More landing practice

Several firsts today: longest flight (3 hrs), most airports visited in one flight (five), and most credited landings (12). As usual, my luck with the weather is bad. The wind was blowing about 13 knots at KPAO, so we only did one trip around the pattern there before heading off to Tracy Muni (KTCY) in search of better winds. Tracy was better, but not great, so we headed off to New Jerusalem (1Q4), a little strip in the middle of nowhere. We made several landings there before heading to Byron (C83) then to Livermore (KLVK) and then home.

The good: 

- I'm getting pretty decent at radio comms with the tower. I'm getting more onfident talking to ground and the tower at Palo Alto. On the way back I contacted Palo Alto with a nearly flawless landing request: "Palo Alto tower, Cessna six-six-nine-tango-whiskey descending through two-thousand one hundred over Leslie Salt with information Uniform."  The only thing I always do wrong is that I forget to use "niner" instead of "nine".  Oh well, I'll get that one of these days.

- Landings are getting better. Although I had a couple rough patches, by the end of the day while we were working the pattern at Livermore, I was doing a much better job at controlling airspeed and altitude in pattern and making stable approaches.  

The bad:

- Sometimes feel like I just can't do anything right for landing. It was pretty bumpy, and it is really hard to keep my approach point stable when I'm getting bounced around on final.

- Just staying ahead of the airplane and being able to plan ahead and keep all the parameters in control is a challenge. If you concentrate too hard on one parameter, the others get all out of whack. Definitely a learning curve there in trying to keep everything balanced.

- I feel like I am taking forever and will never get the skills or confidence to solo.  Dave says he's seen people do it quicker, and people take much longer, so I guess that's OK, but I still feel like I'm not doing a good job. 

No flying next weekend, Dave is out of town, so we'll see if I can hold onto these skills for two weeks without much regression. 

Aircraft: 669TW

Landings today: 12

Total landings: 44

Today's flight: 3.0 hours

Total hours: 35.1

In search of good winds

So far in my flight training, one thing I can count on is that the wind and/or other weather will not cooperate when I go for a lesson. Today was the great search for good wind.  It was just blowing too hard at Palo Alto to be able to make good landing attempts. I really need to learn how to make good landings in favorable wind conditions if I'm ever going to solo. So far, every time we've been out, Mother Nature just hasn't cooperated.

In the search for the proper wind conditions, Dave decided we'd head over the hill toward the central valley. Two more airports to add to my tally: Tracy Muni and New Jerusalem.  Both are in Tracy, both uncontrolled. New Jerusalem (1Q4) is leftover from WWII, where it was apparently a training airfield. Not much left there now but a strip of asphalt in the middle of some fields. Not even a shed standing. It seems to get the most use from radio-controlled aircraft enthusiasts, who have their own little runway laid out on what looks like a former taxiway. The main runway is pretty rough and bumpy. On the plus side, there's nothing around, and no other planes anywhere nearby. The taxiway is separated from the runway by just a stripe of paint. After landing, we basically made a hard U-turn off the runway and taxied back slowly to the approach end, avoiding weeds, loose rocks, gravel, and the broken pavement. Definitely the roughest runway I've flown in/out of yet.

My pattern and approach work is getting a little better each time, but I still don't feel like I've quite got the hang of it yet. I think I concentrate on doing one thing right, and everything else regresses. As bad as I think I'm doing, Dave seems to think I'm getting a notch better every time. It just drives me crazy... I'm always a quick learner and I've read all this stuff about the pattern and landings, but going from theoretical stuff in a book to actually doing it is so much harder than it seems on paper.  I guess it'll just take a lot of practice, concentration, time, and money to get the hang of it.

Aircraft: 669TW

Today's landings: 8

Total landings: 32

Today's flight: 2.4 hours

Total hours: 32.1 hours

2.4 in pattern at KPAO

Never left the pattern at KPAO today. Just 2.4 hours of flying right traffic on runway 31 doing touch-and-goes.  Man, landing is hard.  I don't know when I'm ever going to get the hang of this.

Aircraft: 669TW

Landings today: 8

Total landings: 24

Today's flight: 2.4 hours

Total hours: 29.7 hours

Pattern, pattern, pattern

Longest flight so far, and more pattern work.  We spent most of the day at Reid-Hillview doing pattern work. Nothing more to say I guess. I'm in that phase of training where we mostly fly around and around and around doing touch-and-goes. It's just a lot of work. 

Aircraft: 669TW

Landings today: 3

Total landings: 16

Today's flight: 2.6 hours

Total hours: 27.3

Watsonville

The wind looked most favorable today at Watsonville, so I got to add another new airport to my list. It's always fun to fly over the hills to the coast so we headed out from Palo Alto toward Watsonville, pausing to do a few maneuvers on the way.  Dave showed me a trick with the trim that might help my steep turns to the right. Basically, as you start the turn, you make two quick turns of the trim wheel from top to bottom.  This helps to add some nose-up trim and makes it easier to hold the angle. For some reason, I have little trouble with left steep turns, but right always screws me up. The trim seemed to help.

Watsonville was interesting. I've actually been there on the ground for an airshow a couple years ago, but I didn't recognize it at all flying in. I'll have to go back to my airshow pictures and see if I can orient myself.

This was another good lesson on pattern work and landings, plus it's an uncontrolled airport, so lots of watching out for other planes in pattern. 

Aircraft: 669TW

Landings today: 3

Total landings: 13

Today's flight: 1.8 hours

Total hours: 24.7

Two new airports

More pattern work and landing practice, and two new airports to add to my list: San Carlos (KSQL) and Byron (C83).

Today's flight was pattern work at Palo Alto, a quick jaunt up to San Carlos, about two trips around the pattern there, then over to Byron where the winds were looking better and back home.  Nothing very exciting today. Just a lot of pattern work. 

Aircraft: 739TW

Landings today: 3

Total landings: 10

Today's flight: 2.3 hours

Total hours: 22.9

Flying after work

Managed to make it out flying after work tonight. 1.9 hours, four airports, lots of pattern work. I left work at about 4:30pm, made to Palo Alto by 5, and we took off around 5:30pm for Reid-Hillview. Probably the best thing about flying at this time of day is getting to fly right over all the poor souls sitting in their cars on the freeway.

We made a left downwind departure from KPAO toward KRHV, making a Class D transition over Moffett Federal Airfield, then a Class C transition through San Jose's airspace, and finally over to Reid-Hillview. The Class C transition was pretty cool, crossing San Jose's midfield at about 1600 feet. It's kinda wild looking straight down and seeing the terminals and taxiing 737's right below.

Reid-Hillview seems like a nice place to do pattern work on a Thursday afternoon.  There weren't really any other planes to speak of, so we made left traffic for runway 31 left. Final for 31 is a little interesting as we fly right over the top of a shopping center, clearing the roof by just a couple hundred feet or so. We clear the building, parking lot, a road, and a fence before touching down. Tends to get a little bumpy over the parking lot from hot air rising from the asphalt.

After Reid-Hillview, we headed to South County in San Martin.  This is a little strip right next to highway 101 down between Morgan Hill and Gilroy. We made a few trips around the pattern tonight and then headed back to San Jose, hugging the hills to the west of Morgan Hill to maneuver around the San Jose Class C airspace before getting clearance into San Jose for pattern work on runway 29. Again, I lost track of how many times we went around the pattern.  Soon enough it was getting to be nearly 7pm, so we headed back to Palo Alto to call it a night. 

Wow, what a way to spend a few hours after work. 1.9 hours, four airports, and credit for a couple landings.

Aircraft: 739TW

Landings today: 2

Total landings: 7

Today's flight: 1.9 hours

Total hours: 20.6