balance. I met one of the chief instructors, S, at 7 this morning for an hour of ground school ... we would go over my flight plan.
I fully expected that we wouldn't be able to fly today. The forecast last night called for gusty winds most of the day, 21 knots gusting to 28, if I recall correctly. And sure enough when I drove to Monarch this morning it was already getting windy though not nearly as bad as forecast.
S and I grabbed a table upstairs in the planning room and started going through my flight plan. Bowie is Northwest of Addison and I could almost draw a straight direct-to course from one to the other but it would cut through a Class B corner where the floor is 2000'. Plus a direct course would take us through Denton's Class D airspace.
Saturday morning being a busy time I decided to avoid the Class D and so I planned to head North out of Addison until I intersected the 285-degree radial from the UKW VOR. This VOR sits about four miles from Bowie. My plan followed that radial almost all the way in, but at my last checkpoint I veer off and head direct to the airport.
S had a few comments about the route. Mainly my choice of checkpoints could have been better. I picked a point on my route where the town of Sanger would be right off my right wingtip. A better point would have been a mile back where my course crossed the interstate highway. And then between that checkpoint and my next one there was a another road crossing that I could have used.
Also, he wants me to use the top of climb point as a line item on my plan. C and I had discussed this when he first introduced me to flight planning. He told me that it was really a personal preference thing .. you could make top-of-climb and top-of-descent checkpoints on your plan or you could integrate the climb and descent into your checkpoints. I chose the latter method.
However, S, suggested that I use the former method as it can be more accurate. Mainly that is because I was using the "Time, Fuel and Distance to Climb" chart figures for the full climb. That chart is based on making a Vy speed climb (best rate of climb speed). And in reality you don't do Vy all the way up to your cruising altitude. You generally climb at Vy until you reach pattern altitude and then you transition into a cruise climb until you reach your cruising altitude. This gives you better visibility over the nose and it increases airflow into the engine.
That makes a lot of sense to me so from now on I will use that "Time, Fuel and Distance to Climb" chart to compute the liftoff to pattern altitude climb and then interpolate from the "Cruise Performance" chart to get the numbers for a cruise climb.
Also, I was computing the aircraft's fuel endurance (for the FAA flight Plan) using total fuel and my cruise fuel burn. But what I actually should be doing is using the "Endurance Profile" chart in the POH because it takes into account the reserve amount, and the fuel used for engine start, taxi, takeoff and climb. During the takeoff and climb especially you are going to use more fuel than the cruise fuel burn.
This kind of feedback is fantastic. I'm looking forward to working on my next flight plan ... which is coming up soon because I'm on the schedule for this Thursday!
Other than those things my planning looked good. We spent the rest of the hour with S asking me questions about the airport I was going to and airports along the route and other things about the flight. He was looking to see that I know how to use the Airport/Facility Directory and that I can read the sectional chart correctly. He also watched while I calculated the takeoff and landing distances for Addison and Bowie. I would have done them before I got there but the METAR for Addison hadn't come out by the time I left the house so there was no time.
After all that, S had me check the weather again and though it was windy out conditions weren't matching the forecast so we decided to go ahead and fly. I went out to preflight the Skyhawk. S told me to expect to time our flight between two checkpoints and calculate our ground speed and then predict our time to the next checkpoint.
The aircraft checked out (except the landing light was out so we labeled it "inop" above the switch) so we hopped in and I started up the engine, radios, etc. The right side of my headset wasn't working. We tried his headset and both speakers worked but the mic was intermittent when we wiggled the plug so hopefully it's not my headset. Since I could hear well out of the left speaker and my mic worked we decided it was OK.
After setting the radios and getting the latest ATIS report we taxied to runway 15. It was pretty quiet this morning, looks like the gusty forecast is keeping a lot of people grounded.
The crosswind take off went really well. S complimented me on it! We were cleared for a right turnout as soon as we hit 2000' it became quiet obvious that the gusty winds were there, just not at the surface yet. We had quiet a crab going as we headed North-Northwest.
We used the timer function built into the NAV radio to time ourselves from the VOR interception until we got to the interstate south of Sanger. It took us 7 minutes to cover 10nm so our groundspeed worked out to 85.7 knots. I told him that we should cross our next checkpoint in 8 minutes. Then I proceeded to keep flying off-course to the left! We actually made our next checkpoint almost 2 minutes late which he attributed to me not staying on course.
Then S told me to divert to Decatur (which was to the South). I noted the time and our position on my sectional. I picked a rough heading which would take us to Decatur and then measured the distance and figured our heading and groundspeed using the E6B and our ETA. Then I pointed out that according to the sectional the nice big very prominant road underneath us would take us right to the airport so I asked it I could just follow that. "Sure, that's fine". So that's what I did. I noticed along the way that our heading was off what I had computed. It seems like some of that stronger wind was starting to arrive and we were having to crab even more.
At Decatur we overflew the field and S asked me to determine which runway I wanted to land on and do an approach (Decatur is uncontrolled). I knew that Decatur had one runway running 17-35 so considering what the wind was doing we needed to land on runway 17. So I turned around and began a teardrop descent to intercept the 45-degree entry to the downwind. S was nice enough to manage the radios for me while I did the approach checklist and fought the wind. We entered the downwind (which was really short because of the wind), turned base and then final. We had a huge crab coming into 17 and I was getting behind the airplane. I mis-judged how much I need to crab into the wind and so it wasn't till I was on short final that I got aligned with the centerline. Just as I as about to change the crab into a slipping approach S called for a go-around.
He chided me on not getting stabalized in the approach early enough, but on the other hand he said I handled the go-around very well.
At this point I think I was starting to get a little overloaded. He started throwing various emergency scenarios at me and I wasn't coming up with the procedures quickly enough. I was a little unhinged by that approach into Decatur and how strong the wind was. But we did do an engine out simulation and I was able to pick my field and circle it while I went through the checklist items. We would have made my field but we tried to get to another field just to see if the strong wind would help us along ... no joy, wouldn't have made it. The original field I picked would have been best.
Now, S handed me the foggles and asked me to intercept and track a radial to the Bonham VOR. I looked up the frequency on my sectional and tuned it in and listened for the ident. It was extremely faint (plus I only had one ear working). After listening intently for a while S said that he could hear it and it was correct. But truthfully, I never heard it. I rotated the OBS until I determined which radial we were on and then S gave me another radial to intercept and track inbound. Easy enough.
While flying along S asked me about the lost procedures. The five C's ... climb, circle, conserve, communicate and comply. We talked about how to do all of that and then he took the controls and had me lower my head and close my eyes. When I regained the controls and the foggles came off I climbed us back up to 3500' and started circling to have a look around. We were already at 95 kias so I didn't change the power setting.
As we swung around to the South a lake appeared. Oh this is too easy ... in front of us was a town sitting between two arms of the lake. A prominent road ran North-South through the town and over the water. To our left was an extremely tall radio tower and beyond the lake (to the South) I could just make out another lake. I told S, well before I communicate with ATC I would try to use the available landmarks to identify my position. And that town, the lake arms, the tower and the other lake in the distance tell me that we're at the top end of the practice area over the town of Tioga. Bingo!
"Take me to Addison", he says. "By the way what heading should we fly?"
I look down at the HSI and since we were already pointed at Addison I said, "Well, we'll fly down along the shore here and that is pretty much a heading of 150." And I pointed at the heading we were currently flying.
"Which heading?" he says.
At that point I realized something was up. Glancing at the compass I realized that the HSI was not aligned. So I was just reading the numbers and not really thinking about what they meant, what they were telling me. And I was not taking into account that the HSI could fail. I was just assuming that it was telling me the truth. Doh! That's bad.
However, I was navigating based on what I saw outside the window and I was oriented correctly and headed in the right direction, so that is good.
I went ahead and dropped down to 2500' and listened to Addison's ATIS before calling up regional approach. Unlike during my solo cross country there was very little chatter on the radio. Regional responded immediately to my call up and cleared us for a straight in approach to runway 15.
It was starting to get a little gusty on the way back and the strong wind had started to descend so we had quite a healthy crab going all the way down to final. I didn't do a very good job of managing the descent and we landed long but not long enough for a go-around. The landing itself was aligned properly and I had the controls set for the cross-wind but I was a few feet off the centerline. C and I need to do some cross-wind practice!
All in all S was happy with my performance and my planning. He did give me a list of things to focus on going forward ...
- checklist use (actually I was doing them in my head but I wasn't always verbalizing it to him)
- coordination, keep the ball centered
- emergency procedures
- always be mindful of what direction the wind is coming from
- keep my head up and looking outside (especially during the calculations I was keeping my head down too long)
- work on energy management on final, if not down by the end of the touchdown zone do a go-around
This is great. There's always room for improvement and I definitely have things I can improve. But I'm also keeping pace with the curriculum and in general my handling of the aircraft is good. Now I'm really jazzed about the long cross-country. Also, though this Skyhawk has an autopilot I never turned it on. And also it has no multi-function display. The GPS has one of those little tiny screens which makes it easy to ignore ... and it has two OBS displays. So I'm going to fly it on my long cross-country. No gps (or autopilot), just pilotage and some vor tracking.
This flight: 1.9 hours
Total: 45.8 hours
Stage check time. In the Cessna curriculum this check is over cross-country flight planning, weather info, cockpit management and then various x-country flying tasks ... course interception, vor navigation, pilotage, estimating groundspeed, diversions, lost procedures, emergency operations, etc.
My instructor, C, told me to prepare a flight plan from Addison to Bowie (0F2) and calculate takeoff and landing distances as well as aircraft weight and balance. I met one of the chief instructors, S, at 7 this morning for an hour of ground school ... we would go over my flight plan.
I fully expected that we wouldn't be able to fly today. The forecast last night called for gusty winds most of the day, 21 knots gusting to 28, if I recall correctly. And sure enough when I drove to Monarch this morning it was already getting windy though not nearly as bad as forecast.
S and I grabbed a table upstairs in the planning room and started going through my flight plan. Bowie is Northwest of Addison and I could almost draw a straight direct-to course from one to the other but it would cut through a Class B corner where the floor is 2000'. Plus a direct course would take us through Denton's Class D airspace.
Saturday morning being a busy time I decided to avoid the Class D and so I planned to head North out of Addison until I intersected the 285-degree radial from the UKW VOR. This VOR sits about four miles from Bowie. My plan followed that radial almost all the way in, but at my last checkpoint I veer off and head direct to the airport.
S had a few comments about the route. Mainly my choice of checkpoints could have been better. I picked a point on my route where the town of Sanger would be right off my right wingtip. A better point would have been a mile back where my course crossed the interstate highway. And then between that checkpoint and my next one there was a another road crossing that I could have used.
Also, he wants me to use the top of climb point as a line item on my plan. C and I had discussed this when he first introduced me to flight planning. He told me that it was really a personal preference thing .. you could make top-of-climb and top-of-descent checkpoints on your plan or you could integrate the climb and descent into your checkpoints. I chose the latter method.
However, S, suggested that I use the former method as it can be more accurate. Mainly that is because I was using the "Time, Fuel and Distance to Climb" chart figures for the full climb. That chart is based on making a Vy speed climb (best rate of climb speed). And in reality you don't do Vy all the way up to your cruising altitude. You generally climb at Vy until you reach pattern altitude and then you transition into a cruise climb until you reach your cruising altitude. This gives you better visibility over the nose and it increases airflow into the engine.
That makes a lot of sense to me so from now on I will use that "Time, Fuel and Distance to Climb" chart to compute the liftoff to pattern altitude climb and then interpolate from the "Cruise Performance" chart to get the numbers for a cruise climb.
Also, I was computing the aircraft's fuel endurance (for the FAA flight Plan) using total fuel and my cruise fuel burn. But what I actually should be doing is using the "Endurance Profile" chart in the POH because it takes into account the reserve amount, and the fuel used for engine start, taxi, takeoff and climb. During the takeoff and climb especially you are going to use more fuel than the cruise fuel burn.
This kind of feedback is fantastic. I'm looking forward to working on my next flight plan ... which is coming up soon because I'm on the schedule for this Thursday!
Other than those things my planning looked good. We spent the rest of the hour with S asking me questions about the airport I was going to and airports along the route and other things about the flight. He was looking to see that I know how to use the Airport/Facility Directory and that I can read the sectional chart correctly. He also watched while I calculated the takeoff and landing distances for Addison and Bowie. I would have done them before I got there but the METAR for Addison hadn't come out by the time I left the house so there was no time.
After all that, S had me check the weather again and though it was windy out conditions weren't matching the forecast so we decided to go ahead and fly. I went out to preflight the Skyhawk. S told me to expect to time our flight between two checkpoints and calculate our ground speed and then predict our time to the next checkpoint.
The aircraft checked out (except the landing light was out so we labeled it "inop" above the switch) so we hopped in and I started up the engine, radios, etc. The right side of my headset wasn't working. We tried his headset and both speakers worked but the mic was intermittent when we wiggled the plug so hopefully it's not my headset. Since I could hear well out of the left speaker and my mic worked we decided it was OK.
After setting the radios and getting the latest ATIS report we taxied to runway 15. It was pretty quiet this morning, looks like the gusty forecast is keeping a lot of people grounded.
The crosswind take off went really well. S complimented me on it! We were cleared for a right turnout as soon as we hit 2000' it became quiet obvious that the gusty winds were there, just not at the surface yet. We had quiet a crab going as we headed North-Northwest.
We used the timer function built into the NAV radio to time ourselves from the VOR interception until we got to the interstate south of Sanger. It took us 7 minutes to cover 10nm so our groundspeed worked out to 85.7 knots. I told him that we should cross our next checkpoint in 8 minutes. Then I proceeded to keep flying off-course to the left! We actually made our next checkpoint almost 2 minutes late which he attributed to me not staying on course.
Then S told me to divert to Decatur (which was to the South). I noted the time and our position on my sectional. I picked a rough heading which would take us to Decatur and then measured the distance and figured our heading and groundspeed using the E6B and our ETA. Then I pointed out that according to the sectional the nice big very prominant road underneath us would take us right to the airport so I asked it I could just follow that. "Sure, that's fine". So that's what I did. I noticed along the way that our heading was off what I had computed. It seems like some of that stronger wind was starting to arrive and we were having to crab even more.
At Decatur we overflew the field and S asked me to determine which runway I wanted to land on and do an approach (Decatur is uncontrolled). I knew that Decatur had one runway running 17-35 so considering what the wind was doing we needed to land on runway 17. So I turned around and began a teardrop descent to intercept the 45-degree entry to the downwind. S was nice enough to manage the radios for me while I did the approach checklist and fought the wind. We entered the downwind (which was really short because of the wind), turned base and then final. We had a huge crab coming into 17 and I was getting behind the airplane. I mis-judged how much I need to crab into the wind and so it wasn't till I was on short final that I got aligned with the centerline. Just as I as about to change the crab into a slipping approach S called for a go-around.
He chided me on not getting stabalized in the approach early enough, but on the other hand he said I handled the go-around very well.
At this point I think I was starting to get a little overloaded. He started throwing various emergency scenarios at me and I wasn't coming up with the procedures quickly enough. I was a little unhinged by that approach into Decatur and how strong the wind was. But we did do an engine out simulation and I was able to pick my field and circle it while I went through the checklist items. We would have made my field but we tried to get to another field just to see if the strong wind would help us along ... no joy, wouldn't have made it. The original field I picked would have been best.
Now, S handed me the foggles and asked me to intercept and track a radial to the Bonham VOR. I looked up the frequency on my sectional and tuned it in and listened for the ident. It was extremely faint (plus I only had one ear working). After listening intently for a while S said that he could hear it and it was correct. But truthfully, I never heard it. I rotated the OBS until I determined which radial we were on and then S gave me another radial to intercept and track inbound. Easy enough.
While flying along S asked me about the lost procedures. The five C's ... climb, circle, conserve, communicate and comply. We talked about how to do all of that and then he took the controls and had me lower my head and close my eyes. When I regained the controls and the foggles came off I climbed us back up to 3500' and started circling to have a look around. We were already at 95 kias so I didn't change the power setting.
As we swung around to the South a lake appeared. Oh this is too easy ... in front of us was a town sitting between two arms of the lake. A prominent road ran North-South through the town and over the water. To our left was an extremely tall radio tower and beyond the lake (to the South) I could just make out another lake. I told S, well before I communicate with ATC I would try to use the available landmarks to identify my position. And that town, the lake arms, the tower and the other lake in the distance tell me that we're at the top end of the practice area over the town of Tioga. Bingo!
"Take me to Addison", he says. "By the way what heading should we fly?"
I look down at the HSI and since we were already pointed at Addison I said, "Well, we'll fly down along the shore here and that is pretty much a heading of 150." And I pointed at the heading we were currently flying.
"Which heading?" he says.
At that point I realized something was up. Glancing at the compass I realized that the HSI was not aligned. So I was just reading the numbers and not really thinking about what they meant, what they were telling me. And I was not taking into account that the HSI could fail. I was just assuming that it was telling me the truth. Doh! That's bad.
However, I was navigating based on what I saw outside the window and I was oriented correctly and headed in the right direction, so that is good.
I went ahead and dropped down to 2500' and listened to Addison's ATIS before calling up regional approach. Unlike during my solo cross country there was very little chatter on the radio. Regional responded immediately to my call up and cleared us for a straight in approach to runway 15.
It was starting to get a little gusty on the way back and the strong wind had started to descend so we had quite a healthy crab going all the way down to final. I didn't do a very good job of managing the descent and we landed long but not long enough for a go-around. The landing itself was aligned properly and I had the controls set for the cross-wind but I was a few feet off the centerline. C and I need to do some cross-wind practice!
All in all S was happy with my performance and my planning. He did give me a list of things to focus on going forward ...
- checklist use (actually I was doing them in my head but I wasn't always verbalizing it to him)
- coordination, keep the ball centered
- emergency procedures
- always be mindful of what direction the wind is coming from
- keep my head up and looking outside (especially during the calculations I was keeping my head down too long)
- work on energy management on final, if not down by the end of the touchdown zone do a go-around
This is great. There's always room for improvement and I definitely have things I can improve. But I'm also keeping pace with the curriculum and in general my handling of the aircraft is good. Now I'm really jazzed about the long cross-country. Also, though this Skyhawk has an autopilot I never turned it on. And also it has no multi-function display. The GPS has one of those little tiny screens which makes it easy to ignore ... and it has two OBS displays. So I'm going to fly it on my long cross-country. No gps (or autopilot), just pilotage and some vor tracking.
This flight: 1.9 hours
Total: 45.8 hours
posted by AirmanChet at
22:32
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