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
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment