Solo Practice Flight #3
So my instructor, Y, told me to schedule 3 hours for our next flight so we could do a mock checkride. I did that and later he revised the schedule to book the plane for just 2 hours.
I was a little surprised but figured he had commitments and could only spare two hours. I showed up today and was dispatched the aircraft. By the time I finished the preflight Y was still not there so I called his cell phone. I got voicemail.
I tied up the airplane, locked it and went back inside. The guy behind the counter hadn't heard from Y either so he tried giving him a call. And this time Y answered. Turns out, he meant to cancel the lesson altogether. And he thought he'd called me. So we decided to make the best of it and I would do another solo flight. Fine by me!
The weather, according to the briefer, was marginally unstable. There were thunderstorms popping up south of Dallas and Fort Worth but they were generally falling apart before they got too far north. The clouds were roughly at 5500' and above so we agreed that I could go but I should monitor Addison's ATIS in case things started to go bad.
The takeoff went fine and soon I was following Preston Road north out of Dallas. And it was bumpy! When I reached the practice area and was out from under the Class Bravo airspace I climbed to 3500' thinking I'd escape some of the thermal activity. No!! It seemed worse. Holding my heading wasn't hard, but holding altitude was really tough. I would often find myself in a 500-feet-per-minute climb even though the Skyhawk's pitch hadn't changed.
I started off with some steep turns. Um, let's just say that they were hard ... really hard to get right. I did four sets and by the end I was able to keep my altitude within the limits, but just barely.
After that I decided to descend and try some ground reference maneuvers. I picked out a good spot to do turns-around-a-point. I managed to get two good turns in before giving up. I had no problem picking my four points and maneuvering the Skyhawk over them but again the altitude holding was a problem.
Finally, I'd had enough so I climbed back up to 2500' and turned toward Addison. I was given a course to fly so that I would parallel the runway centerline. This would allow an incoming Challenger Business Jet overtake me and land. I was cleared to follow him. But then I was asked to keep my speed up since there was a King Air turbo-prop coming in behind me. So I kept up my cruise speed almost all the way to the runway and then pulled the throttle to idle in order to slow down, descend and land.
It went great until I actually flared for landing. A gust pushed my left wing up and I got turned a little sideways and didnt' land aligned with the runway. Poor Skyhawk! The abuse those planes have to put up with!
This flight: 1.2 hours
Landings: 1
Total: 58.9 hours
I was a little surprised but figured he had commitments and could only spare two hours. I showed up today and was dispatched the aircraft. By the time I finished the preflight Y was still not there so I called his cell phone. I got voicemail.
I tied up the airplane, locked it and went back inside. The guy behind the counter hadn't heard from Y either so he tried giving him a call. And this time Y answered. Turns out, he meant to cancel the lesson altogether. And he thought he'd called me. So we decided to make the best of it and I would do another solo flight. Fine by me!
The weather, according to the briefer, was marginally unstable. There were thunderstorms popping up south of Dallas and Fort Worth but they were generally falling apart before they got too far north. The clouds were roughly at 5500' and above so we agreed that I could go but I should monitor Addison's ATIS in case things started to go bad.
The takeoff went fine and soon I was following Preston Road north out of Dallas. And it was bumpy! When I reached the practice area and was out from under the Class Bravo airspace I climbed to 3500' thinking I'd escape some of the thermal activity. No!! It seemed worse. Holding my heading wasn't hard, but holding altitude was really tough. I would often find myself in a 500-feet-per-minute climb even though the Skyhawk's pitch hadn't changed.
I started off with some steep turns. Um, let's just say that they were hard ... really hard to get right. I did four sets and by the end I was able to keep my altitude within the limits, but just barely.
After that I decided to descend and try some ground reference maneuvers. I picked out a good spot to do turns-around-a-point. I managed to get two good turns in before giving up. I had no problem picking my four points and maneuvering the Skyhawk over them but again the altitude holding was a problem.
Finally, I'd had enough so I climbed back up to 2500' and turned toward Addison. I was given a course to fly so that I would parallel the runway centerline. This would allow an incoming Challenger Business Jet overtake me and land. I was cleared to follow him. But then I was asked to keep my speed up since there was a King Air turbo-prop coming in behind me. So I kept up my cruise speed almost all the way to the runway and then pulled the throttle to idle in order to slow down, descend and land.
It went great until I actually flared for landing. A gust pushed my left wing up and I got turned a little sideways and didnt' land aligned with the runway. Poor Skyhawk! The abuse those planes have to put up with!
This flight: 1.2 hours
Landings: 1
Total: 58.9 hours
posted by AirmanChet at
19:44
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