Dan’s Pilot Times

This past Thursday (July 3rd) was my Dad’s birthday.  Rather than get him another shirt, tie, or tool he’ll never use, I decided to take him for a flight – the last time he was in a small aircraft was over 30 years ago!  I had to get more simulated instrument time in anyway, so it helped make for a nice smooth flight for my father.  Although I would be flying with my instructor in the right seat (obviously, I don’t have my license yet), my Dad said he had great views from the back seat.  Actually, this was my first time piloting a C-172 as well (which I wanted to get a few hours logged before I finished my training).  So, all-in-all, this was the perfect opportunity to take my Dad up.

The flight went very smoothly.  I was a bit more nervous than usual since I’ve never taken anyone flying besides me or my instructor…but the plane and the weather cooperated.  The sky was beautiful (see some pictures), and we even got to fly over my house.  I could feel that the 172 had more power, especially during takeoff.  The added weight and power helped smooth things out a bit as well during cruise.  However, during my final pattern work at the end of the lesson, I could feel that the heavier plane reacts a bit more sluggishly – nothing big, but definitely noticeable.  It took me 1 landing to get used to it, but by the 2nd (and last) landing of the day, I felt comfortable flying the 172′s the Westosha flying club owns.  I’ll still be mostly piloting the 152 (no need to pay extra for empty seats) for the rest of my training, though.  But, I can’t wait to take my Dad back up just me and him!

I was super proud to have flown well for my Dad, and really glad he had a great time.  Happy Birthday!  This lesson I logged 1.0 hours of total flight time, 0.7 hours of simluated instrument.

Yesterday I had my first taste of flying at night.  It was the coolest/freakiest flying I’ve done so far!  My CFI and I started the flight around dusk so I could also get in some more “hood time” and practice IFR flight in case I ever got stuck in the clouds (plus there’s that 3 hour simulated instrument requirement too).  After taking off from Westosha, I slapped on the visor and proceeded to putz around by the instruments for half and hour.  By that time, it was night and my CFI had me approaching Galt Airport (10C) in Wonder Lake, Illinois.  Re-adjusting after hood time takes me a little time to catch my bearings again, but now that I had to reorder myself at night was especially challenging.  I was surprised at how close everything seems at night, the lake (Lake Michigan) seemed only a few miles away (when in actuality it was more like 30).  My CFI said to run the landings “cookbook style” and I hit my usual checkpoints for power, pitch, and flaps for the base leg and final.  The runway snuck up on me pretty quick right at the end, but I was able to flare enough to make actually a quite soft landing.

We worked the pattern at Galt 7 more times before heading back to Westosha.  Westosha is replacing it’s runway lights later this summer, and thank God for that!  Apparently some of the underground wiring is faulty and only 3 of the 14 runway works were operational.  Needless-to-say, it was crazy fun/hard to land really only seeing the 30 feet in front of my landing lights.  I managed though and got in 8 total landings at night.  I’ll finish the last 2 required landings during my dual night cross country soon.

Flying at night was definitely an experience, something very beautiful and peaceful about the whole thing.  I can’t wait for the cross country!  This lesson I logged 1.6 hours of total flight time, 0.5 with simulated instrument flight.

Yesterday I successfully completed my first solo cross country flight.  I decided to head into Illinois since I actually haven’t flown in my home state yet.  My plan took me from Westosha (5K6) to Poplar Grove (C77), up to Beloit (44C), over to my farthest point, Monroe (EFT), then back through Janesville (JVL) before arriving at Westosha to complete my journey.  The cross country took me 136 nautical miles around northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.  I couldn’t have asked for a more gorgeous day, the weather was just picture perfect.

I’m happy to report I hit all my checkpoints right on time – my plan and the weather/wind reports were very accurate.  Here’s a link to the flightplan I created – you can see I also have a page with all the VOR and radio frequencies so I could find everything quickly and easily.  I also scanned my sectional and printed out the appropriate sections for ease of use during my flight.  (I still keep the whole map with me just in case, though).  I must admit, though, that flying in Illinois a bit west is a lot more challenging than around Westosha because there aren’t as many big lakes (a luxury of Wisconsin) to quickly navigate off of.  I managed, though, obviously!

While at Janesville I asked the tower to do 3 more full-stop landings, for more practice for me to work at a towered field (plus it’s a requirement for my license).  Those landings went great, and the tower guys over there were very accommodating.  Overall, my landings were very smooth (the weather was cooperating) and I had a great time!  You can see a pic I was able to snap with my cellphone coming back from Janesville.

I logged 2.4 hours of cross country solo flight time.  Next time out I’ll try to knock out the longer 150 nm+ cross country requirement and/or start working on night flying.

I had my first cross country (with instructor) yesterday and it was a BLAST!  My plan had us doing a large loop to the north and west of Westosha – hitting Dodge County (UNU), Madison (MSN), Janesville (JVL), and back to Westosha (5K6).  Being a computer-guy, I used a lot of the free online and offline software tools available to help me plan my flight with ease.  My favorites are SkyVector.com and CSC DUATS Golden Eagle flight prep software.  They are both free and you get most of the hard calculations of flight planning out the way.  Furthermore, the Golden Eagle software pulls the weather and winds aloft from DUATS, so it’ll calculate EVERYTHING for you if you want.  This being my first cross-country, though, and since I’d have my CFI double-checking everything, I went the old-fashioned route and did the calculations by hand (trusty E6B) and then put everything in an Excel spreadsheet so I could keep all the pertinent information handy and printed neatly.

The flight itself went very smooth.  The weather looked threatening, but my weather briefer said nothing should really be an issue…and he was right.  The long leg (59.0 nm) to Dodge County was a little cloudy along the way for the first half, so we kept a little lower than anticipated (2500 ft.)  Other than that, though, the afternoon was gorgeous!  I was hitting all my checkpoints +/- 40 seconds of my calculations, which I was very happy with.  The landing at Dodge County went perfect, I probably could have went touch-and-go, but I felt I had to full stop just to say I really was somewhere for more than 30 seconds.  I should mention that my plane doesn’t have any GPS or LORAN navigation systems, just VOR radios.  So, my pilotage was dead reckoning and VOR tracking (the good ‘ole stuff)!

After Dodge, we headed over to Madison (MSN).  I was very excited about this leg because this was the first “big” airport I would be flying into.  I’d get to really test my radio skills and well, I think it’s just cool to land at the same airport United jets fly into!  Sure enough, approaching along the same time with me was a Skywest jet.  It felt very cool to be sharing the air and radiowaves with the big boys (even though honestly I hate flying as a passenger on those commuter jets).  Apparently our controller was in training as well, since during a few calls he had to repeat himself and even his instructor clarified a direction from him.  My CFI thought it was hilarious. 

After Madison we headed over to Janesville for another towered approach (which I wanted more experience with).  That went very smoothly again and before I knew it I was touching-and-going and back to Westosha.  The last leg to Westosha was quick and back under the overcast sky, almost a little depressing.  But, upon landing, I knew I had really GONE to places!  Plus, this was really the first flight where I got to enjoy flying the plane and navigating, less worrying about time critical manuevers and such….it was liberating and like I said before, a BLAST!

This flight I logged 2.4 hours of dual cross-country flight.  My next flight will probably be my first solo cross-country…where to go, where to go!?

Based on my work schedule, we decided to have a normal lesson before my first true cross-country, which will be tomorrow. The only thing we really haven’t worked long on is short and soft field landings, so we practiced those.

The wind at Westosha was a moderate head-wind, so it definitely helped make my short landings VERY short!  Even at Westosha I was able to make my landings fit in the first 25% of the runway (at a very short runway to begin with).  Actually, before this lesson I always had a tendency to come in fast for my landings, so this really helped me dial in a lower approach speed and still stay comfortable.  Plus, not having to worry about making it too soft took a lot of the pressure off.  Just plunk the plane down and stop it…not that difficult!

After shorts, we dialed in softs.  Having took off a few times from the grass strip at Westosha, I did have some experience with the necessary techniques.  I find it fun to keep the plane moving and go straight from taxi to takeoff in one fell swoop (feels like what the airlines do frequently).  I’m still trying to perfect my flare, as I’m not as consistently soft as I would like to be, but my CFI says my softs would pass the checkride just fine….I guess that’s good news.  The last landing of the night, though, I nailed and it was pillow soft!

This lesson I logged 0.9 hours of flight time and 8 landings.

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to fly what I’ll call a mini cross country flight. My CFI and I didn’t have enough time to plan and fly a full cross country flight (greater than 50 nm away), but we didn’t want to waste the gorgeous weather. So, we decided to do a 5-leg circle around some of the local airports to give me a flavor of the techniques and skills necessary for a true cross-country flight. Our plan was to depart Westosha and head over to Racine, then East Troy, Lake Lawn, Grand Geneva, and back to Westosha. All in all, it would be over 80 nm round trip.

The trip was a lot of fun, and was really my first flight where I got to navigate to places other than Burlington (which is very close to Westosha). There was a fair amount of wind that day (as Todd even notes in his blog)…so the landings were very challening since all these airports didn’t have many choices that avoided some sort of crosswind. I was quite satisfied, though, that every landing was very smooth (even with the crosswinds). We used general visual navigation and dead reckoning techniques and didn’t need to utilize VOR radials for such short flights. We’ll utilize that sort of navigation on my next true cross country which should hopefully be next weekend.

I’m off to various parts of the country for work this week and although I’ll be in planes a lot, I won’t have the opportunity to pilot (unless United and the FAA change their rules). I can’t wait until next week!

This lesson I logged 1.7 hours.

Today (May 22nd, 2008) was the big day! I SOLOED! The weather held up nicely and the skies were beautifully clear … I had a good feeling on my drive to the airport. I got to Westosha for my lesson and my CFI told me to pre-flight, start the plane up, and taxi it to the clubhouse by myself. I did all that, picked him up, and we ran the pattern at Westosha a few times. Everything wet swimmingly – the winds were at a slight crosswind for Westosha, but my landings were right on the mark. My CFI then said to head over to Burlington (BUU) to try some landings over there. After a short 10-minute jaunt I was on final for Runway 11 at BUU, with a perfect slight headwind. The landing was incredibly easy (as BUU’s strip is almost double the width of Westosha) and my CFI told me to taxi over to a hangar were he proceeded to get out and asked me a final “you ready for this?” I of course said yes and he told me to run the pattern a few times … by myself!

I taxied to the end of Runway 11 and called out my first solo radio announcement: “Burlington Traffic, Cessna 920, Departing Runway 11, Remaining in the Pattern, Burlington” and was off. Full throttle and I was kickin’ down the runway, accelerating faster than ever before. The plane felt like it leaped off the ground without the added weight of my CFI. I was soon in the air realizing, holy crap, this is all me! I was 10000% responsible for getting me on the ground. It was incredibly exhilarating and scary at the same time.

There was another plane around the airport that was taxiing towards the runway as I was making my way around the pattern. I was turning final and had made all my proper radio calls, yet he still took the runway in front of me and proceeded to takeoff. In retrospect there was plenty of room to land after him, but I wanted to give myself tons of space so I executed a go-around on my first pass…no biggie, but I was a little disappointed and spooked. However, I worked the pattern a 2nd time and was again lined up for final. My glide was perfect and my first solo touchdown was very smooth…I was elated! I did it, I officially became a pilot at that moment!

Although I had plenty of room to touch-and-go, I went full stop and taxied back around and ran the pattern again. All in all, I did three takeoffs and landings solo, a full 30 minutes worth of flying. I picked up my CFI and he said the landings looked great and I handled the traffic just fine. We headed back to Westosha and I finished the day with a nice moderate crosswind landing.

I fueled up the plane and my CFI came out and cut the my shirt tail off my back (the tradition for first solos). You can see a picture of what’s left of my shirt here. I don’t think I’ve been more proud of a destroyed item of clothing before!

I can’t wait for my next solo flight! This lesson I logged 0.9 hours and 5 landings dual, 0.5 hours and 3 landings SOLO, baby!

So my last lesson (this past Saturday) probably should have been the day I go solo for the first time, but it was very windy and directly across the runway at Westosha (thanks a lot, Chicago weather). So, we worked on crosswind landings yet again. I’m happy to report I had some of my best landings to date this day, even when conditions were extremely challenging. Also, the crosswinds afforded us the opportunity to practice various landing types I’ve done only sparsely in the past: no flaps, little flaps, and shortened runway.

All-in-all, the lesson wasn’t very eventful and I’m very much looking forward to a non-windy day at Westosha so I can finally solo. Hopefully it’ll be tomorrow!

This lesson I logged 1.5 hours of flight time and 10 landings.

As part of my pre-solo check flight last time flying, that CFI recommended I only need to work on crosswind landings before going solo.  So, that’s what I worked on this past lesson…for over two hours!  Luckily there was a fairly decent crosswind of about 10 knots or so, directly across the runway.  As such, we had the option most of the time to takeoff and land from either direction, which made for an efficient use of time!  All-in-all, the lesson wasn’t terribly interesting as we literally just stayed in the pattern and worked on landings and takeoffs over and over.  Some were better than others, some were pretty ugly, but ultimately by the end I had a much improved grasp on this complicated maneuver.  I still wouldn’t want to tackle heavy crosswinds all by myself, but that’s what practice is for.  I also now finally get (and can verbalize properly) how to put the ailerons while on the ground with wind…that got me last time out.

Hopefully next lesson will be the big one…my CFI told me “not to wear my Armani t-shirts”…I figure that’s a good sign.  This lesson I logged 2.3 hours of flight time and 16 landings.

P.S. – While en route to Mexico for my vacation last week I listened to ATC while on my United flight.  It was funny and interesting to hear air traffic control in Spanish half the time once we crossed the border.  Our pilot/navigator was definitely having a hard time understanding them sometimes and had to have commands repeated multiple times (in the heavily accented English).  I was expecting the controller to swear in Spanish, but they always kept their cool.

This past lesson I had my “pre-solo check flight” – a requirement of my flying club.  It’s really a stage check for the club to make sure students won’t break the planes and for another CFI to make sure my usual CFI isn’t out of his mind.  I rode with the club president, which was a little intimidating at first, but things went pretty well.

This CFI first had me pre-flight the plane and gave me a small verbal quiz.  He was definitely asking very difficult and obscure questions, to probe how deep my knowledge was and probably to teach me a little.  Some of the stuff I had no idea, but again, he didn’t really expect me to know it either.  We then proceeded to taxi and takeoff.  It was exciting (and a little weird) to taxi and takeoff without ANY words/prompting from the CFI.  Once in the air, he made me show him general flight maneuvers like slow flight, steep turns, and turns around a point.  All went fine.

The CFI promised there would be some type of simulated emergency during our check ride, and sure enough on the way back to the airport he said “you see smoke in the cabin, what do you do?”  Me being me, I over-thought the exercise and starting reciting back some of the emergency procedures from the Cessna manual.  He then asked, “but what first”…of which I started blanking.  He then said “get the damn plane on the ground first…you don’t want to be in the air with a fire…screw the checklist at that point.”  That makes sense I guess!  So, we pulled the throttle, looked for a place to land (which we were over Westosha anyways) and I glided the plane down for a no engine (with simulated fire) emergency landing.  Surprisingly, this landing (without any engine power) went great…I was pretty happy.

We taxied back and took off again, this time with a fairly steady crosswind.  I was spacing a bit on how to hold the ailerons during crosswinds in general (still not coming natural to me) and verbally I called the wind direction wrong.  We remained in the pattern and I landed with the crosswind.  The final approach was a bit rough as I overshot the runway on the base leg (not compensating enough for the crosswind).  I put the plane down okay, though.

The CFI was generally fine with my abilities at this point and recommended just working on crosswind landings a bit more with my usual CFI (which I can’t argue against).  He said I should be solo’ing with just a few more crosswind landings under my belt…exciting stuff!  I’m off to Mexico now for vacation, so you won’t hear from me for a week or so.

This lesson I logged 0.9 hours of flight time.