Dan’s Pilot Times

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.

This past lesson was my first with simulated instrument flying (IFR), or “flying under the hood” (it’s really just a big visor). I heard and read all about relying 110% on your instruments when in the clouds/fog, but I never fully understood the truth behind that until now. At one point my CFI had me fly straight then close my eyes. Then, I had to perform small turns and “level the plane” by feeling. Upon opening my eyes, I found I was in a fairly steep descending right turn (and had I not had instruments to correct me, I would be a goner). Needless-to-say, it is indeed critical to solely trust your instruments when flying IFR …your body does get disoriented and your feelings become totally unreliable. Anyways, we flew around with me under the hood for 0.6 hours, then we worked our way back to Westosha using VOR navigation techniques. On final approach, my CFI had me flip off the IFR visor and I landed the plane visually (thankfully). Considering I had only about 2 minutes of full sight before landing, I was pretty satisfied with the quality of my touchdown.

Before flying, we actually also worked on my pre-solo written test. It wasn’t that hard as I’ve kept up on my textbook reading and it’s all stuff we’ve covered countless times during the lessons. Now all I need is another CFI to just do a quick “pre-solo check flight” with me (a rule of our flight club). Once that’s complete, my CFI said I’m totally ready to fly solo. Woohoo!

This lesson I logged 0.9 hours of total flight time.

The wind was nuts on Saturday morning. When I woke up for my lesson, I was hearing the wind howling around my house and rattling the siding a ton. As such, I figured we may scrub the flight, but after txt’ing my CFI, his response was “My grandma flies in wind worse than this, and she flies a cub!” Once I saw that, I knew it would be a fun and exciting day.

Open arriving to Westosha, I checked the weather reports and saw we had winds 20 knots gusting to 30. If I was flying solo, I doubt I would have flown in such winds, but my CFI said it would be great practice. The takeoff was quite easy as the wind was mostly straight ahead. We flew over to Kenosha Regional Airport (KENW) which this was my first towered airport experience. It was a little intimidating with the fast-talking controller over the radios and I needed my CFI to “translate” and repeat almost everything he said slowly…but I managed. After approaching, we were “clear for the option on Runway 24.” I repeated back the orders and proceeded to make one of my best landings to date. We did a stop-and-go and went around a handful of times, practicing many different variations of landings: flaps, no-flaps, simulated engine failure, too high, too low. Overall, I was VERY satisfied with the quality of all my landings, and my CFI concurred. I was stoked.

Then, my CFI called the tower again and requested if we could go up and visit. We spend about 20 minutes up in the control tower, which was also a first for me. It was pretty slow that day (because of the wind) so there wasn’t much action up there, but it was neat to see how they work and the tools the controllers have at hand.

On the way back to Westosha, my CFI yanked out the throttle and said “we have engine failure, where you gonna’ land the plane?” I was surprised but calmly looked around and saw we had plenty of good farm fields to land on for this simulated off-field landing (another first for me). I picked a field and proceed to glide to base and to final. We were descending and I thought after I was lined up, he’d say “good job” and we’d be done. But we kept descending to (what seemed like) only 200 feet above ground before putting back the power and climbing away. I was seriously thinking we were actually going to land on this farm field! After that, we finished back to Westosha where I somehow managed to land in an absolutely crazy crosswind.

All in all, an incredibly fun and challenging lesson. I logged 1.7 hours of flight time.

This Sunday I had yet another lesson of mostly takeoffs and landings. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and we’re finally starting to change into Spring around Chicago (it’s about time). I had my “alternate” CFI again, although I probably shouldn’t call him my alternate any longer since I’ve had 3 of my 8 lessons with him. Anyways, we decided to head over to Burlington (BUU) airport to practice. It was nice to go somewhere moderately far (although I think it’s only about 20 miles away). My CFI had me running the radios mostly, which was a bit intimidating, especially since Burlington is much busier than Westosha. Burlington has a much wider runway than Westosha (seems twice as wide) and I thought I’d nail some landings that day there, but I never got one quite perfect. My CFI said I’m progressing fine, but I still wasn’t thrilled. After about 7 landings, we headed back to Westosha.

My CFI taught me a lot of the visual cues to navigate back and forth from Westosha, along with an introduction to radio navigation. Back at Westosha, I attempted 4 more landings. We had a slight crosswind, and I got only one perfect (but I think it was just luck). I had one go-around as well (the wind and the plane were just not cooperating). We also worked on forward slips, a technique to get the plane down in altitude fast without raising the air speed (so you can still land the plane). Slips are pretty neat, it’s like skidding through the air down towards the runway (see the attached animated picture). Anyways, like my early lessons, this lesson threw a lot of new stuff at me in a short time period.

This lesson I logged 1.9 hours of flight time.

It seemed like forever since my last lesson (last Thursday) and it was great to get back into the air.  My usual CFI doesn’t work on Sundays and I flew with the same CFI I had last lesson.  He’s another great instructor and it was nice to work with him again.  The weather was nice today compared to the rain we had we had all week,  but still chilly for April (only about 40° F) and decent winds with gusts of almost 20mph.  All-in-all quite manageable and kept traffic down to nothing (which was nice).

After taking off we headed to the usual practice area (within sight of Lake Geneva) and reviewed ground reference maneuvers (which I started on my Fourth Lesson).  Some turns around points and s-turns helped me gain more understanding of how wind effects everything.  These maneuvers are also required for the practical FAA test.  I’ll be practicing these much more once I’m soloing, but for now my CFI was satisfied I understand them and can manage on my own.

We then headed back to Westosha and worked on landings again.  I’m getting more and more the hang and feel of the proper glide slope and the last “flare” before landing.  Working the pattern is becoming second nature, and I’m getting the “normal” power and flap settings ingrained in my head as well.  Due to the wind some of my landings were a little bumpy, but nothing horrible.  We practiced a go-around also (admittedly out of necessity because the wind really took us off centerline).

All-in-all another tremendously fun lesson.  I logged 1.8 hours of flight time this lesson (my longest flight yet).

My usual CFI had to go out of town this week to ferry a plane, but luckily another CFI at Westosha was able to meet and have a lesson with me. Yesterday’s weather was threatening rain all day, and of course once I got to the airport it started raining lightly. That being said, there wasn’t much wind at the surface, which made it still okay to practice landings. The clouds were right at about 2000 ft and if we were doing anything other than staying in the pattern, we probably would have had to scrub the flight. As such, we worked solely on takeoffs and landings again…which was fine by me.

Our plane also had new brakes put on, so even before we took off, we had to “break in” these new brakes. Fortunately, this meant we could also practice aborted takeoffs. We basically throttled up and proceeded halfway down the runway, aborted, pulled back the throttle and slammed on the breaks. Not terribly exciting, and something not a lot of student pilots practice, but I’m glad I got the opportunity.

The takeoffs and landings weren’t very exciting either, just the usual stuff. I’m starting to get the whole routine down, although I’m still not 100% on it, especially with the final turn to line up the landing. I’ll hopefully get it nailed by my next lesson (maybe tomorrow if a plane opens up).

I logged 0.9 hours of flight time this lesson.

This morning, in lesson #5, we focused on takeoffs and landings. My CFI is also starting to not talk as we go through things, letting me fully control and decide upon controls. It’s exciting and kinda’ scary to know I’m basically totally controlling the plane (he even keeps his hands off the controls most of the time).  I also started calling out the radio announcements,  like “Westosha Traffic, Cessna 920, Departing Runway 3, Remaining in Pattern”…I felt more and more like a real pilot today.

There was a slight (roughly 9 mph) crosswind on the 3/21 paved runway at Westosha, so we tried a few crosswind landings and takeoffs. Because the turf runway is almost perpendicular to the paved one, we also practiced short field landings and takeoffs on the turf. This was particularly challenging as we even shortened the turf runway further (to about 1/3) because there was a little snow on the crossing between the runways. The turf is surprisingly bumpy and swampy because of all the melted snow…it really felt like “bush flying.” However, after a bunch of those takeoffs and landings, running on the pavement was a breeze!

Obviously we also worked on the climb-outs and approaches, as well as general pattern/traffic flying. There is a LOT to remember and control for…it definitely felt like another sub-par performance by me, but my CFI keeps telling me I’m way ahead of the curve. I trust him and I know with each and every repetition of these maneuvers it becomes more easy and second-nature. It’s just tooo fun!

This lesson I logged 1.2 hours.

I’m told that wind can make flying a very difficult experience. I quickly learned yesterday during my fourth lesson how true that is! There were steady west winds of 20+ mph during my entire flight experience. Besides the challenge of the wind, we worked on some pretty complicated stuff (or at least seemed complicated to me at this point). By the end of my lesson, my head was spinning for a variety of reasons:

1) We worked more on stalls and recovery procedures. This time my CFI had me stall the plane in various situations (power on, power off, while banking) and recover quickly. Luckily, the plane literally DOES indeed want to fly itself and making the corrections came very natural to me (they are all pretty logical anyways) and the plane reacts fine. However, going up and down in altitude as frequently as we did did twinge my stomach of steel even.

2) My CFI demonstrated a spin/spiral and how to recover. Thankfully, I’LL hopefully never be forced into this situation, but my CFI urged me to experience it (even though it’s not necessary). I must admit, heading straight for the ground and spinning (although I knew I was safe and it was indeed thrilling) is not really fun. I’m glad my CFI had the controls and literally had to work to get the plane to do something this unnatural. I’m always glad to see how much the plane wants to fly straight and normal.

3) S-Turns and Ground Reference Maneuvers. These aren’t normally that difficult, but the winds make it really “fun”. Lots of extra compensating to keep the plane from drifting and going off course.

4) Finally, we had to land in a strong crosswind. This is the “most difficult thing to do in flying” and I guess I did pretty good. Obviously my CFI helped me a ton (honestly, I think he landed)…but seeing the amount of extra that goes into a crosswind landing definitely makes me want to review a few chapters in my reference book again!

Needless to say, this was a very busy and complicated lesson and when we landed I had a LOT to think about and process. I AM excited to get back in the air on Saturday though (if the weather plays nice).

This lesson I logged 1.4 hours of flight time.

Before you can fly solo (as a student) you need to be examined by a physician certified by the FAA. My CFI mentioned that I would probably want to get this sooner rather than later so my not having it wouldn’t be a hindrance when I was ready to fly solo. After checking the FAA website and starting the appropriate forms, I called my local AME (Aviation Medical Examiner) and he had an opening the same afternoon! I made the appointment, went, and passed with “flying colors” today.

Basically the doctor just checked my eyes, made sure I wasn’t color-blind (which I’m not), and made me pee in a cup. Apparently I’m clean and have adequate eyesight. My blood pressure was a little elevated, but I’m always nervous in doctor offices. He said I was still in the normal range. My new Medical Certificate Third Class and Student Pilot Certificate also doubles basically and officially as my “learners permit” for flying. I must admit it was nice NOT to having to go to some governmental agency and stand in line for hours to get this!

Anyways, I’m one step closer to becoming a licensed pilot! My next planned lesson is Saturday, but I’m going to try to see if another CFI at my airport is available tomorrow afternoon for a lesson. I doubt it, but I’m itching to fly!