Lesson 20
My progress check flight last Saturday was postponed due to weather ... clouds that simply will not go away. They've been hanging around for days. Anyway, I rescheduled for today at 1800 local time and until early afternoon it was starting to look like another wash. But then the ceilings started to lift and wind began to pick up. Yeeehaw we're on!
The ATIS report for my flight was: KADS 072247Z 19008KT 13SM FEW070 35/20 A2976.
This flight was with a different senior instructor than the last time, but his initial is also S. Turns out S got his PPL from Monarch and then left for college. After graduation last year he returned to Dallas and went to work at Monarch as a CFI. Now he's one of the senior instructors.
The plan today is to cover as much as we can of ... stalls under the hood, recovery from unusual attitudes under the hood, intercepting and tracking a VOR under the hood, short field takeoffs and landings and soft field takeoffs and landings. A full load.
The curriculum also calls for tracking to an NDB. However, S said that even though the plane I rented had one the majority of Monarch's Skyhawks don't so unless I really wanted to track an NDB we were going to skip that. I told him I had a pretty good grasp on how it worked (and the pitfalls involved) so we agreed to dispense with that part of the lesson.
I preflighted N432SP and we hopped in and taxied out to runway 15. We were first to arrive there but two biz jets showed up while we were doing our runup and the tower asked if we minded letting the Hawker go before us. Suuuuuuure, go ahead. It was cool watching him take off. Then it was our turn. I was a little nervous as 1) this was a prog check and 2) it had been a couple of weeks since I flew. S asked me to do a soft field takeoff at first but there was someone on final to land so once we got on the runway we expidited by doing a regular takeoff.
Turning North and departing Addison at 2000' it wasn't long before S took the controls and handed me the hood. How about you intercept and track the 010-degree radial from Cowboy. Conveniently, he had already tuned it into the Nav radio. So I listened to the morse code and checked my sectional ... it's a match. Then I rotated the OBS on the HSI (oh yeah, this plane has an HSI ... sweet) so that the flag showed from and the arrow pointed to 1. I entered a shallow turn to the left until I was on a 330-degree heading. Then it seemed to take forever before the needle started to move. After a while I started double-checking everything becuase I thought maybe I had missed something. But finally, thankfully, the needle started to move and I entered a shallow right bank until I was on the radial and following it.
Then S gave me some various headings to turn to and had me climb to 3000' ... and then 3500' because I was having trouble holding my altitude down. Besides, it was cooler up there. =;-)
Then he had me tune in the Bonham VOR and figure out which radial I was on from the VOR and then follow it to the VOR. So after identifying Bonham on the radio (hard because a voice kept talking over the morse code) I rotated the OBS until the needle centered and the flag read "from" then I rotated the OBS until the flag read "to" and turned to follow the radial.
S then had me demonstrate a power off stall. "Since you're under the hood you can initiate recovery when you feel the buffet or when you hear the stall horn. You don't have to wait until we're in the full stall." OK, that ought to be pretty easy then. As a matter of fact, it was. Almost a non-event, except that I really had to think hard to remember all the steps to follow. These Skyhawks sure stall a lot easier in summer than they do in winter. After the power off I did a power on and in both I recovered when I heard the horn blowing. On the power on I did get slightly uncoordinated but I fixed it quickly.
Then S asked me if I got queasy easily. Ha! No, not really. Good, we'll do the unusual attitudes now. He took the controls and I closed my eyes and he bounced and twisted us around he had me recover ... we were very nose down and gaining speed fast. The left wing was down so I yanked the power out and leveled the wings and then slowly started pulling the nose up. I think I should have pulled the nose up more aggressively but S seemed happy with it. We did another where we ended up in a climb. These were pretty benign really, next to the faux-aerobatics my regular instructor did when we did this lesson.
S had me pull off the hood and said "take us to Denton for some short and softs." It was really easy to figure out where we were because off our right wing was the 2700' tower at the North end of the practice area. There's nothing else like it out there so it's a great landmark. In front of us was Lake Ray Roberts. The lake looked beautiful today. I just followed the shoreline until we were over the dam and then I called up Denton. The tower asked us to report 3 miles out.
At 3 miles I was slowing and put down 10-degrees of flaps. S asked me to do a soft field landing and then a soft field takeoff. After a trip around the pattern I would do a soft landing and takeoff. So I just kept repeating to myself in my head ... normal landing but just keep the nose wheel up. No one else was in the pattern so I had no pressure from other aircraft. I slowed to 62 kias and full flaps and flared a little too fast. I ballooned a few feet up but I kept the back pressure and added a little power and we came down on the mains. I think we bounced just a little but I easily kept the nose up. Without coming to a full stop, S pulled the laps up to 10-degrees and I pushed in the power while pulling back on the yoke. This time it seemed pretty easy to get the balance right. Before I pulled the nose up too fast and was scared of striking the tail but today it just seemed right. We lifted off pretty quickly and I put the nose down until we accelerated to 62 kias where we started climbing. 75 feet up or so the flaps came in and we accelerated to 74 kias.
Next was the short field landing. When I did this with my regular instructor we didn't really talk about having an obstacle on short final, we mainly worked on touching down on one spot consistently. But S said let's pretend there's a 50' obstacle at the end of the runway. You need to come over it at about 75'. Turning final I was hitting my speeds but I felt like I was too high and I said something about it. But I was already at full flaps so I didn't want to slip. I just pulled the power to idle and put the nose down. Luckily for me the wind was 10 knots so I ended up crossing the end of the runway at just about 75' like S wanted. I was a little faster than I wanted but I kept the nose down anyway ... getting closer .. getting closer ... slowly pull back on the yoke and flare, nose high, mains touch down with a pretty solid thunk. Nose comes down and I'm on the brakes. Wow, that was exactly the way the book describes it. I really surprised myself.
S handled the flaps for me (10-degrees) and I stood on the brakes while I pushed the power in full. Gauges in the green, over 2200 RPM, I come off the brakes and we bolt forward. I have a little left and right wobble as I push on the right rudder a little too strongly. But soon enough I'm pulling back on the yoke and we're climbing right on 57 kias. Up and over our other imaginary obstacle and then I put the nose down and as the speed climbs I pull in the flaps.
Not as good as the landing but not bad either. On the way back S tells me that I did everything very well and that the touch and goes especially were "good flying". Wow! I'm so psyched now. What a boost. Here I was a little down because again the weather was making me wait and I thought I was getting rusty. But no, everything just comes together!
So that's it. I'm cleared to start cross-countries. And it's a great feeling!!!
This lesson: 1.4 hours
landings: 3
Total: 30.9 hours
The ATIS report for my flight was: KADS 072247Z 19008KT 13SM FEW070 35/20 A2976.
This flight was with a different senior instructor than the last time, but his initial is also S. Turns out S got his PPL from Monarch and then left for college. After graduation last year he returned to Dallas and went to work at Monarch as a CFI. Now he's one of the senior instructors.
The plan today is to cover as much as we can of ... stalls under the hood, recovery from unusual attitudes under the hood, intercepting and tracking a VOR under the hood, short field takeoffs and landings and soft field takeoffs and landings. A full load.
The curriculum also calls for tracking to an NDB. However, S said that even though the plane I rented had one the majority of Monarch's Skyhawks don't so unless I really wanted to track an NDB we were going to skip that. I told him I had a pretty good grasp on how it worked (and the pitfalls involved) so we agreed to dispense with that part of the lesson.
I preflighted N432SP and we hopped in and taxied out to runway 15. We were first to arrive there but two biz jets showed up while we were doing our runup and the tower asked if we minded letting the Hawker go before us. Suuuuuuure, go ahead. It was cool watching him take off. Then it was our turn. I was a little nervous as 1) this was a prog check and 2) it had been a couple of weeks since I flew. S asked me to do a soft field takeoff at first but there was someone on final to land so once we got on the runway we expidited by doing a regular takeoff.
Turning North and departing Addison at 2000' it wasn't long before S took the controls and handed me the hood. How about you intercept and track the 010-degree radial from Cowboy. Conveniently, he had already tuned it into the Nav radio. So I listened to the morse code and checked my sectional ... it's a match. Then I rotated the OBS on the HSI (oh yeah, this plane has an HSI ... sweet) so that the flag showed from and the arrow pointed to 1. I entered a shallow turn to the left until I was on a 330-degree heading. Then it seemed to take forever before the needle started to move. After a while I started double-checking everything becuase I thought maybe I had missed something. But finally, thankfully, the needle started to move and I entered a shallow right bank until I was on the radial and following it.
Then S gave me some various headings to turn to and had me climb to 3000' ... and then 3500' because I was having trouble holding my altitude down. Besides, it was cooler up there. =;-)
Then he had me tune in the Bonham VOR and figure out which radial I was on from the VOR and then follow it to the VOR. So after identifying Bonham on the radio (hard because a voice kept talking over the morse code) I rotated the OBS until the needle centered and the flag read "from" then I rotated the OBS until the flag read "to" and turned to follow the radial.
S then had me demonstrate a power off stall. "Since you're under the hood you can initiate recovery when you feel the buffet or when you hear the stall horn. You don't have to wait until we're in the full stall." OK, that ought to be pretty easy then. As a matter of fact, it was. Almost a non-event, except that I really had to think hard to remember all the steps to follow. These Skyhawks sure stall a lot easier in summer than they do in winter. After the power off I did a power on and in both I recovered when I heard the horn blowing. On the power on I did get slightly uncoordinated but I fixed it quickly.
Then S asked me if I got queasy easily. Ha! No, not really. Good, we'll do the unusual attitudes now. He took the controls and I closed my eyes and he bounced and twisted us around he had me recover ... we were very nose down and gaining speed fast. The left wing was down so I yanked the power out and leveled the wings and then slowly started pulling the nose up. I think I should have pulled the nose up more aggressively but S seemed happy with it. We did another where we ended up in a climb. These were pretty benign really, next to the faux-aerobatics my regular instructor did when we did this lesson.
S had me pull off the hood and said "take us to Denton for some short and softs." It was really easy to figure out where we were because off our right wing was the 2700' tower at the North end of the practice area. There's nothing else like it out there so it's a great landmark. In front of us was Lake Ray Roberts. The lake looked beautiful today. I just followed the shoreline until we were over the dam and then I called up Denton. The tower asked us to report 3 miles out.
At 3 miles I was slowing and put down 10-degrees of flaps. S asked me to do a soft field landing and then a soft field takeoff. After a trip around the pattern I would do a soft landing and takeoff. So I just kept repeating to myself in my head ... normal landing but just keep the nose wheel up. No one else was in the pattern so I had no pressure from other aircraft. I slowed to 62 kias and full flaps and flared a little too fast. I ballooned a few feet up but I kept the back pressure and added a little power and we came down on the mains. I think we bounced just a little but I easily kept the nose up. Without coming to a full stop, S pulled the laps up to 10-degrees and I pushed in the power while pulling back on the yoke. This time it seemed pretty easy to get the balance right. Before I pulled the nose up too fast and was scared of striking the tail but today it just seemed right. We lifted off pretty quickly and I put the nose down until we accelerated to 62 kias where we started climbing. 75 feet up or so the flaps came in and we accelerated to 74 kias.
Next was the short field landing. When I did this with my regular instructor we didn't really talk about having an obstacle on short final, we mainly worked on touching down on one spot consistently. But S said let's pretend there's a 50' obstacle at the end of the runway. You need to come over it at about 75'. Turning final I was hitting my speeds but I felt like I was too high and I said something about it. But I was already at full flaps so I didn't want to slip. I just pulled the power to idle and put the nose down. Luckily for me the wind was 10 knots so I ended up crossing the end of the runway at just about 75' like S wanted. I was a little faster than I wanted but I kept the nose down anyway ... getting closer .. getting closer ... slowly pull back on the yoke and flare, nose high, mains touch down with a pretty solid thunk. Nose comes down and I'm on the brakes. Wow, that was exactly the way the book describes it. I really surprised myself.
S handled the flaps for me (10-degrees) and I stood on the brakes while I pushed the power in full. Gauges in the green, over 2200 RPM, I come off the brakes and we bolt forward. I have a little left and right wobble as I push on the right rudder a little too strongly. But soon enough I'm pulling back on the yoke and we're climbing right on 57 kias. Up and over our other imaginary obstacle and then I put the nose down and as the speed climbs I pull in the flaps.
Not as good as the landing but not bad either. On the way back S tells me that I did everything very well and that the touch and goes especially were "good flying". Wow! I'm so psyched now. What a boost. Here I was a little down because again the weather was making me wait and I thought I was getting rusty. But no, everything just comes together!
So that's it. I'm cleared to start cross-countries. And it's a great feeling!!!
This lesson: 1.4 hours
landings: 3
Total: 30.9 hours
posted by AirmanChet at
10:38
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