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

No flying again today

Just got off the phone with Dave.  We decided to call off flying today due to gusty winds. It probably would have been a good day for ground reference maneuvers, but there are reports of turbulence, and the gusts would have made things uncomfortable and stressful at this early point in my training.  Oh well.

On the upside, we're looking into doing a flight Thursday afternoon after work, so maybe I can catch up a little then.

Short flight

The weather continues to thwart my quest for flight. After spending a mostly beautiful week sitting indoors at work, the weekend forecast called for wind and rain. I went to the airport anyway, hoping for the best, and got 669TW pre-flighted.  I went inside to find Dave, who was confident that I was going to get some good practice in the pattern today land the plane. 

So, out we go. I got the aircraft started up, called ground (I'm getting a bit more confident on the radio, but I still don't do much talking to tower in the air) and taxied to runway 31 and did the runup.  We did some extra checking on the voltage due to a bad reading on the dash display, but it looked OK and we took off.  

It was more of a crosswind takeoff than I had done before, so Dave showed me how to hold the aileron up on the upwind side and slowly straighten it out as we gained speed. Takeoff was OK but the weather still had me nervous. I just couldn't seem to get the timing right to reduce throttle, add 10 degrees of flaps and push to smoothly hit the 800 ft pattern altitude.  I kept missing it and ended up at 900 or 1000 feet. 

Our pattern work was short-lived. We had barely made it into the pattern before the rain started. It really wasn't raining on the ground at Palo Alto, but at altitude over the bay in the downwind we got rained on pretty good.  You could just see the rain coming down over by SJC, and it was looking kind of dark and ominous. We made four or five trips around the pattern before calling it a day. We had to settle for an hour or so of ground work talking about navigation and VORs.

Aircraft: 669TW

Today's flight: 0.6 hours

Total time: 18.7 hours

Lesson #10 & Another new airport

Another day of low ceilings and mediocre flying weather, but things looked better toward the central valley, so we headed out looking for somewhere to maneuvers. We headed out over Sunol toward Livermore and Tracy, where we found clear skies and room to practice. 

It had been quite a while since I had done any steep turns, slow flight, or stalls, but we managed to practice all three. Again, I discovered that I am pretty decent at steep turns to the left, but I suck doing them to the right. I just don't have the sight picture of the horizon correct yet and I can't seem to gauge my bank angle correctly.  Stalls and slow flight went OK as well, but it had been so long since I had done any slow flight I really needed Dave to coach me through entry and exit. I'm really looking forward to better weather so I can get out and do more work on these basic maneuvers. 

It got pretty bumpy as we approached the hills on the way back from the valley. I managed to get a little queasy for a couple minutes, so Dave flew while I cracked open a vent to get some air. We decided to stop and take a break for a few minutes in Livermore, just a few miles ahead. We made a straight in approach to the comparatively huge runway 25R at LVK - more than twice as long as the runway at Palo Alto. We got directions to transient parking, struggled to chain down the plane in cold howling wind, and walked to the terminal. After 10 minutes or so, we headed back out, took off again from 25R and climbed back under the low ceiling over Sunol and back home to Palo Alto.

Aircraft: 739TW

Lesson #10: 2.0 hours

Total time: 16.2 hours

Landings today: 1

Total landings: 3

Headset choices

There is so much gear to buy when one takes up flying. At the top of the list is the headset. I've been borrowing my instructor's spare 10+ year old Lightspeed (15XLc, I think) since I started taking lessons, but I really needed to get my own. I did a bunch of research, and the two top rivals are the Bose X and Lightspeed Zulu. 

The Bose has been regarded as top-of-the-line for a long time, but the Zulu seems to be the hot new contender. I did a lot of online research, which basically came down to "you'll love either one, they're both great." It's nearly as bad as Mac vs. PC, Ford vs. Chevy, etc. There are a lot of people with strong opinions on both sides. It's nearly impossible to make a rational choice.

My instructor uses an older Bose, but also has really good things to say about Lightspeed and owns a Zulu for his wife. He let me try the Zulu out few flights back, and it was impressive, especially compared to the older Lightspeed I've been using.  

I had no in-flight experience with the Bose, but I happened to be at the mall a couple weeks ago and stumbled across a Bose store.  I was surprised to find they had the Bose X available to demo and even had two in stock, which the salesman said was not normal. I have to say, the Bose customer service was really good, the headset sounded great, but $999 is pretty steep. Bose does run a 12-month no interest payment plan billed to your major credit card if you buy online or over the phone, but it doesn't work in the store, which was a bummer. I was tempted by the Bose 30-day no questions asked return policy and in-stock-take-it-home-tonight instant gratification, but I decided to hold off. If I was going to buy the Bose, I figured I'd either buy with the payment plan or order from an online seller somewhere with no sales tax.

So how did I decide between the two? It was tough. The Bose payment plan makes the financial pain of a $999 headset easier by spreading it into a bunch of sub-$90 payments, but it's still the most expensive and you have to pay sales tax ordering direct from Bose. That's just the financial part. When you get right down to it, the Bose has fewer features. The Zulu is $150 cheaper, has aux audio input, sound quality on par with the Bose, and even Bluetooth capability to connect to a cell phone. Although I don't expect to ever fly and talk on the phone at the same time, it's a nice feature to have to be able to make calls while sitting on the ramp in the plane.

So, all things considered, I decided that the $150 price difference and extra features were enough to sway me to the Zulu. I ordered it from Sporty's on Tuesday and it arrived today along with some other gear (Cessna 172S AIM and a AA battery holder) I'd been needing. Seems like a great choice so far. I immediately plugged it into my iPhone (it comes with the necessary audio cables!) to check out the audio quality. The ANR seems impressive sitting in the house, but the true test will be flying this weekend. I can't wait.

Who says ATC and pilots don't have a sense of humor?

I got to fly this past weekend, but as a commercial passenger only on a quick trip back to visit family in the Midwest. 

I flew United, which for all the faults the airlines have these days, is the only carrier I know of that provides the ability to listen to ATC on in-flight audio, which I greatly enjoy.

I was listening to ATC somewhere over Nevada or Utah when a voice suddenly said "Hi, this is Bob..." and disappeared. Perhaps "Bob" tried to answer his cell phone but keyed the mic instead? Within seconds, came the cheerful chorus of "Hi Bob... hi Bob... hi Bob... hi Bob..." from the controller and a string of other pilots. I just about busted out laughing in my seat.

Now I have first hand evidence that controllers and pilots really do have a sense of humor.

Lesson #9 - Landing practice

Finally back in the air.  Again, the weather wasn't great, but it was good enough. Headed over to SJC again today for pattern work and landing practice. I got credit for my first two landings today. To be honest, I didn't even realize I had made any landings on my own until we got back and Dave filled out my logbook. I guess I'm just too busy doing what Dave tells me to check to see whether or not he's helping me. I started to get the hang of the pattern and final approach, and even got a "beautiful" out of Dave once or twice. 

I lost track of how many times we went around the pattern. We did a number of touch and goes and got a lot of practice with "cram, climb, clean", climbing to, leveling off at, and holding pattern altitude. I think I like practicing landings and pattern work at SJC. Although a class C airport, it appears to have less general aviation traffic than PAO. Maybe GA pilots stay away because of all the heavy metal flying in and out of there. We were one of only two or three planes in the pattern, and the long, wide runway seems to make practice easier. There are just so many planes constantly in and out of PAO that it seems more stressful.

After nearly an hour of pattern work at SJC, we decided to take a break and just fly and relax, since I hadn't flown in two weeks. We headed out to the East Bay and did a nice little counter-clockwise loop around Mount Diablo. I got reacquainted with flying the plane Dave introduced me to using the autopilot in VFR flight. I learned how to set a course in the autopilot using the heading bug and use the autopilot to make descents. 

We had an uneventful flight back to PAO, did a trip or two around the pattern there, and then called it a day since I was pretty much worn out. 

Aircraft: 222MF

Lesson #9: 2.1 hours

Total time: 14.2 hours

Landings: 2

Rained out

My luck with the weather is simply terrible. Lots of rain and wind today, so we cancelled. Dave thought it was doable, but left it up to me. I chickened out, and then kind of wished I hadn't. No flying at all this weekend. Oh well, there's always next weekend.

Today's flight: 0 hours

Total time: 12.1 hours

Another schedule snafu

Somehow today I managed to get the airplane booked for the right time slot, but I messed up and only had Dave booked for a single hour. Oh well. I guess I got practice pre-flighting the plane even if we didn't get to fly it. At least the next guy who flew it didn't have to gas it up.

Today's flight: 0 hours

Total time: 12.1 hours

Lesson #8 - Crosswind, pattern & ground reference work

The weather wasn't great today, windy, cloudy, and a little rainy. After checking it out, Dave thought it looked good enough to get some crosswind practice in. Preflight, taxi, and runup went pretty well in 739TW, although I'd learn later that I missed one important step during runup. Runway 13 was in use again today, my second experience taking off to the SE from Palo Alto. We took off and stayed in the pattern for one trip back around, made a low approach and practiced crosswind correction technique. The wind was pretty strong, somewhere around 12-16 knots. Palo Alto's runway is relatively short, so we decided to head over to KSJC since the 4000+ foot runway would give more time to practice on each trip around the pattern. This was my first time flying into KSJC. We made a transition through Moffett Field's class D airspace and were given clearance straight in to runway 11 at KSJC. I thought it was pretty cool to fly right over the top of Moffett for the first time. It still amazes me how close together these airports seem from the air. Taking off from Palo Alto, it only takes a minute or two before you're over Moffett and another minute or two before you get to San Jose.

The wind was blowing pretty steadily from about 160 or 170 degrees, so we had a pretty good right crosswind. Dave did one approach as a demonstration and then it was my turn to practice, each time trying to work the rudder and ailerons to hold a sideslip while Dave handled pitch and throttle to keep us off the ground. I did OK, but got blown left off the centerline a couple times and had some trouble keeping things lined up. It really is difficult to keep everything coordinated. We did several trips around the pattern, and I started to do a little better. I tend to get nervous during approach and in the pattern, which doesn't help here. Dave thinks once I figure out how to overcome the nerves, I'll do a lot better. 

The weather was interesting from the air. We could see rain shafts all over, and we got rained on a couple different times in our trips around the pattern. I can't remember how many times we went around the pattern at San Jose, but we finally decided we'd head out and go do some ground reference work before heading home. This is where I found that I had forgotten one important step during the preflight runup: I forgot to set the heading indicator to match the magnetic compass. This became important when the tower at KSJC asked us to fly a heading of 020 departing the area, and we had to make an educated guess at it. We managed to overcome this little obstacle and got out of the area without getting yelled at by ATC.

After leaving San Jose, we spent a few more minutes flying around our favorite salt ponds practicing turns around a point and S-turns before heading back to Palo Alto. Dave thought that I seemed more relaxed and I was flying much better. The strong winds definitely added some additional challenge to the ground reference work. It takes a lot of skill and planning to properly complete these maneuvers with a strong wind blowing the aircraft around. After a couple practice runs on each kind of maneuver, we headed back across the bay to Palo Alto and called it a day.

Aircraft: 739TW

Lesson #8: 1.6 hours

Total time: 12.1 hours

Lesson #7 - Ground reference maneuvers and pattern work

The weather was marginal today, but Dave and I met at KPAO and did some ground instruction and then went out for a some ground reference maneuvers and pattern work.  The ceiling was probably around 3000 feet MSL, and we never got much over 1000 MSL all day.  

This was my first experience taking off from runway 13.  Dave thought it was kind of odd that 13 was in use since ATIS said the wind was from 190 at 7 kts.  Sure enough, not long after we departed, the tower switched all traffic around to runway 31. Anyway, we made a left "Leslie Salt" departure from runway 13 and headed across the bay to Leslie Salt. For those of you who've ever flown over the bay, there are a number of salt ponds around the south and east side of the bay. Leslie Salt is a known landmark for local aviators and the Palo Alto tower. Easy to spot, it's a giant white pile of salt surrounded by a bunch of shallow reddish colored ponds. Today was all about turns around a point and S-turns. We used our favorite building or shed out in a salt pond as a center point and made several circuits around at about 90 or 95 knots. Today was quite a bit more challenging than my introduction yesterday, as the wind was blowing pretty good by this time. I did a pretty good job of holding 1000 feet, but the wind really caused problems holding a nice even circle. S-turns were even more challenging. We went back and forth using a long section of pipeline as our centerline. I kept wondering what people on the ground might have thought we were doing. Luckily it was mostly an industrial area, although Highway 84 comes off the Dumbarton Bridge right there. 

We must have spent at least half an hour orbiting around the salt ponds at 1000 feet. The Palo Alto tower guys kept an eye out for us, calling out traffic climbing out above us from KPAO at one point. After we had enough ground reference maneuvers, we headed a little North over Coyote Hills and then back over to Palo Alto for pattern work. The weather was still crappy, wind blowing, low ceilings, and the occasional splash of rain on the windshield.

Now was the time for my first official introduction to pattern work. I got an extra bonus now that we had an almost direct crosswind.  Dave seemed happy that he got to do an introduction to the pattern and crosswind approaches all at the same time. He told me how he has another student in the cross country phase who has hardly seen a crosswind in all his training. Apparently I'm lucky for the experience! OK, in all truthfulness, I suppose I'll be a better pilot down the road for having the experience. The experience just doesn't make things any less hairy at this early stage in my training.

Back to the flight. We made a midfield entry into right pattern for runway 31 and were cleared for the option. We were one of about three planes working the pattern, and we made a series of low approaches using different crosswind techniques. On one run, Dave demonstrated maintaining our ground track with a wind correction angle, then the proper go-around technique (Cram, Climb, Clean), turning on crosswind and and joining the pattern altitude smoothly. The next few circuits around, I generally flew the pattern (rather badly) and and helped with the approaches, trimming for 65 knots, setting flaps, etc. One time Dave handled pitch, throttle, and rudder while I managed the ailerons for a side slip. Another time around I got to handle the rudder while he did everything else. Finally, I got to do both ailerons and rudder while he held us off the ground with pitch and throttle. By the time we'd made 5 or 6 trips around the pattern (I forget how many), I was exhausted and we decided to call it a day.

To make everything even more stressful, we were watching out for birds all this time. Every time around, the tower was announcing heavy bird activity in the area. At one point while we were on final, a flock of 5 or 6 suicidal Canada geese flew right across midfield at about 10 feet. Avoiding the geese, Dave got us back on the ground with a nice sideslip, landing on upwind, downwind, and nose wheels all in proper order. We taxied off the runway, called the tower to terminate our option, got permission from ground to taxi back to our tiedown, and called it a day. 

Today I learned a lot again and got to see and practice flight in some less than ideal weather conditions. The flight was relatively short, but packed full of action and stress. I didn't come away feeling as good as I did yesterday, but I probably learned more.

Aircraft: 739TW

Lesson #7: 1.4 hours

Total time: 10.5 hours

Lesson #6 - Slow flight, stalls, and ground reference

Today was my longest flight so far, 2.1 hours.  I thought the weather was kind of marginal, lots of clouds around, but they were mostly high enough and scattered enough to let us fly without any problems.  

I'm getting better with preflight runup and getting the instruments and radios all set up.  Made the radio calls for permission to taxi and take off, getting a little more confidence on the radio there, although Dave handled a lot of the radio today.  We had to be careful to use the full callsign (we were in 739TW) today because someone else was out in 669TW.  Definitely don't want to confuse calls for "9TW" when you've got both up in the air.

My takeoffs are getting better, I remembered to use more right rudder on takeoff and not let the aircraft drift left. The takeoff climb was OK, although I pitched up a little too high and started to lose some airspeed. Dave had to remind me to get the nose down for a 75 knot climb. We made a right Dumbarton departure and headed out over Fremont past 680 to practice maneuvers over Lake Del Valle. 

Today's lesson started out with more slow flight practice and getting used to the nose up attitude in slow flight, going into and out of slow flight, and turning while in slow flight. After slow flight, we did a few steep turns in each direction. I have discovered that I have a harder time with steep turns to the right, not using enough right rudder.  After steep turn practice, we worked on stalls.

Stalls are kind of freaky, but they weren't as bad as I had anticipated, at least not when we had a few thousand feet between the aircraft and the ground. I wouldn't want to stall at low altitude, that's for sure.  Dave demonstrated power-off and power-on stalls. I guess we were only pitched up about 20 degrees, but it sure seemed steeper. I saw a lot of blue sky through the windshield... We ran through several demonstrations of entering stalls as well as recovery, then it was my turn.  Dave coached me through power-on stalls and recovery a couple times, then the same with power-off stalls. I won't say they're my idea of fun, but they weren't as scary as I had anticipated, at least at altitude.

We took a break from maneuvers and I just flew the plane for a few minutes, practicing trim and holding altitude and making a few turns. After 5 or 6 minutes of that, we turned back toward Palo Alto and started our descent. All that stall practice had put us to over 7,000 feet MSL, so we started heading down quickly. Dave demonstrated a fast dive to get us down from about 5,000 to around 3,500 or so. Heading back over Fremont, we dropped down to 1,000 feet and called Palo Alto to let them know we would be doing some ground reference maneuvers. We were a little worried about birds – we missed a couple random gulls, and at one point we passed above a hawk about 150 feet down to my left. 

Dave showed me turns around a point using a building in the middle of the salt ponds as the center. After I took a turn, we worked on rectangular patterns using a cluster of eight salt ponds for reference. I took the controls for a lap around and did OK, although I'm not really used to doing 45 degree banks at 1,000 feet yet. 

We were starting to run short of time, so we skipped S-turns and headed back to Palo Alto, joining the right pattern for runway 31 at 800 feet. We did an extended downwind leg and I made turns onto base and final. I got closer to landing again, but still didn't quite do it by myself. One of these days...  

I walked away from today feeling pretty good. I certainly felt like I am doing a better job controlling the aircraft. It would really help if the weather would cooperate and I could fly more than once per weekend and build my skills. The weather tomorrow is iffy, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it'll be good enough to fly.

Lesson #6: 2.1 hours

Total hours: 9.1

Lesson #5 - Trim practice, steep turns, slow flight

Unlike yesterday morning, today was a great day for flying. My wife, Cyndi, decided to ride along and take some pictures. Today was all flying, no ground work to speak of. I also did a fair bit of the radio work today, calling ground and tower for taxi and departure clearances at KPAO. A little more radio practice and I think I'l be OK. 

The focus today was on continued practice of trim, climbs, turns, and descents, plus the introduction of some slow flight practice. Dave went to great lengths to keep me looking outside at the horizon. He covering the instruments with a chart and had me trim for what I thought was a certain speed, then uncover and check. I started to get the hang of it, making a concerted effort to watch the distance between the cowling and the horizon and trying to burn into my brain what that looks like for different airspeeds and configurations. I practiced a couple steep turns in each direction and practiced holding altitude and bank angle in the turn and rolling out on the correct heading.

Slow flight was interesting. We went up to about 5000 feet and Dave showed me how to enter slow flight. I worked on trim, and did a few gentle turns. It was pretty weird slowing the plane down to 40 knots, just on the edge of a stall in a nose-high attitude. (We did manage to hear the stall warning horn a few times.) We did a few entries and exits from slow flight just so I could start to get the feel of it. We also did a few exercises to set up for landing configuration, adding flaps and trimming for about 65 knots while aiming for an imaginary runway in the distance.

We thought about doing a touch and go and Half Moon Bay (KHMB).  It was kind of bumpy on the way over so we decided to head back to KPAO. As we were in the vicinity of KHMB, we overheard a pilot in a Baron chew out some helicopter pilot just hovering on the runway while the Baron was on final. The Baron had been calling his position all through the pattern, and when he got to final, there's this helicopter in his way. Not cool. A few heated words were heard on the radio.

We headed back in over Palo Alto and Stanford started to get set up for landing. Dave warned me not to get under 2000 over Palo Alto or the little grey-haired ladies would come out with their stinger missiles and shoot us down for making too much noise. We descended to about 1500 over the freeway, then down to 1000 and entered left downwind pattern for runway 31. I did a pretty good downwind to base turn, but had a harder time turning and getting lined up on final. There was a little crosswind and I was over-controlling, causing some oscillation. Dave helped me straighten things out and get 669TW on the ground.

Lesson #5: 1.9 hours

Total hours: 7.0

Radiation fog + schedule = Arrgh!

No flight lesson today due to radiation/ground/tule fog, whatever you want to call it. This was supposed to have been lesson #5.  The weather forecast for Palo Alto (KPAO) was for fair weather today, but unfortunately, when I got to the airport just before 10am visibility was poor.  The thing that drives you crazy about this kind of fog is that usually if you look straight up, you see blue sky.  The fog is only a couple hundred feet thick but the straight ahead visibility is really low. 

My instructor and I settled for 1.5 hours of ground instruction instead, mostly on pitot-static and gyro instruments and engine systems.  By about 11:45, the weather had improved to where it was looking good for flying, but I only had 669TW reserved until 1pm and it was booked afterward. No other 172SP's were available, so we scrubbed today's flight.

 

We wandered over to the neighboring pilot shop and loooked around. After a few minutes, he left me to browse. A couple minutes later he came back and suggested we go try to get a tour of the tower. The tower guys turned out to be very accommodating and let us in for a tour. I got to see the mix of high and low tech that keeps everyone apart. The radar display looked surprisingly like your average computer screen – a beige background with grey outlines for local airspace limits and ground reference points. Planes showed up as green rectangles. The ground controller used the low-tech grease pencil on a plastic puck to write tail numbers of aircraft requesting taxi and takeoff clearances. The ground controller moves the puck to the local controller's station and he takes it from there. We probably spent about 15 minutes in the tower, not wanting to overstay our welcome. Besides, it's not that big of a place.

After the tour, we spent a few minutes out at the edge of the taxiway watching a few takeoffs and landings. There was a little crosswind, so we got to see some good and not so good landing examples.

Overall, it was still a pretty good day at the airport, even if I didn't get to fly. Here's hoping there's no fog tomorrow, since I have the same plane and time-slot booked again.

Officially a student pilot

I got my 3rd class medical and student certificate today. I think one of the reasons I've put off flying lessons for so long was FUD about getting the medical. It turned out to be relatively quick and painless. I got a recommendation for an AME from my flight instructor, so I finally decided I'd get off the fence and go for it.

I really wasn't quite sure what to expect from the medical exam, but it mostly seemed to be pretty standard stuff: height, weight, pee in a cup, blood pressure, check eyes/ears/mouth/throat, read from eye charts including near/far vision and color blindness exam. Then the doc had me take off my shirt and lie on the table while he felt around my abdomen. Finally, the most unpleasant, the old "drop your pants, cover your mouth and cough" routine guys hate.

With all that over, I had one little hoop to jump through. The AME couldn't issue my medical certificate immediately because I disclosed that I had taken a certain medication several years ago. I would need a letter from my doctor confirming I was no longer taking the medication for at least the past year. As long as I got a letter to the AME within two weeks they could submit everything together to the FAA and issue my certificate. If I took longer, they'd have to submit the application in deferred status, and I'd have to send my doctor's letter separately and wait for the FAA to review and issue the certificate, which was likely to take months. 

Luckily for me, my doctor from back then is a friend and fellow computer nerd. When I got back to work I found him on IM, so I chatted him and asked for the letter. An hour or two later his office faxed it to me and I made arrangements to drop it off at the AME's office that same afternoon and pick up my certificate.

The moral of the story is to make sure you've got everything lined up before you go get your medical exam. I had the feeling I was going to have a little trouble due to that old prescription. I should have called the medical advisory folks at AOPA in advance so I could go to the AME prepared with the necessary documentation. 

In the big scheme of things though, it all worked out pretty smoothly. I managed to get my medical/student pilot certificate in hand the same day with only minor hassle. I think I surprised the AME and his staff at how quickly I got the letter to them. I wanted it pretty bad by that point. Now I'm officially a student pilot, so it was all worth it.