Soaring Student

Buying an aircraft

2011-03-01T10:30:00.003-05:00

As mentioned yesterday - I bought a share of an aircraft last October. This post will summarize my thinking and approach.

First and most important, when thinking about whether to start flying it would be a Really Good Idea to answer the question "When I get my license, what am I going to do with it?". The answer really doesn't matter, but it is good to understand that you're going to spend about $10,000 getting the license so there really should be some objectives around how you are going to use it.

In my case, I figured that drilling expensive holes in the local atmosphere would be an occasional interesting activity, but what I really wanted to do was to go places.

One can always rent an aircraft - and if you don't fly too often (10-20-30 hours per year) then this is the least expensive option. It is also the least complicated, since (as part of your rental cost) you're paying the club or the company to worry about maintenance, upgrades, administration etc. However, renting gets more expensive quickly as the hours increase, the aircraft will be safe but they will also be somewhat battered, different aircraft will be configured differently. And if you go on an overnight trip, there is often a minimum per-day charge (which addresses the lost opportunity to the club of not having the aircraft available to rent to others).

And so I explored owning a share of an aircraft. My wife and I attended the Ownership Forum, as run by the Rockcliffe Flying Club. RFC gets an income stream from fuel sales and from parking at the airfield, as well as ensuring that the rental fleet does not become either too large or over-taxed, so they like to see their graduates move towards ownership.

Owning an aircraft can be Damn Expensive - and at my level of income and annual flying, owning an aircraft myself is an expensive proposition. Generally, when you sell the aircraft you will more or less get your purchase price back - but the annual costs will be borne by yourself only.

I elected to look for shared ownership, preferably located at Rockcliffe since I like the camaraderie. Shared ownership means I will pay only a portion of the capital costs (the airplane and equipment), the annual costs (annual inspection, parking space, insurance, COPA membership, etc), calendar costs (annual ELT certification, 5-year propeller rebuild, etc), and equipment upgrades (better radio, paint job, etc). There will be several hands to share the workload (cutting the grass, washing the airplane, doing the finances, ...). The operational costs (per-hour, including fuel, oil, etc) would be the same whether I owned the aircraft solely, or was in a shared ownership arrangement.

The downside of a shared arrangement is that other people are involved (that takes effort to manage, I have a responsibility to cooperate, but you "inherit" the existing members of the partnership). And since you have to share the airplane, you have to expect that it will sometimes not be available when you want it.

The last factor was timing - there are hundreds of airplanes available for sale at any one time, so I could have my choice of airplane at whatever time I wanted at pretty much any desired level of equipment. But there are a limited number of partnership groups, and they are further filtered by the type and configuration of the aircraft they own.

Fortunately, there is a group at Rockcliffe which met all my needs....

Checkride.... er Currency Check.... er PIC Check

2011-02-28T16:10:00.007-05:00

So - I purchased a share of an airplane back in October 2010 (more about that in a later blog post).

I flew during the fall, with my previous flight with my son and daughter-in-law on December 24th (more about that in a later post as well).

But, due to weather, work, and mechanical problems, I didn't fly for more than 2 months. One of the rules our group has is a 60-day currency rule - if you don't fly in 60 days then you need to go fly with an instructor to regain the PIC capability. Even if we didn't have this rule, at my level of experience I'd do it anyway.

Last Saturday was a beautiful day - big wind but steady right down the runway centreline. Sunny. Below zero, but not too cold. I booked the bird and an instructor, Steven.

I have to take a flight with an instructor to re-PIC, but what I need to do on that flight is not explicitly specified. Technically, one circuit is sufficient.

But I like to fly. And I booked Steven for 2 hours, not 6 minutes. So in our pre-flight briefing I request everything I want to cover. Steven is going to have fun with me, since we did everything on my list and little more.

To save reading to the end: I re-certified. I'm safe. I forgot all sorts of little things due to rust, but caught myself on almost all of them (or the checklists caught me). I didn't do anything stupid or dangerous.

Checklists were slow - they didn't flow, and I was methodical while working through them. I missed checking the brakes after we started moving (but checked all the instruments). I missed doing a carb lean test while at 1700 RPM (Steven caught that one).

I chose to do a soft-field take-off. I find it the most difficult one to do, especially in a lightly loaded 180HP Cessna 172 with a good headwind. I may have leveled out a bit high, and I forgot to raise the flaps once we were climbing, but I did remember to turn off the landing light.

Standard straight&level flight on a heading, then climb once in the training area.

We started with steep turns. Left or right? I answer "let's do both". I prefer turning to the right over turning to the left. Turn was good, rolling out at the end was excellent, my altitude control was within limits but pretty loose. I'm grabbing the yoke too tightly. No spiral dive though.

Slow flight, with turns to a heading, and then speed recovery. Pretty good. I'll want to practice this alone, however, since my airspeed fluctuated. And it didn't feel very comfortable.

A power-on stall. Routine.

Simulated emergency landing to a field. Done well, but I should have given a passenger briefing at a higher altitude when I was less rushed. And I forgot to "transmit" a Mayday or a 7700. Sheesh.

The we get the foggles out for instrument work, and climb, descend, change speeds, turn to a heading, etc.

With the foggles still on, Steven decided my vacuum pump has failed, we cover the AI and HI, and we do some more turns, flying a heading, and then we fly back to the field.

Back to Rockcliffe, descend from 1700 to 1200 feet on the quiet side with a procedure turn, and I take the foggles off as we cross over the field to join the mid-right downwind for R27.

We do an inspection pass to see that the runway is indeed bare&dry (since we didn't run through the precautionary landing out in the practice area), then climb out and remain in the circuit.

On the soft-field landing I'm not descending on base because I have some power on, so I remove power and side-slip, losing air at about 1200 FPM, and I set up for the final Real Pretty. The landing was not great but OK - soft-field landings are also my least favourite.

A heavy workout after more than 60 days of no flying, and with very short air time -0.8 in the air, of which 0.3 was instrument (and some of that was partial panel).

One other observation - when recovering after a stall or slow flight I need to use full throttle (I'm timid on the throttle because the airplane accelerates faster than the flaps come up, and the speed limit with flaps extended is 100 MPH).

And I still need to always put the carb heat back in so I get that last 10% of power from that nice thick cold air (I sometimes forget).

But it was good to be in the sky again.

Non-aviation photograph post

2010-09-18T10:35:00.004-04:00

I posted a comment about horses in downtown London UK over on Aviatrix's blog (go read her posting, including the comments, to understand the context).

But needed a place to post a picture to illustrate.

Rent vs. Buy?

2010-09-10T10:00:00.003-04:00

It has been a long time, .

I have embarked on the journey to a new decison - should I buy an aircraft (or a share of an aircraft)?

I am, and will continue to be, a member of the Rockcliffe Flying Club. They have a a fleet of aircraft (mostly 172s, with two 152s and a 182) available for rent. These aircraft have various levels of equipment, there are enough of them that you can get one pretty much when you want one. They are of course older aircraft, but well maintained, and safe.

And expensive. By the time you rent one (wet rental), add HST, figure on $150 per Hobbs hour.

There is also the price of "opportunity cost" - by the published rates, if my wife and I take a club aircraft to PEI for a week, then there is a minimum charge of 3 hours per day even if I never start the engine.

However, if I don't fly, the cost to me of a rental aircraft is nil.

Renting, and not owning, makes sense if you do not fly a large number of hours per year. There are rent vs. buy calculators, but the more you fly the more it makes sense to consider owning instead of renting (the crossover point is determined primarily by the costs associated with owning, such as the purchase price, but is usually somewhere around 50-100 hours per year).

The cost of ownership can be dramatically reduced by owning a share in an aircraft, instead of a whole aircraft. The operating costs per hour are the same, but the capital cost (purchase price), annual costs (tie-down, insurance, annual inspection, ....) are divided n ways, as are the costs of any upgrades, paint jobs, etc. Owning a share of an aircraft can drop the crossover point to as little as 30 hours per year. Instead of $150 per hour, flying is half that cost.

Another journey begins.

Why is the stall horn sounding.....?

2010-03-13T14:35:00.003-05:00

March 10, 2010

The weather this week has been terrific, work has been long hours, I am coming up on a month since the last flight, time to go drill holes in the sky for an afternoon. So I invite one of my daughters, and her friend, to go for a flight. I need to fly at least monthly (or else I need to go rent an instructor for a lap), so I may as well take someone along for the ride.

Krysten (daughter) and my wife took the co-pilot course last fall, and Krysten has not gone for her two rides. This way she can get up for an initial flight, do some handling of the controls, and get some of the shine off so her two lessons with an instructor will be more fruitful.

Unlike the last two flights, the temperature is above zero, +6C. The pre-flight check is not as brutal.

I've not flown this aircraft before. It's a C172M - generally I've flown November models. Review the different V-speeds before climbing aboard, locate all the controls (flap lever and indicator are different), and make sure there are no surprises. The left strobe light is burned out, but otherwise everything is clear.

The flow of the passenger briefings is getting better. During flight training I did very few briefings, so I'm working up to having a "flow".

Start-up, taxi, run-up, backtrack to the button on 09, apply power, gauges checked green, rotate, and we smoothly leave the earth.

As we're climbing out, I notice that we're climbing slower than usual. Mixture is rich, RPMs are good, gauges still green, flaps are not extended, airspeed is good, attitude is normal. Weird, but nothing is out of agreement and things look good out the window.

To the practice area, flying past the casino and the ski hills. Krysten does some straight&level flight. Just north of Wakefield I demonstrate shallow turns, and let Krysten take the yoke. She puts in a bit of a turn (while I manage the yaw with the rudder), and mixes in an assortment of nose-up and nose-down attitude. At 3200' there's lots of time to recover, she gets a bit better over time. There were a few times where we were noticeably nose-down, but the altitude wasn't spinning down, nor the airspeed significantly increasing. Weird.

Megan (in the back seat) is fine, so I do a HASEL check and show them a medium turn (30 degrees of bank) both left and right. Everyone is still happy, so Krysten tries a medium turn - she shows the usual hesitation about putting a "real" bank on the airplane, but does set up for a spiral dive. I have control, and we climb back to 3200'.

I ask them if they want to see a steep turn - warning them that it will likely feel uncomfortable with that much "tilt", and if they look out the side window then there will be lots of air and not much airplane between them and the ground. Gotta love kids, they say go for it. I tell them to speak up the instant they feel uncomfortable, announce our position, do a lookout, and put it into a right steep turn. I wish I flew this well on my flight test, I nailed the nose on the horizon and didn't vary more than 20 feet from altitude.

Everyone is still fine, so I put it over to about 60 degrees, still maintaining altitude. The secret to making a good steep turn is keeping your eyes outside, keeping the nose up on the horizon, and making a quick glance, at most, to the altimeter.

Next stop is towards Ottawa, so Megan can see her apartment building from the air. It will have to be from a bit of a distance since she's inside the Ottawa control zone and I don't have a transponder code.

The Prime Minister's summer residence has a restricted airspace above it to 3500', so I climb to 3900' and head southwest towards the river.

Past the Gatineau Hills it is time to lose some altitude, as we want to fly down the river under the 1500' floor of Terminal's airspace. I brief my passengers that I'll reduce the power to idle, the nose will drop, and we will descend. Everyone is still good.

Partway through the descent (when still plenty high) I point out the VSI and our rate of descent. To get down faster, I tell them about a forward slip being basically plowing the aircraft somewhat sideways through the air, and again, if it feels too weird then say something. Full left rudder, a bit of right aileron to maintain direction, and we plow down through a thousand feet. Remove the slip, descend a bit more to 1300', apply power and fly over the river while the girls try to find Megan's building. Left turn short of the CZ and head east (keeping a sharp watch for traffic heading southeast over the Descehnes Quarry towards CYOW), climb to 1700', pass north of the casino, overhead procedure at CYRO and join the mid-left downwind for 09.

I'm stabilized on final, attitude is normal, flaps are extended, airspeed was about 65-70 knots, and through my headset I hear the stall horn start to sound. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Attitude is good, airspeed is good. Weird. But I put in a bit more power, adjust attitude to stay aimed at the numbers, and get rid of the horn.

Greased the landing, but just left of the centre line. Quick backtrack to Charlie and park the bird.

I discussed the sounding of the stall horn with two instructors after I entered the clubhouse. There was no obvious cause - my attitude and airspeed were good, there were no noticeable gusts... Later that evening I received a phone call - they had taken the plane for a later lesson, and there was a partially blocked static source.

Time: 1.0

Weather: SKC, 10003KT, +06C

Skills: Steep turns, forward slips, normal takeoff and landing

Need to improve:

Forgot the check the snags book before flying
Forgot to do the rolling instrument check when leaving the apron (I did it after the run up)
When doing my 360 check before taking the runway, my wing extended past the stop line.

Done well:

Steep turns
Forward slip
Checking with the passengers - making sure they were comfortable. I hope they felt they could speak up if they were uncomfortable.
Reaction to the stall horn. The stall horn was disagreeing with the other instruments, but the worst that would happen with a higher airspeed would be a longer float over the runway. The worst that would happen from ignoring it would be a stall-spin. Though it made no sense (according to the other instruments), I reacted correctly in adding a touch of power and eliminating the horn.

Second Passenger Flight

2010-03-12T23:02:00.005-05:00

Friday February 12 2010

So my passenger this time is Heather, a friend (and singing compatriot of my wife). Nancy can't get the time off work. Spousal units, kids and work all coordinated, we head to Rockcliffe.

Heeding advice and lessons learned from my last flight, this one was to be a simple flight to/from the practice area. Heather lives at the southern edge of the practice area, north of CYRP, and so that will be one of our destinations.

Weather was not as brutal as Nancy's flight, it was "only" -14C. Winds were 29008Kt, pretty much down the runways.

Normal take-off at Rockcliffe, pass north of the casino and fly along the Gatineau Hills in the 2000+ range. There was a cloud streamer dead ahead, so I reduced power and ducked under, flying at 1000' (or about 600-800' AGL). On the other side I climbed back up to 1400' (1000' AGL) and flew to Kinburn. From there, Heather, through a hit&miss method. figured out roads and bushes and whatever, and figured out where she lived - reminding me of my first flights in the same area where my instructor was pointing out different towns and roads.

Reduce speed to 70Kt, drop 20 degrees of flaps, and we did a few orbits around Heather's house while she took some pictures.

Off to Carp CYRP where I did a normal crosswind landing (winds about 30 degrees from the right). Well done.

Briefed and performed a short-field take-off, then climb up to 2500' and head back the Heather's for another orbit and more pictures.

Heather than practiced some straight&level flight east, towards Rockcliffe. After about 5 minutes of some pretty decent flight I took over, we headed home to Rockcliffe CYRO, culminating in a normal landing with (unfortunately) a bit of a thunk to the runway - they can't all be greasers.

Time: 1.3

Done well: Overall, this was a clean flight.

Flying with the one I love

2010-02-14T10:56:00.006-05:00

Nancy and I have been married 31 (and a bit) years - the first and only marriage for both of us. We met in the summer of 1976 at university, and married in 1979 at the start of Nancy's 4th year, which was mid-way through my final year.

I have a very patient wife - some might say that only a very patient person could stay married to me, especially for that long. The most recent test of her patience was watching the bank account drain as I worked through fulfilling my life-long dream of earning my pilot license. But it was my dream fulfillment, and she agreed to the commitment at the start of the journey, so she saw me through it.

The classic question, asked mid-way during 2009: "So, once you get this thing, what are you going to do with it?"

"Why, go flying of course - we are going to go flying."

Fast-forward to January 30 2010, when we scheduled our first flight.

It was appropriate that Nancy would be my first passenger. Technically the flight test examiner is the first passenger, though that designation is there primarily to make it clear that the Transport Canada examiner is not there in a role as a pilot or as an instructor and therefore the PIC is the examinee - all of which is there for liability limiting reasons. Maybe it would be best to call her my first passenger of choice.

And so discussions started. Where do we want to go? What do we want to see? How long do we want to fly? Is this going to be a breakfast flight to a destination, or a sight-seeing flight around the area?

I asked another pilot and instructor at the club, Tony Hunt, about airports within a decent distance that had decent food. Most of the restaurants are of the greasy-spoon variety, and breakfast flights are better in the summertime anyway.

So Nancy and I decided on a local sight-seeing flight, over familiar landmarks, not too long or complex, with lots of novelty.

As always, I had my own objectives for this first flight:

Make sure Nancy had an excellent experience. After all the investment of time and effort and money, I did not want this to culminate in one flight which freaked her out, and as a result we'd never fly together again. Smooth, simple, safe, well-explained and no-surprises would be the key criteria.

I wanted to fly with precision - holding altitudes, holding headings, final approaches which were stabilized early. In other words, make it look easy and build her confidence.

Build my confidence. Just as with any important event, nerves were going to be a factor for me. But I have a decent number of hours, I know how to fly an airplane, I can do this, so quit worrying about it and just go do it.

Flight planning was Friday night. The weather was going to be clear though frightfully cold, the winds were going to be minimal, the jet stream was not overhead, so it was looking like a day with great visibility and minimal or no turbulence.

Route selection was to be local. We live on the west end of Ottawa, and so the route was to be a loop on the northwest side. Once I calculated the total flight time I removed the final leg, there is such a thing as too-much, especially on her first long flight.

Saturday morning: Sky clear, winds were 300 light, temperature was -22C, 30.34". With a density altitude of -5026 feet, the C172 was going to climb like a homesick angel. The club's limitation was a minimum temperature of -25C. Definitely a day to wear layers, especially long underwear (which I wear for every winter flight anyway).

The selected route:

CYRO R27, clearing to the west. Fly alongside the Gatineau hills at 2200', providing Nancy with a nice view of the lookouts in Gatineau Park.

Turn southwest, fly over Constance Bay to Carp (CYRP). Point out the landforms and towns around CBay, Constance Lake, etc.

Descend from 2200' to 1400' over the town of Carp. Fly over the airfield to join the mid-left downwind to a stop&go. Carp is a quiet airport situated in farmland, so it has lots of airspace and not much traffic, a good place to practice circuits with no pressure. I wanted Nancy to see landings, since to an inexperienced passenger seeing the approaching ground get larger through the windscreen is usually one of the more stressful aspects of flying.

Backtrack R28. To highlight the performance of the aircraft (and to practice my skill), I briefed her on the short-field take-off technique. No obstacle-clearance required, since I didn't want to surprise her with the extreme nose-up attitude. She was impressed with how quickly we were airborne.

Climb straight-out to 1400', circle left to a southeast heading, clear CYRP frequency and talk to Ottawa Terminal, requesting 2000' over Stittsville (our town) then west to Carleton Place for sightseeing. Approved by terminal, I did an enroute climb.

Over Stittsville I pointed out a few landmarks, such as the neighbourhood school and the shopping plaza near our house. Nancy traced streets until she figured out where we lived. Pictures were taken.

Westbound to Carleton Place. Nancy had the map on her lap, and was correlating landmarks to the map (the world looks very different from even a bit of altitude).

Just west of Stittsville to floor of Terminal's airspace changes from 1500' to 2500', radar coverage terminated, and we switched to enroute 126.7. Nancy was relieved, since the radio traffic on Terminal's frequency was constant, and overwhelming her.

Highway 7 is being rebuilt to 4 lanes, between the 417 and Carleton Place, and so she was quite interested in trying to figure out the new routing.

Just short of CP I turned north, to track along the Mississippi River.

Almonte is a great little town (childhood home of James Naismith, inventor of basketball). Nancy didn't figure out which town it was until she cross-correlated with the map (and I pointed out the water tower with the big black letters on the side).

Just past Almonte the floor of CYOW's airspace rises from 2500' to 6500', so I climbed to 2800' in anticipation of over-flying Arnprior's airport.

Flew past Packenham, between the town and the ski hill.

Just east of Arnprior airport (CNP3) we turned northeast, entered the practice area and climbed to 3950' to maximize visibility of Gatineau Park. Told Nancy we were headed to Wakefield to see the covered bridge.

Pointed out Meech Lake under the right wing - a very long and narrow lake in Gatineau Park. We've taken the kids swimming there in previous summers.

Nancy asked where the covered bridge was located. I told her "look right over the nose", reduced throttle and pushed the nose down - and there it was.

Descended to 3000' in a slow descending sweeping turn to the right, so she could have a good look at Wakefield and at the bridge.

Flew over the Mont Cascades ski hill. Nancy wanted to have a look at the hill, so I told her to take the yoke and turn it slightly to the left, so we would not fly directly over the hill. Nancy redefined the word "gentle" in a gentle turn. Who knew a C172 would turn with 3 degrees of bank.

I took control, dropped the right wing a little so she could see the ski hill. "Oh, that's neat, there is a red helicopter taking off from the ski hill." This observation was made while looking almost straight down, so the heights were clearly not bothering her. We didn't hear any radio calls from the Medevac helicopter, but I made my position reports on frequency. I expect they have TCAS anyway.

Enroute descent to 1700' over the Chelsea dam, flying south down the east side of the Gatineau River. Casino and the Parliament buildings were straight ahead.

Pre-landing checks complete, landing briefing complete, descend to 1200' and join the straight-in left downwind for CYRO.

Normal landing R27.

Radio:

This was a busy flight. CYRO - practice area - CYRP- Ottawa Terminal - enroute - Arnprior CNP3 - practice area - CYRO.

Done well:

The crosswind landing at Carp CYRP was stunning. Told Nancy exactly what to expect, and I landed exactly on the centre line, no yaw, right wheel first, then the left wheel, and a greaser.

Turns were all gentle, 10-15 degrees of bank.

No surprises. If I was going to turn, climb, descend, drop a wing so she could have a better look, I remembered to always tell her first.

I had a flight plan filed for the route, with calculated times and headings. The only heading I used was Arnprior-Wakefield, the rest of the flight was flown via pilotage (ground landmarks). All the legs were too short to bother calculating ground speed, so I just noted my time at each turn and calculated a delta against my ETA (a minute early here, two minutes late there, ...).

I ballooned a bit on the final landing at Rockcliffe, but put in a little power and ultimately greased it. Nancy commented on the smooth landing, and didn't even notice the balloon until I mentioned it.

Lessons learned:

I did startle Nancy on the descents. Though I told her we were going to descend, over Carp and approaching Wakefield I reduced power to idle and the nose dipped down to the descent profile. She just didn't think it normal that you would "turn the engine off and the airplane would keep flying". Note to self - use gentle enroute descents where possible when flying new passengers. Otherwise, brief the passenger better.

The volume of radio traffic on the Terminal frequency was overwhelming for someone not used to typical radio traffic.

Overall, it was an excellent flight. Nancy enjoyed the eye-candy out the window. Flying over our house was an excellent idea. I did not frighten her. Her comfort grew as the flight moved along, and she was comfortable with looking straight down out the window. Same as being a passenger in the car, she likes to have a map on her lap.

Apparently, she believes I can fly safely. She'll come flying with me again.

It's great to do things as a couple.

Just a little behind.....

2010-02-14T10:45:00.003-05:00

I am behind on my blogging - I have about 32 flights between August 20th, and today. I'll do some catching up, likely through a summary posting. The objective of all those flights was to get up to snuff for the flight test - grinding out circuits, filling in some skill gaps, build instrument time and three cross-country flights.

Compounding all of this, I was heading towards the last three months of the year, when sunset seemed like it was at 4pm and the weather seemed like it was always crappy.

But I have my Private Pilot's License - I tried my flight test on December 22nd and had a severe case of test-itus, and the DFTE passed me on all but two items. I obtained the remedial instruction, did the supervisory check (my primary flight instructor is a Class 4 so he needed his recommendation supervised by a Class 1/2 instructor), I got weathered-out six times, and finally passed the two remaining items on a partial flight test on January 21st (the last day of the 30-day period to conduct the partial flight test). I'll summarize everything later.

But I am now a pilot.

Passenger Briefings

2009-11-15T19:05:00.003-05:00

I'm surprised at how little information is present in the usual student reference sources regarding the provision of passenger briefings.

I could not find anything in the AIM.

FTM has one paragraph, p.39:

Seat belts and shoulder harnesses,
Smoking limitations,
How the doors work,
What actions to take in the event of an emergency landing,
Location and use of emergency exits, the ELT, the fire extinguisher, the first aid kit, and any other emergency items that may be in the aircraft (survival kits, life vests, life rafts, etc).

FTGU has one line, on p.315

Brief passengers: door, seat belts, prop hazard, ELT.

The CARS has, of course, the definitive requirements. CARS 602.89:

Location and means of operation of normal and emergency exits,
Location and means of operation of seat belts, shoulder harnesses and restraint devices,
Position of seats, and securing of seat back and chair tables,
Stowage of carry-on baggage,
Use of oxygen, if flight is planned to an altitude where oxygen is required,
Any prohibition against smoking,
If an over-water flight, the location and use of flotation devices, before the over-water portion has commenced,
Location and use of first aid kits and survival equipment,
Location and use of the ELT.

And passenger briefings are detailed in one more spot - the flight test guide itself (TP13723E):

Use of seat belts,
The location and use of emergency exits (but regular exits are not mentioned),
ELT,
Fire extinguisher,
Passenger considerations for aircraft evacuation (which generally means "to the tail good, towards the engine bad"),
Action to take in the event of an emergency landing,
Smoking limitations,
Items specific to the airplane being used (the Diamond Eclipse had a pointy hammer which could be used to break the plastic canopy so it can be used as an emergency exit,
Other items for use in an emergency (first aid kit, life vests, etc).

Aircraft Documents

2009-11-15T12:49:00.006-05:00

To be legal for flight in Canada, the following documents are required on a powered aircraft in Canada:

A - certificate of Airworthiness
R - certificate of Registration
R - Radio station license (not required for flights solely within Canada)
O - pilot Operating handbook
W - Weight and balance calculation

J - Journey log
I - Insurance
L - personal Licences (license, medical, radio operator certificate)
I - Intercept procedures

Certificate of Airworthiness

See CARS 507, AIM LRA 2.0, FTGU Ch. 5

Is issued by Transport Canada, certifying that the original design is airworthy,
Is issued when the aircraft is built, or imported into the country,
Remains with the aircraft until the aircraft is exported or destroyed
An Annual Airworthiness Information Report must be filed with Transport Canada on/before the anniversary date of the CofA. A copy of the AAIR does not need to be kept on board, but failure to file the AAIR will automatically expire the CofA.

For the CofA to be in force, the aircraft has to be airworthy at the time of the flight:

Periodic inspections must be up to date (annual for private aircraft, every 50 hours for commercial),
Airworthiness Directives must be up to date,
Defects which affect airworthiness must be repaired, or signed off as "deferred" by an AME,
The aircraft must be operated in compliance with the POH and with regulations, meaning that all equipment required for the planned flight must be installed and functioning, the weight and balance must be within the limits specified in the CofA, required emergency equipment is installed.

Certificate of Registration

See CARS 222, AIM LRA 1.0

Is issued by Transport Canada and is valid for the life of the aircraft and must be carried on board (CARS 202.26), unless:

There is a change of owner, in which case the seller must complete and mail the postcard section of the CofR within 7 days. The buyer must complete the Application for Registration form on the CofR to apply for a new CofR, mail the white copy and keep the pink copy. The pink copy is the interim CofR, for a maximum of 3 months after the transfer or until the permanent CofR is received (or unless the aircraft is subsequently sold again).
There is a change of address, in which case the owner must notify TC by completing and mailing the postcard section of the CofR.
There is a change of purpose (private to commercial, or vice-versa).
There is a change of nationality. An aircraft can be registered in only one country at a time.
The aircraft is destroyed (notify Transport Canada).

Radio Station License

A Radio Station License is issued to an aircraft by Transport Canada. However, carrying this licence on board the aircraft is not required provided the flight is carried our solely within Canada. It must be carried on board for International flights.

Pilot Operating Handbook

See CARS 605.04

The POH not only must be on board, but it also must:

Be available to the flight crew members at their duty stations (e.g. as a pilot I need to be able to reach it when I need it in flight, as opposed to having it buried in baggage compartment),
It must have all the required supplements and amendments.

Weight and Balance

See CARS Standard 571 Appendix C

Each aircraft is weight after manufacture, and after each modification which could change the weight and balance. The W&B printed in the POH is the manufacturer's standard for the fleet. The current W&B for the specific aircraft is contained in the journey log, and all previous W&B reports must be marked as "Amended" (which is the pilot's trigger to go look for something more current).

A W&B report for the specific flight (e.g. one which includes the actual fuel, human and baggage load) must be calculated and carried on board. This document will prove that the aircraft is being operated in compliance with it's CofA.

Journey Log

See CARS 605.94, 605 Schedule 1

The CARS are very specific about the requirement for the Journey Log, what needs to be entered, and when it needs to be entered. There are specific provisions for continuity in the Journey Log (knowing that there are no missing logs).

See CARS 605.95

The Journey Log needs to be carried on board the aircraft except when it is planned that the aircraft will not land and shut down at another aerodrome.

Insurance

CARS 606.02 specifies how much liability insurance must be carried.

CARS 606.02 (9) states the the proof of insurance must be carried on board (unless it is a hot air balloon)

Personal Licenses (License, Medical, Radio Operator Certificate)

See CARS 401

"While acting as a member of a Flight Crew, the individual must be able to produce the appropriate permit, license or rating AND a valid and appropriate medical certificate." (CARS 401.03)

Pilot License

A pilot license in itself is not a time-limited document (though a student permit has a lifetime of 5 years). However, for the license to be valid the pilot also has to carry a valid medical certificate, and for the pilot to utilize the license (fly an aircraft) the individual has to meet the required recency and currency requirements (CARS 401.05).

Medical

Fixed-wing aeroplanes are operated on a pilot license under a Class 1 or Class 3 medical (pilot permits require only a class 4 medical). Medicals must be renewed every 6, 12, 24 or 60 months, depending on the permit, license or rating type, and the age of the individual - see CARS 404.04.

Radio Operator Certificate

If an individual will operate the aircraft radio, then the individual must be carrying a Radio Operator Certificate (which may be restricted to aviation operations). Radio Operator Certificates are issued by Industry Canada, not Transport Canada - they call it a "Restricted Operator Certificate with Aeronautical Qualification (ROC-A).

Intercept Orders

Not legally required to be carried on board, but a darn good idea in case an F-18 appears off your wing. A copy appears on the last pages of the CFS.

After another layoff

2009-11-03T09:42:00.004-05:00

2009/08/20

Another month of no flying - some family time, some vacation time, lots of work, and a bit of weather and suddenly it has been a month.

Today I had the aircraft booked for a dual cross-country to Kingston and Brockville, however the low cloud base precluded the cross-country trip. We flew circuits instead, exercising the landing gear.

Take-Offs:

I have no issues or problems with normal and short-field take-offs, with and without obstacles, and we reviewed them and performed them.
Crosswind takeoffs require a crosswind, which we did not have today,
I have performed soft-field takeoffs in the Diamond Eclipse, but from a hard surface the high performance of that aircraft meant you were well airborne before you knew it -- and so my soft-field takeoff was under-practiced.

For each circuit I performed a normal landing - no sense trying the "specialty" landings unless you have the normal landings working smoothly.

After a few circuits demonstrating and practicing the short-field and normal take-offs, the instructor hopped out and I proceeded to grind out circuits. I got in a few short-field take-offs, but the airport was getting busy so stop&go landings would be very disruptive, so I reverted to normal touch&go landings.

Time: 0.8 dual, 0.7 solo
Landings: 3 dual, 9 solo

Summary: Landings improved significantly after the practice.

Foggles

2009-11-03T09:31:00.003-05:00

2009/07/19

Today's objective was to get some in-aircraft instrument time, under the foggles.

Launch, and up to the practice area over Aylmer. I was under the foggles just north of the casino, just after we passed the Gatineau River (lots of southbound traffic from the practice area comes down the river, so it is a good thing to have two sets of non-distracted eyes outside the aircraft until we get past this point.

Exercises:

Flew eyes closed for about 4 minutes, using only my sense of balance and hearing to keep the aircraft straight and level. I surprisingly didn't go into a spiral dive or a descent, so the objective of the exercise did not work (it was supposed to teach me that human senses are entirely adequate for doing human things like walking or standing, but not adequate for operating non-human high-speed machinery). I had it easy - the air was absolutely smooth, and the aircraft was very well trimmed. However, I did manage to make an undetected 110 degree left turn, when I thought I was flying straight.
Under the foggles, did a number of climbs, descents, level turns, climbing and descending turns, and other basic aircraft movements.
Under the foggles, flew straight&level for 2-3 minutes, then did a shallow-banked 180-degree turn, then flew straight and level in the opposite direction. This is the standard procedure to follow when one has mistakenly flew into cloud, and is a flight test item.

Time: 1.0 Dual, 0.4 Instrument

Circuits

2009-11-03T09:18:00.002-05:00

2009/07/17

New type of aircraft, new airspace, right-hand circuits, a layoff from flight... all of them combine to make landings a bit dodgy. One of the first things to do is to grind out some circuits and get the approach much happier.

Started with a new instructor (ML, who was to become my primary instructor), and we went up for a demonstration, then I flew four circuits.

My original struggles in performing a landing (touching down on the centre of the runway, landing with yaw) have disappeared, hopefully to never return.

However, I found that I was allowing myself to get rushed on the circuit and final, and so that nice long stabilization period that I should be experiencing on final was instead consumed by getting the aircraft down, managing the speed, and lining up with the centre line.

I had talked to several instructors about their speed management in the circuit, when they reduce throttle, put out flaps, and so forth, and they all vary BUT they all start early.

Clearly that's the key, and that's what I need to incorporate.

After four circuits with the instructor, he hopped out and I flew another 5 circuits solo. Getting better.

Time: 0.9 dual, 0.5 solo.
Landings: 9

Summary: Just work on it. The landings are safe but rushed - they will improve once I get into the groove of getting most of the work done before the final approach.

Mind the Gap

2009-11-03T09:08:00.002-05:00

So my last post was July 15th, about flying activities on July 10th. Since then I have 21 entries in my logbook. Ooooops.

Quick status:

I'll get a short posting about each flight posted (members of my family follow this blog to understand what I have been up to),
I am very happy with Rockcliffe Flying Club, and have continued my training there,
I've flown five different C172 aircraft, as well as the simulator. Each aircraft is unique, either in their original configuration, or because of the variances in equipment and layout that have crept in over the years,
I have completed my solo cross-country hours. Flew the dual with my instructor to Kingston and an overflight of Brockville, then (on the seventh attempt, but that's another story) flew it solo with only a touch&go in Brockville. Subsequently flew the same circuit, again solo, adding the full stop in Brockville.
Wrote and passed the PPL written examination,
Spoke and passed the english proficiency test,
Am in the home stretch for the PPL flight test.

Posting to resume shortly, both as a summary of each flight (which will have to be short out of necessity), as well as the examination/skill items for the upcoming flight review and flight test.

Instrument Time

2009-07-15T00:07:00.003-04:00

2009/07/10

My instructor had some more time on Friday afternoon, so we booked the simulator, did the preparatory work for instrument flight and for unusual attitudes. I went home to study, eat, and do some domestic duties, then came back to the Club in the mid-afternoon.

Back to the Club at 3pm, and we did some instrument flying. It is a bit weird to be flying a dashboard with no tactile input (ears, balance, noise, or seat of the pants).

But the "flying" went reasonably well. We started with the tach and Attitude Indicator only, did some flying around, then added additional members of the six-pack to build up the scan.

Then I crashed. Turns out I had runaway trim because the trim rocker switch on the yoke had a 100% contact to set the trim nose-down. In a real airplane you could still fly but there would be significant muscular force involved. In the Sim the nose just kept going down, no matter what I did with the yoke. We turned off the electricity (which cost me the Turn Coordinator, and impacted the objectives of the lesson), but it killed the electric trim. The instructor set the trim to more-or-less the middle using the mouse and gave me control. More throttle nose-up, less throttle nose-down, so by changing power 100rpm at a time I could get back into straight&level trimmed flight, which was a good enough starting point for all the manoeuvres I was doing.

Instrument Simulated: 0.6
Landings: 1

Done well:

The scanning methods taught in the Flight Training Manual work very well.... I followed them in the Sim and had little difficulty.

Needs Improvement:

Lesson was too short to come to any conclusions here.

I suspect my Flight Simulator days will be of future use, but it is yet to be determined if the FS time will be of practical use beyond the introductory level.

Next Lessons (all are subject to the Wx Gods):

Next Friday: Cross-country dual
Next Saturday: Dual instrument time, hopefully some crosswinds
Next Sunday: Cross-country solo

Language Proficiency

2009-07-11T15:26:00.003-04:00

2009/07/10

As a result of an ICAO requirement, pilots must now demonstrate English language proficiency. I think proficiency solely in another language (e.g. French, or Spanish, or whatever) is also acceptable but you restrict where you can fly. English is the universal language of aviation, and if you have English you can fly anywhere.

You might not be able to get a job at Air Canada if you don't have French, but you can fly the planes. But that's another rant.

It's a 20-minute exercise, over the phone, and while the context of the discussion is aviation, it is not required that you give a sensible aviation answer to the discussion.

Painless. Completed. On the assumption that I passed (the examiner is not permitted to inform you of your results), I should get that certificate in the mail from Transport Canada within 3 weeks.

Second First Solo

2009-07-11T10:56:00.004-04:00

2009/07/10

Bright and clear this morning, virtually no wind, very little cloud, and 1.5 hours booked on the airplane. Today's objective is to work on landings - and if all is OK, fly solo in preparation for next week's cross-country solo.

Preflight, load up, taxi out, and try a short-field take-off. Did well getting off the ground and a lower speed, but we accelerated quite nicely and didn't stay in ground effect for the acceleration. I need to go through the motions even if the aircraft wants to go flying.

My airspeed on the climb-outs is still not quite stable - I need to pick an outside attitude and hold it, rather than chase the airspeed needle.

First landing OK but a bit long - the source of the problem is that I'm not getting slow quickly enough at the end of the downwind leg, which causes me to be high during base, and I just keep catching up throughout the circuit until I finally get it down on the ground.

We did a stop&go, backtracked, and I had the instructor demonstrate a short-field take-off. Yep, I'm doing the short-field the same as he does, I thought it was OK, now it is confirmed.

Flaps up, full power, carb heat in, rotate, and fly.

Mid-left downwind the instructor pulled the power and said "simulated engine fire". This is a from-memory checklist:

Mixture to idle-cut-off (simulated, of course - touch the control but don't actually turn the engine off)
Fuel selector off
Master electrical off (but leave it on since this is simulated, and we need to communicate)
Cabin heat and air off, leave overhead vents on
Airspeed 100 kts to extinguish the fire. If not extinguished increase speed until it is out.
Conduct a forced landing

By this point we were past the mid-left downwind, and ready to do a forced landing:

Declare where you're going to land (the runway)
Point the aircraft at the landing point
Maintain straight and level flight, and slow to best glide speed (65kt in the C172 with no flaps)
Communicate (radio intentions to traffic)
Forward slip to get down, including a turn to runway heading. I could put in flaps, but it takes a while to deploy them, and more importantly, it takes a while to retract them - but a forward slip can be taken out very quickly if we need to preserve altitude to make the runway.
On short final I put in 20 degrees of flaps, and did a pretty good landing just past the numbers.

Full power, carb heat off, flaps up, rotate, fly away.

On the third circuit I pulled the power from 2300rpm to 1700rpm earlier, rather from 2300rpm to 1500rpm later. Maintaining altitude by progressive nose-up and adding in 20 degrees of flaps, all on the latter stages of the downwind, meant I was starting to descend at my target airspeed as I turned to base. Reducing the power to idle on base, and starting the turn to final earlier (so it would be a nice gently-banked turn), meant I was in a much better setup during short final. Remember to keep the nose down to maintain airspeed, add a touch of power for distance, eyes to the end of the runway to get a better perspective for the flare and for yaw control, and the landing was much much better.

The instructor told me to exit at Bravo, he hopped out, and I flew two circuits solo. Both landings were quite good, though the second final approach was a bit low. My first solo was October 5 2008 in the Eclipse, this was my second "first solo", this time in the Cessna 172.

Next steps: Instrument instruction, in preparation for the cross-country solo. I've booked two 4-hour flights, next Friday (for dual cross-country) and next Sunday (for solo cross-country)

Dual flight: 0.3
Dual landings: 3 (1 forced)
Solo flight: 0.3
Solo landings: 2

S S S S S Stuff

2009-07-09T23:01:00.004-04:00

2009/07/09

Third lesson in three days - I'm loving it. Today's weather was sunny with a large number of Cumulus clouds and a high ceiling - the glider pilots were loving it as well.

The aircraft was back a little late, so RK and I briefed Emergency Procedures. I'm doing the emergency procedures OK, my approach to the procedures is logical and reasonable, but not exactly what the manufacturer has prescribed. Time for some more study.

Preflight was very thorough, since we were going to be doing utility-grade work today. Taxi, checklists, and a normal take-off all went well. We flew up to the practice area, staked out an area between Meech Lake and the Gatineau River, and started the upper-air work. Most of these activities I had not performed since the fall of 2006, so while I knew what I needed to do, I was apprehensive.

Stalls:

Several power-off stalls (the C172 is very gentle in a stall). I recovered at the first sign of a stall, rather than seeing if we could get a good clean break&drop.
Power-on stalls. The aircraft breaks a little harsher, but recovery is routine.
Climbing turning full-power stalls - I've not seen one before. These are really interesting - one second you're climbing to the left in a very nose-up attitude, and the next second you've tumbled down to the right. This was demonstrated only, I didn't recover one myself (time constraint). Must do that someday.

Spins

My last spin was in October 2006, so I had RK demonstrate spin entry and recovery. We lost 1,000 of altitude in the spin.
I tried twice to put the C172 into a spin, but was too cautious in kicking it in, or we were not quite stalled enough when I tried the entry, and achieved two spiral dives - which I recovered easily.

Spiral Dives

RK put the aircraft into a few spiral dives, which I recovered correctly and readily (in addition to the failed spin attempts).
As a quick demonstration, RK put the airplane into a steep spiral dive and recovered. It felt like we were going to launch a torpedo attack on an aircraft carrier. Impressive. And what I am likely to see on my flight test.

And I put in a few forward slips on the way home, to lose the required altitude when leaving the practice area. Still not slick.

RK quizzed emergency procedures as I made radio calls, scanned for traffic, switched from the practice area to the aerodrome frequency. Nothing like keeping your mind busy.

Circuit good, final approach good, and the touchdown was the best yet.

Overall, I was very pleased with today's lesson. We reviewed a lot of items, I handled all of them (except entering a spin) well. Good enough to move along. I'd like to go back and review all items again, sometime in the near future, just for the practice. I was apprehensive and now feel comfortable, however, I would appreciate some additional practice.

Dual: 1.1
Landings: 1

Circuits, Forced Landings

2009-07-09T22:50:00.003-04:00

2009/07/08

Yes, this is my third lesson in three days. I'm on holiday, and I want to get the rust off in a hurry. Frequent lessons are so much better than once-every-week-or-two. Retention is much better, and improvements are readily visible.

Another low-ceiling marginal weather day. First time with Instructor RK.

Preflight, taxi (good), checklist (no missed items), and a short-field takeoff from 09.

I received some really good instruction on getting to different items earlier, some mental flows around the cockpit during high-activity periods (after-takeoff checklist, for example).

We did nothing but circuits, trying different flap combinations, throttle, starting earlier or later on items.

On one circuit, just as I was about to turn from downwind to base (the furthest point from the runway), the instructor pulled the throttle and declared that we had an engine fire. Gaaaaack. I stumbled through the mental checklist while I more-or-less made a beeline in the general direction of the runway. I need to aim for the numbers, and I need to know the Emergency Checklists crisply and by heart.

Overall, a big improvement in the final approach, and the circuits. Flare and landing is sort-of OK, but not yet smooth.

Dual: 0.8
Landings: 5

Q & A & Precautionaries & Diversions

2009-07-09T22:33:00.003-04:00

2009/07/07

Another marginal weather day. We had hoped to do some upper-air work, but low ceilings meant low-altitude work. Precautionary landings are 1,000 and 500 feet AGL, so they were today's agenda.

I started with 10 minutes of questions, regarding techniques and suggestions that were not clear from the previous two flights. We briefed precautionary landings, and I headed to the apron.

Preflight is getting faster, taxi is smoother, and I was absolutely determined to not miss that same item on the checklist.

Take-off on 09, and rotation was at the correct speed. Just to do something different, I did a short-field takeoff.

Cleared to the west, we went and found a field in the practice area and performed a precautionary approach, aborting the landing at 500 feet AGL. I got most of the steps correct, but it didn't flow. Nothing that some study won't fix.

There was a good-sized rain-shower between ourselves and Rockcliffe, and no GPS in the aircraft, so SH called for a diversion to Rockcliffe. Out with the map, circle-circle-line etc, and I chose a course of 110 degrees and estimated 18nm, or 12 minutes. I still need to go back to the map with the protractor and ruler, and see if my estimates were accurate - they were close.

As we got to within 3-4 miles of the airport the rain shower was no longer between ourselves and the airport, we turned left 20 degrees so we would not fly over the Governor-General's house (even though we had enough altitude to clear the restricted airspace), and came in and landed on 27 (runway change while we were gone.

Done well:

Checklists, taxi, short-field takeoff, climbs, descents, turns, level flight.

Done, but dodgy:

Precautionary landing. The briefing was good, the airborne execution was so-so. I absolutely need to do better.

Getting better

Landing. Angle of bank is now consistently less than 20 degrees, but I'm starting the turns too late. Ground proximity judgement is improving.

Dual: 1.3
Landings: 1

Not Pretty, but Safe

2009-07-09T22:13:00.002-04:00

2009/07/02

Thursday's weather sucked. Low clouds, very broken so it could be raining one minute and sunny the next, intermittent rain showers, poor visibility. As a low-time student, this is weather I would not fly solo in. However, with the IFR-certified CFI in the right seat, in a capable airplane, with a GPS - no problem.

The lesson started with a quick discussion sitting on a bench in the sunshine. We'll go up, find out what we have to work with, and adapt from there. What a relaxing way to start a lesson!!!

Taxi was less wandering but not yet pretty. I missed the same item on the checklist during the run-up. Not much better at getting the nose wheel up at the rotation speed, but getting used to the C172 yoke being much heavier than the Eclipse's stick. Suggestion was to put in a bit more nose-up trim to assist in taking the weight off.

Takeoff on 09, climb out on the circuit, fly the downwind leg at 1,000 feet AGL, and then cleared to the west. We climbed up to around 2,000 feet, dodged a few clouds, flew through some rain, and decided that we were not going to be doing any upper-air work today.

We diverted to Gatineau ()the GPS made it easier to find), and performed three touch&go circuits using different flap combinations, exploring different speeds, and getting generally oriented to the handling of the aircraft.

Back to Rockcliffe, land, fuel, park.

His summary: "Not pretty, but safe". We'll keep working through to the cross-country.

My summary: Like last flight, my head was behind the aircraft most of the time. I could work on the important skills (attitude, speed, checklists, communications), but periodically forgot&caught certain steps. The landings were all on the mains, but not well timed. The circuit wasn't at 90 degree turns. Just banging around the sky, close, but not right. Overall, I know what I'm supposed to be doing, just not doing it very well.

Dual: 1.3
Landings: 4

Canada Day Celebrations - July 1

2009-07-09T21:59:00.002-04:00

One of the attractions of flying from a club is the social aspect. Rockcliffe Flying Club is co-located with the Canadian Aviation Museum, and on every July 1 all the national museums are free entry. So a crowd of several thousand show up at the museum, and quite a few planes fly in for breakfast and a tour.

So Nancy (wife) and I spent most of the day at the Club. Nancy served breakfast from 9-11, we both did the clean-up from 11-1230. The airport was closed for a radio-controlled flight demonstration, and then the Snowbirds (Canadian Air Force demonstration team) did their airshow over Parliament Hill, then they did a turn or three over the field. Afterwards, the Snowbird pilots (and astronaut Chris Hadfield) came into the museum for autographs.

Nancy and I walked through the museum, then Nancy had a sightseeing tour - her first flight in a small aircraft.

Nancy went home for the afternoon, while I stayed at the field and marshaled the four aircraft that were giving sightseeing tours (three C172's belonging to the club, plus a Waco biplane). Overall, a great day for socializing and meeting people, looking at airplanes. And flying.

RFC Flight 1

2009-07-07T22:54:00.004-04:00

2009-06-30

I was scheduled to take my first two flights with the CFI, as an assessment of where to put me into the "curriculum". Tomorrow is Canada Day, with a fly-in, breakfast, the SnowBirds fly-by, airplane rides and much more, so there were many too many last-minute details. A different instructor, SH, substituted.

We started with a briefing, especially managing the landing circuit (when to reduce throttle, drop flaps, etc). I was well-prepared with the V-speeds for RFC's aircraft, had reviewed the checklists and emergency procedures from the RFC website, and I have manuals from two other (different year, different model) C172s so I had a general awareness of the aircraft characteristics.

The pre-flight took the better part of a half hour, as I poked, prodded, looked into all the nooks and crevices, understood the inter-relationships of the different systems, and so forth.

The checklist has a section where different combinations of carb heat and throttle are used, to ensure the engine is not going to stall on a certain combination. I skipped a step, which was caught.

Taxi with a steerable nosewheel is again different. Being used to a castoring nosewheel I was not at all hesitant about punching the rudder to gain directional control, which is much more effective with a semi-steerable nosewheel. Once again, we meandered down the apron and taxiway like a drunken sailor as I over-controlled my way down the taxiway. Shades of the summer of 2006.

Takeoff was on 09, so we did the run-up at the start of taxiway C. Positioning was OK, checklists were slower to process due to unfamiliarity.

On the takeoff roll I found the elevators to be very heavy - we stayed on the nosewheel too long and rotated 15nmph late. Takeoff was fine, as was the climb out. We proceeded to the practice area east of the Gatineau River.

The air lesson was on the fundamental manoeuvres, including straight & level flight, turns to a heading, climbs, descents, climbing turns, descending turns. We spent quite a bit of time in 45-degree steep turns, I initially had difficulty maintaining altitude but eventually got working. The turns sometimes approached 60 degrees of bank, so I need to work on the smoothness. I spent quite a bit of time trying to keep my eyes outside, getting re-acquainted with the over-the-dashboard view from a different aircraft.

In preparation for the landing we spent some time getting used to slow flight - getting the flaps out, and handling the aircraft in a mushy and nose-up attitude.

Flew the approach into Rockcliffe, landing was with 20 degrees of flaps. Not pretty, but not too bad. No yaw, the flare was not a last-second panic but it wasn't a smooth flowing transition.

Filled the tanks, and pushed the aircraft to the parking spot.

Need to work on:

Flow with the checklists
Keeping my head ahead of the aircraft - I felt like I was struggling to keep up for most of the flight
Carb heat - the Eclipse was fuel injected and so carb heat is a new control I need to manage

Did well:

I can fly an airplane. After the layoff and with my low time I am quite rusty, and sometimes I need to think through things to figure out what I am doing... but I fundamentally have a clue.

Time: 1.2 Dual
Landings: 1
First flight in C172.

If all the instructors at RFC are cut from the same cloth as SH, I am going to have a very enjoyable time here. I have a very positive reaction to his laid-back, mellow, observant-as-a-hawk, teaching style.

Membership

2009-07-02T10:05:00.002-04:00

I pinged Tony, another blogging pilot from the Ottawa area, and he was very generous with his time as he discussed the flying community in Ottawa, and Rockcliffe Flying Club in particular. He's an instructor at RFC and so not totally impartial, but he's happy there. And after the discussion, for balanced and good reasons. Again, the social atmosphere kept coming through in the conversation.

I made an appointment with the CFI at Rockcliffe. After a discussion about the Club values, operating model, instructor pool, fleet, and more, I made the decision and joined.

My only concern is the limited size of the fleet, as they lost two aircraft to a tornado that went through earlier this year.

My PTR is in the rack.

As a bonus, I saw a yellow Husky parked on the apron, so I searched out Tony Hunt, a sometimes-follower of this blog, and a part-time instructor at RFC. We've emailed, blogged, and chatted on the phone, and this was the first face-to-face meeting. He loves to fly, so he offered (and I eagerly accepted) a spin in his Husky. We put 0.8 on the Hobbs up to the practice area and back, as he showed off his pride&joy.

Picking up the PTR

2009-06-12T10:34:00.004-04:00

The Pilot Training Record is the document that has to be maintained as a student pilot - it records every flight, what you did on every flight, where you went, what you flew -- everything.

It belongs to the student, not the flying club or school. Alas, when you apply for your "real" license then it is sent in to Transport Canada, never to be seen again.

This morning, after dropping off my wife at the airport for her week-long vacation, I stopped in at the flying school and picked up my PTR. I'm changing schools. I had a brief chat with the Assistant CFI over the service counter, discussing the reasons. But ultimately, it comes down to the fact that I am going to commit a lot of time and money to finishing my PPL, and I am going to be happy doing it. And I didn't think I was going to be happy here.

My reasons:

They do not have an online booking system. I expect a web-based booking system, which is much faster when it comes to being opportunistic about making last-minute bookings. And I have had inconsistent results with them answering the phone, and even worse results in returning messages, so the absence of an online system is even more problematic.
They fly the Katana - which is a great little aircraft, easy to handle, but the useful load is minimal. With two adults (one of which is me!) and a full tank of gas, we're over-weight.
It will be more expensive - a good slice of the flying time is spent getting from the airfield to the practice area. It's a 20-minute flight (at least), not a 5-minute hop. And the Katana flies slowly because of the low power output of the engine.
The atmosphere - they are a business, operating on the GA apron at a major airport. The atmosphere is a bit sterile. I'm after a rather an additional factor, a casual, social, relaxed dimension to the environment, which a club-style organization can provide. In addition, I need to get my wife engaged in flying (starting with the social dimension), which I can get at Rockcliffe.
I was really pleased with my first lesson (with the ACFI) - we got along well, he's quit a cheerful guy, and in addition to being a good pilot he is also a good instructor. My second lesson - not so jolly.

So I picked up the PTR, and I'm switching. I'll write a thank-you email to the CFI, describing my reasons for changing.

Time to phone Rockcliffe.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquistion

2009-06-05T20:16:00.002-04:00

Date: Saturday May 30
Time: 1.5 Dual
Landings: 1

I showed up at the flight school 20 minutes before my lesson, my instructor was not there. I picked up the bag for the aircraft and went out and did the preflight. After one visit, I learned that checking the oil on the Rotax engine is a pain - it has a dry sump so you need to hand-prop the engine to pump out the oil which has seeped into the sump and then check the oil level. It was, of course, low so I asked a ramper to fill the oil (nobody but staff is supposed to add oil), and went inside and waited for my instructor.

At 2 minutes to lesson the instructor breezes in, introduces himself, and we go sit down and he proceeds to give me an inquisition for an hour, checking me on all the Gate 4 items. Ummmmm, OK. I wasn't expecting this, and because I download and read manuals I could handle more questions than I expected. But how much oil does the engine hold? Coolant? Hell, I dunno -- but I should (the answer is between 3.2 and 3.4 US quarts). I knew all of the v-speeds cold. I discovered I was rusty on other things I should know, such as aircraft documents.

Because the Katana is low-powered and very different from the Eclipse, or because this instructor insists on molding everyone to his way of doing things, he got quite pedantic about the exact right way to do everything. I believe it was well-intentioned (to get me up to a level-4 crispness), but no context was provided by either this instructor or by the previous one. Hence the title for this posting.

We went outside, did a pre-flight, pointed at all the parts and asked dozens of questions. There are five holes on the front of the Katana, which let in air for the oil cooler, coolant cooler (for the cylinder heads), cooling air for the cylinders, air to the carbs, and a little one-inch hole which lets in cooling air for the generator. Plus two more on each side, for the air vents for the human cargo.

We loaded up, worked the checklist, worked the radios, and went flying.

The Katana flies like a pregnant goose. We were getting maybe 300-400fpm, and we were climbing to 3,000'. ATC was patient.

My altitude holding sucked. The feedback from the elevator to the stick was minimal, so you need to watch the attitude and the altimeter like a hawk to maintain constant altitude, and setting the trim was guesswork.

My confidence sucked. The inquisition took it out of me.

The only specific exercise we flew was steep turns, 45 degrees of bank while maintaining altitude. In this aircraft you need to do it right, because if you lose 200 feet of altitude it took forever to get it back, and an eternity to get it back if banked at 45 degrees.

The practice area was stupid busy - there must have been 5-6 aircraft in there, and most of us were doing upper-air work. More distractions.

Finally we started flying home, doing a descending 360 degree turn down to 2,000 ft and flying under the area where another aircraft was practicing. Flying west over the river we coordinated with another aircraft who was headed north, and another aircraft from the same school came barrelling through with no radio calls.

We reconnected with Ottawa Terminal then Tower, flew a right base, and landed. My landing sucked - no bounces etc, but I didn't maintain airspeed through final approach. And I succombed to the desire to put in right yaw.

There was no post-flight debriefing. My instructor said I did well (huh?), and then set about chewing a new one for the pilot that came barrelling through unannounced.

While all of the actions of this school are well-intentioned - and I can see how they would be effective - the packging leaves something to be desired.

The other factor is that the Katana just doesn't have much MTOW (1609 pounds), and it is easily at maximum weight, or over, with two adult males aboard.

I left. I'm not sure I'll go back.

In all, the lesson was worthwhile. I learned that I need to pick up my game. I am admittedly rusty in my flying technique, and switching aircraft has been a learning experience. I have been doing lots of reading in the past 4 months. But if I want to be a pilot, I need a lot more crispness.

Appointment at RFC

2009-06-05T13:46:00.003-04:00

I went flying again last Saturday... I'm not sure if I liked it or not (different instructor, different technique). I definitely learned that I am rusty on my finer techniques and that I will have to pick up my game.

However, I am also not the little lithe guy I was in my early teenage years, and so weight is a concern when flying the Katana especially with another (male) instructor and a full tank of gas.

So, I have an appointment with the CFI over at Rockland Flying Club at 3:30 this afternoon. Aside from flying different aircraft (172's and 152's), they are a club rather than a business, and so there apparently is a different culture around the place.

I don't know if I am going to switch, or not -- but my mind is open.

Back in the Saddle

2009-05-19T19:08:00.003-04:00

Date: Wednesday May 13
Dual: 1.1
Landings: 3

After not flying since January, on Tuesday I had enough of the absence. Time to get back at it.

So I phoned one of the local flying schools and booked a flight. I chose Ottawa Aviation Services, primarily because they fly the Katana, and I am so close to PPL that I did not want a drastic change of aircraft from the Eclipse. One of my instructors went to OAS, and others have had good words to say. I'll get my Cessna type-certification later.

This was a flight with several firsts:

First time flying an aircraft other than an Eclipse,
First time flying in a control zone (CZ),
First time flying to/from CYOW,
First time flying without a GPS,
First time flying with OSA,
First time flying with a carburetor instead of fuel injection,
First time flying an aircraft with a constant-speed propeller,
First time flying in 4 months.

Original plan for the flight was to depart Ottawa, fly to the practice area, do some upper air work, return. Along the way we decided to divert to CYRP to do some T&G, as I was still thinking about whether I want to fly this aircraft.

Flying went fine. W&B was done (we were at the max weight). Pre-flight was straight-forward. Checking the oil in a Rotax engine is a PITA, since you need to hand-rotate the prop to pump out the dry sump, to get an accurate reading on the dipstick. There is also coolant to check.

Phoned FSS to get a transponder code (they answered on the second ring), new checklist so I needed to be very methodical and not allow the checklist get corrupted by my memory, engine start was clean, taxi was easy. I had to think carefully about each radio call before making it, and stumbled the phonetic alphabet. I certainly didn't pick up the information from the controllers quickly. I also need to get a notebook and create some quick-reference sheets - the whole dynamic of receiving instructions from ATC is new, I will forget them. It was tough enough to be listening to every message to key on our call sign.

We briefed our departure. Rotate is 51kt in the Katana (Eclipse was 44). After take-off we turn right 30 degrees and increase pitch to drop the engine RPMs, because some folks who live at the end of the runway don't like the noise.

Over Bell's Corners we banked and headed north towards Constance Lake, then turned west and flew the approach into CYRP. The first time I landed the Katana I wanted it to be at a quiet airport. Good stabilized approach, decent rotation but I got the nose a little bit high (I wonder if it is because the engine is lighter, or because it is a lighter aircraft and so the control surfaces are more effective. Or if I am just rusty). Anyway, we ballooned, so I added a touch of power and got it on the ground. Not pretty, but not ugly.

Hit the throttle, retracted the flaps, got airborne and took a lap.

On the second approach I was high, so I carefully put in a forward slip (it has been 4 months, and we were low and slow - not a good place to stall), kept the speed at 60kt, straightened out at about 200 feet. Landing was OK except that I had to be reminded to remove the yaw - which I kicked out as we settled.

Throttle forward, flaps to take-off, get airborne, swing south, get ATIS, switch to Ottawa Terminal and say hello.

Orienting myself to CYOW from the air was different. I had only seen that airport from the ground as a passenger.

Final landing was not smooth, but I had the yaw corrected and I was doing fundamentally the right things.

Afterwards, we reviewed the OAS syllabus, determined where I would restart, and did the paperwork.

Now I need to book some vacation time, and get this thing finished.

Bad Connections

2009-02-28T16:24:00.003-05:00

Last week I spent a few days in Minneapolis, flying Ottawa-Philadelphia-Minneapolis there, and scheduled for the same routing to come home.

Wednesday I left the house late, since the pilot light on the furnace had gone out (scurry around and relight it), and then traffic sucked to the airport, and I missed the cutoff. Full marks to the agent at check-in for switching me to alternate flights and choosing to waive the change fee and difference in the ticket prices. With the resulting bad connections and wait for the first flight, it was 16 hours from leaving home to arriving at my hotel.

Friday, coming home, Philadelphia was in flow-control mode due to weather, resulting in a guaranteed missed connection in PHL US Air initiated re-booking of all the connecting passengers on alternate flights and airlines. The gate agent mistakenly put me on MSP-ORD-YUL (Montreal), and by the time I got back to the agent and got rescheduled on MSP-YYZ-YOW my baggage had efficiently been put on the now-departed United flight to Chicago.

From the time I arrived at the airport, to the time I got home, was 11 hours. My baggage is in one of MSP, ORD, PHL, YUL or YYZ but not YOW. My money is on ORD.

Complaints about US Air? No, I like flying them except that their schedule to Ottawa is not frequent enough. The cabin crew are great, the planes are new, the gate agents are helpful (though a bit-fat-fingered when rescheduling me). It would be great if their lounge had free drinks and food like Air Canada does.

But sheesh, let me get out the maps. For the price of the plane ticket (I booked this business trip on short notice) and for the length of time it took to get there, it would have been cheaper and faster in a Cessna.

I am re-motivated.

Philadelphia

2009-02-25T16:44:00.004-05:00

Posted from the US Air Club Lounge, Philadelphia

"I once spent a year in Philadelphia, I think it was on a Sunday." W.C. Fields

So I am stuck in the Philadelphia airport with a six-hour layover between flights.

It started when I got up this morning and the house seemed quite cold, so I checked the thermostat and it was displaying 12C. Not right. Checked the pilot light on the furnace, managed to get it re-lit, and then high-tailed it to the airport for this business trip.

Traffic was not pretty because I was a bit later than I wanted to be. And the net-net was that I got to the US Air counter 50 minutes before my flight, well after their requested 90 minutes. The agent phoned the gate, the gate said the flight was closed, and so we went to work to get me on a later flight.

No sense being abrasive (like I'm going to talk someone out of this?), so I just took my lumps and admitted fault. She put me on a later flight, and did not charge the difference in ticket prices or the at-airport change fee.

After the re-ticketing, and after clearing security (security for US destinations is as much of a theatre in Ottawa as it is in the USA), and after clearing US Customs & Immigration, I made it down to the boarding area - and they were doing the first boarding on the flight. Oh well.

And my stay in Philadelphia is six hours. It was a rotten connection between flights before, now it is a really rotten connection.

Oh well, they have a bar and a desk, so I am good. Though Air Canada lounges have free (albeit limited) food and a free bar.

Though I was musing that - for the price of this ticket and the time it will take me each way (the return flight has a better connection) - I could have rented a Cessna and got there in less time and money, weather permitting.

Except that I don't have my PPL yet.

And except that the weather on Friday is going to truly suck.

Getting the itch

2009-02-22T17:06:00.002-05:00

I haven't flown since the diversions practice in early January. A combination of the school choosing to close, the poor weather on the weekends, early sunset on weekdays, and a huge business travel schedule (I've been on the road each week for the last 4 weeks, and will be traveling again this coming week) has precluded more lessons.

I've been filling up the time by studying for my PPL Transport Canada examination, so I have not been idle - but I have not been flying.

Tomorrow (February 23rd) is the 100th anniversary of heavier-than-air flight in Canada. My goal was to have my PPL by tomorrow, a goal for which I was on-track and likely would have achieved - except for the weather and the flight school.

Oh well - any time you over-rush things in aviation you increase the chances for a Bad Result. I still have my goal, only the timing has been deferred.

On the upside, there are rumours that one of the other schools in the Ottawa area is going to open a satellite operation at CYRP. That will make things logistically easier, but I am still going back to first principles in deciding the next steps.

In the meantime, I study and dream.

I need a new Flying School

2009-01-18T10:38:00.002-05:00

Yesterday's email:

To All,

I am very sad that I have to announce that Carp Flying Academy Inc. is
ceasing operations immediately due to a number of factors. Business and economic
factors as well as weather have all contributed to this very difficult
decision.

I want to thank everyone for their patronage over the last three
years.

I can be reached at jenny.putinski@gmail.com to answer any questions you
may have.

For the students, your PTR's will be still be available in the FBO during
weekday hours.

Thank you,
Jennifer E. Putinski

Drat. I liked flying with them. Jenny's husband used to coach one of my daughters in soccer. These are real people, who cared about their business and their customers. They had Christmas potluck dinners in the hangar. I never worried about the maintenance or safety of the aircraft, and they didn't pull any surprises on me.

But the short days (early sunset) in November, December and January precludes most people from flying after work. Anyone available to fly during the day is either not working or retired, which usually means "not flush with cash". And the weather this year in December has been brutal, with non-VFR conditions on many days and, most importantly, many weekends. In aviation the expenses continue even if the income doesn't. It's a business where fuel is the major variable expense and the one that decreases if you don't fly.... but debt costs, salary, insurance, rent etc all continue even if the birds are not flying and generating revenue.

To Jenny and all the people I met and flew with at CFA: Thank you. May you rebound elsewhere. Tailwinds and clear skies.

And I need to go find a new place to fly.

Water Landing

2009-01-17T10:36:00.004-05:00

The mystique of "Those Magnificent Flying Machines" is well-preserved. Only a few select people have a license to fly an aircraft, and fewer still get paid to do it. The idea of jet-setting all over the world isn't thought of as "living out of a suitcase, always away from home", but as "constantly visiting exotic locales". And most people have no idea how a huge vehicle weighing hundreds of thousands of pounds can fly through the sky, making the entire business even more magical.

And when something goes wrong, like a double-engine failure over a major city resulting in a water landing, and everyone lives to talk about it, it is major news.

I'm a student pilot, at the post-solo, pre-license stage. I have a wife. My wife is (fortunately) worried about my safety, as she recognizes that any activity increases risk to life and limb.

And so I got The Interrogation this morning. My wife is very talented, and I am very verbose, so all she needs to say is "So what do you think about this water landing?" Thanks for the invitation, here you are....

Engine-out flying is no big deal. From early in a pilot's training, we are taught to fly engine-out forced landings. Every glider pilot flies without an engine. Most landings, I have the engine at idle.

Planning a forced landing is, again, a basic training activity. Within gliding range, find a "suitable" landing area. Effectively, suitable means least-worst. If you are within gliding range of an airstrip then you have access to a very good alternative - in fact, landing on a runway is such an attractive alternative that part of our training is to land straight ahead if the engine fails shortly after takeoff, as you have neither enough kinetic energy (speed) or potential energy (height above ground) to execute a 180 degree turn and get back to the runway. Glider pilots have a different attitude to an off-field landing. A power pilot thinks of a off-field landing as an emergency, while a glider pilot considers it an opportunity to go make friends with a farmer.

This landing will likely change the attitudes about on-water landings, and I'm not sure this is a good thing. Landing on water is routine for float planes, of course, but they are built for it, and they meet the water at a very low angle of incidence - the same angle as wheels on a runway. As Swissair 111 unfortunately demonstrated, when you meet the water at a high angle of attack and at high speed, hitting water is like hitting concrete. At a low angle of incidence, you bounce (ask a water-skier). The picture on the seat-back cards, showing a plane floating in the water tail-down while everyone makes an orderly exit through the front doors is the desirable, but extremely unlikely, outcome. An airplane with fixed or extended landing gear will have the gear dig in, the sudden drag will likely flip you over, and the sudden whip-lash is likely more stress than the aircraft can handle. The Really Big Risk for an aircraft with under-wing engines is that one engine will dig in before the other and cartwheel the aircraft, like the 1996 Ethiopian Airlines hijacking that did a forced landing in the ocean when it ran out of fuel. On the whole, if you don't have floats strapped to the bottom of your aircraft, you are better landing on flat land of any description, rather than on water.

I'm glad the pilot decided to put the aircraft down on the river. A fully-laden A320 will slide for a long way on the ground, and there isn't a "long way" available in a dense urban area. That means they would have plowed through homes, shopping malls and businesses for a distance, spewing fuel from the near-full fuel tanks and inflicting carnage on anything in their path. Given the known risks of landing on water in an engine-under-wing aircraft, the pilot considered the aggregate welfare of the people on the ground and on the aircraft, and put the people on the ground ahead of the welfare of the people on the aircraft. Exceptional decision making. That he had a flyable aircraft (it wasn't powered, but otherwise fully controllable) was an asset that he used to full advantage.

The landing itself was beyond outstanding. The aircraft didn't cartwheel, it just plowed in, likely planed on the surface for some short distance, and then settled in. It doesn't get any more perfect than this.

I heard a news report yesterday that they were looking for the engines. Since they knew where the aircraft was (lashed to a jetty at the side of the river), that implies the engines were ripped off mid-river during the landing run (I doubt they fell off mid-air, but to be pedantically accurate, we don't know). Ripping an engine off a wing takes a huge amount of stress, meaning that there was a huge amount of drag from the engine digging into the water. The aircraft didn't cartwheel or ground loop (water loop?), so the drag must have been balanced, and the engines tore off at close to the same time. The flight recorder will have captured the deceleration, altitude and direction (including yaw), so what happened will be authoritatively established during the investigation. However, all of this would not have happened unless the pilot kept the wings very level - another demonstration of exceptional flying.

Non-aviators, and non-professional aviators, will not understand the underlying attitude that competent pilots must have towards situation management. When something goes wrong, you have to do something, you have a range of choices, you have to select something and then do it. The next part is critical - you evaluate the results of your choice, and then you keep making more choices. No matter how many things have gone wrong and how bad the situation might be, you always have to have the attitude that there is management to be done, and there is always something you can do to make the situation better. This might be described as a can-do attitude, or glamorized as "the right stuff", or described in a low-tech manner as "flying the airplane until the last part stops moving" - and it is a required skill for a pilot.

Initial media reports are that the engines failed due to bird strikes, and in particular, Canada Geese. A Canada Goose weighs between 6 and 14 pounds, and they fly in flocks, so plowing through a V-wedge of them would certainly inflict heavy damage on an aircraft. My wife asked if I had an encounters with birds. Sure have. I worry about bird strikes on take-off, when speed, altitude, visibility and options are low. We commonly see flocks of snow buntings come off the ground on final approach - when that happens I continue the landing since I'm gliding or at minimum power and not dependent on the engine, and set up for landing. A bad thing would be to reject the landing and switch to a take-off, hit the birds, lose the engine, be at full flaps in a nose-up attitude at a higher altitude and with not much runway ahead.

The one group that did meet my expectations throughout all of this was the electronic media. But I have very low expectations of the electronic media, and they delivered at the expected level of hoopla (high) and expertise (low).

Diversions - Jan 11

2009-01-11T16:56:00.004-05:00

Circle, circle, line,
Heading, distance, time,
MEF and fuel are great,
Tell someone you'll be late.

Today's lesson was diversions. Again, the weather was clear and cold, not a cloud in the sky, a wonderful day for flying. Especially since I was going to be busy in the cockpit, and turbulence doesn't help.

The Why:

A diversion is when you change your mind mid-way through a cross-country flight (or any flight from here to there) regarding your destination. Reasons might include weather (where did those clouds come from?), fuel issues (man, those are ugly headwinds), passenger illness, or maybe you just changed your mind (the burgers at xxx are yucky, let's go to yyy instead).

The Wrinkle:

When performing the diversion the pilot does not have the benefit of advance planning. Of course, before the flight alternative aerodromes are identified. However, the calculations (time, distance, headings, etc.) are not calculated before the flight. When the decision to divert is made, it's calculating and planning time.

Resources:

Because the pilot has to fly the plane as well as plan the diversion, in the cramped confines of the cockpit, and plan under a time constraint, there isn't time to use rulers, protractors or calculators. The planning will be a "back-of-an-envelope" exercise using estimates, not tools.

Focus On:

Don't get lost - we're going to be flying a course based on the DG or the compass (magnetic north), but the map's grid lines are oriented on true north. Using a VOR compass rose, or making an estimate using the grid lines and the local magnetic variation, can be used to determine the magnetic heading.
Safety - In each grid of the map there is a number, the MEF or Maximum Elevation Figure, which is the ASL height of the highest terrain or obstruction (towers, antenna, etc) in that grid. To this figure must be added the required obstruction clearance, for safe flight through that grid. As a specific example, if the reason for the diversion is a descending cloud base, calculating a safe transit to the alternate destination requires priority in the planning.

Planning Procedure:

Circle, circle, line

Choose, and circle, a Set Heading Point for the start of the diversion.
Circle the destination
Draw a line between the SHP and the destination.
Circle any obstructions along the route.
Select way points along the route.
Mark the halfway point along the line.

Heading, Distance, Time

Estimate the magnetic heading to be flown.
Estimate the length of each segment. Since we can't use a ruler, use what is hand (my thumb is 6 nautical miles wide). Some books suggest using a tool such as a notched pencil - the Transport Canada won't allow them during the flight exam.
Using the current indicated airspeed, calculate the duration of the first flight segment, and the duration of the diversion.

MEF and Fuel are great

Check the MEF on the chart, and chose an altitude for the flight. If you can fly at altitude, remember to comply with the VFR altitude requirements (e.g. 4500' for westerly course, 3500' for easterly).
Knowing the estimated duration of the diversion, is there sufficient fuel. If you can look up the fuel burn in the POH good, otherwise use a conservative estimate. Remember to include the VFR 30 minute reserve (45 minutes for night).

Tell someone you'll be late.

Fly to the SHP. Record the time at the SHP, and calculate the ETA at the destination.
Call up FSS (126.7), and amend the flight plan.

At arrival at the Set Heading Pint, the following should be complete:

DG is aligned with the compass
The aircraft should be at the chosen altitude, selected power, and trimmed.
The aircraft should be on heading
A cockpit check (temperature, pressures, mixture, etc) is completed.

Flying

After the briefing, we launched and flew two diversions. We flew at low altitude, so there was limited opportunity to look far into the distance and say "we're going there" and then just point the airplane.

And I greased the landing when we went home. It happens.

Time: 0.8 dual

After refueling the aircraft and catching up with my instructor inside, he notified me that I had been signed off to fly the Pembroke cross-country route solo.

First Cross-Country - Jan 10

2009-01-10T21:24:00.003-05:00

After several cancellations, we finally flew cross-country.

A large high pressure area had settled over eastern Ontario, so the air was very stable and very cold. The high was passing Ottawa mid-afternoon, causing the upper winds to swing by as much as 90 degrees, depending on altitude and the time of the flight. Any planning based on the projected winds was going to result in recalculation.

My chosen route was from Carp airport to the town of Quyon, then westerly to Pembroke. Most of my flying to date has been low altitude, so I opted for 4500' westerly, and 5500' on the easterly return.

The results:

Flight planning was largely correctly done - considering it was my first time planning a cross-country flight. I transposed digits on one heading (325 instead of 235). Better desk-checking should have caught this.
The outbound chosen track was a good one - easy to follow as it was along the Ottawa River. The return route was harder to follow, but I managed to follow it using pilotage.
Filing the flight plan created a few errors. I used local time instead of Zulu, did some quick calculations when asked, compressed the time that I thought we would be airborne, and got behind the schedule. Lesson: Don't get rushed.
The take-offs and landings were good,
The cockpit for the Eclipse is cramped. I need to figure out how to "build my nest". When flying solo it will be much easier - I'll have an empty seat beside me on which to place things.
Little things count. I put the map on a clipboard, folded to show my route. The natural way to hold a clipboard is with the clip at the top. After stopping at Pembroke I should have switched the map around - every time I picked up the clipboard I had to spend time get oriented. It was interesting how a small detail was so disruptive.
Calculations on the outbound route went well.
Coming home, the winds were significantly different than plan. I twice had to reset onto my planned track using the "Visual Alteration" method, estimate a new heading, and try tracking home. In all, I adapted well, but there was too much scrambling. As a result, doing the ground speed calculations, and re-calculating the ETA for the final destination lapsed.

All in all, it was fun. The flying (RPM, heading and altitude management) was easy. Being up high made it easy to determine my location.

Time: 2.1 Dual

Landings: 2 (Pembroke was OK, the landing at Carp sucked)

Tomorrow's lesson: Diversions.

If all goes well, I'll be signed off to fly this cross-country route solo.

XC Flight Planning, but no Flying

2009-01-06T19:27:00.003-05:00

The weather in late December sucked. Either the clouds were too low, the winds were too high, it was snowing, it was raining. And when it looked like the Wx was going to come together, either the airplane wasn't available or the school was closed for the holidays.

Bummer.

However, I did complete two ground school lessons on cross-country flying. The first was a complete review of the Navigation 3 ground school lesson, working out the XC flight plan and the ICAO flight plan, flight criteria (hours remaining until maintenance, aircraft documents, etc), NOTAMs, GFA, METAR, takeoff and landing distances, W&B, etc -- all things you are supposed to do before lighting her up and launching into the blue.

I double-booked this weekend... Saturday is supposed to snow but that is 5 days away, Sunday is supposed to be clear but the available time period is quite compressed.

All the calculations did reveal one thing... using the Jepp CR-3 for density altitude and Wind Correction Angle is a pain... I ordered a CX-2 and a E6B. The circular slide rule is faster for some calculations such as recalculating ETE once the new ground speed is known, as opposed to bouncing from menu to menu on the CX-2, so I'll carry both.

But being grounded is a bugger.

I'm not qualified to land the plane

2008-12-18T14:49:00.002-05:00

Funny news story today, about a pilot for Flybe who announced to his passengers that he wasn't qualified to land the plane at CDG, and so they returned to Cardiff.

Apparently the pilot just upgraded to the Q400 from the Q300, and didn't have the training required to land in the fog at CDG at that time. Rather than doing the macho-man thing, the pilot made the announcement and returned to the departure airport.

One assumes that the weather was adequate prior to departure, but levels dropped while the aircraft was in-flight resulting in the weather below the pilot's minimums at the time of arrival.

The press will be all over this, since the quote will grab headlines. And they will add their own points of emphasis and omission to make the story, torturing the story into fiction. I have low expectations from today's press.

What will get missed is the responsible act of the pilot. He stayed within his limits, and chose the safe course of action. Congratulations.

Though, perhaps it would have been better to announce "The weather at CDG has dropped below minimum requirements, we are returning to Cardiff" rather than " I am not qualified...."

Aviation medical - December 15

2008-12-15T18:10:00.002-05:00

Being an old fart, my class 3 medical expires after 2 years. The date of my previous medical examination was January 2007, 23 months ago.

I visited the CAME today. I passed.

Some more circuits - Dec 14

2008-12-14T18:34:00.003-05:00

With the pre-Christmas season life is busy. Ottawa also has just started a transit strike, which does not affect me since home and work are quite near each other, but does affect my wife (who works downtown and normally takes the bus each day) and my daughter (who works shifts that start at various times, needs to take the bus to work or mooch the car... which normally is not around during the day). The strike sucks up time, and the shortage of time cascades into all other facets of life during a season which is normally busy.

But today I flew a bit. The school had a Christmas pot luck, and I managed to snag a late-morning time slot so I could attend both on one trip.

A look at the radar showed a ring of snow-showers all around Ottawa, and bearing right down on the Carp airport. And the rising air temperature (yesterday was -19C, today was above freezing) meant that there was a chance of rain or freezing rain. My original plan was to practice slow flight and stalls in the practice area, but the changing weather meant it would be prudent to stay near the airport. I'm still not happy with my normal approaches, so that was fine.

My instructor wanted to come along for the ride, rather than cutting me loose directly. Primary reason was the snow-covered runways and taxi-ways - we had some more snow last night - and he wanted to ensure my ground control was appropriate.

Four circuits dual... started with a short-field take-off, the remainder of the take-offs were touch&go (normal). Though the runway still had a dusting of snow, the brakes and tires held against the application of full-power.

Circuits were routine... I talked about the last lesson, how I have been working on getting started early, staying ahead of the airplane and leaving lots of time to calmly fly the approach. My circuit agenda was to stick to 1000' AGL and avoid wandering altitudes, and to not pinch 10-20 degrees off my headings and crowd the runway when flying the circuit.

Final approach was horizontally stabilized, and the vertical stabilization was getting better. Getting into a stable attitude with stable power and airspeed, and tracking the runway numbers, was a good tool. Today I tended to come in a bit lower and flatter than ideal, but with no last-300-yard application of power.

I unloaded the instructor, and did two circuits solo. Started with a short-field take-off, where I got off the runway nice and early, got a bit higher than ground effect, and wandered off to the left side of the runway once airborne. More practice required.

On the second downwind I noted that the visibility to the north had really shut down, about 8 miles away. I called full-stop and came home.

I felt rushed in this final circuit since I didn't want to be flying in what might be white-out conditions in a non-IMC certified aircraft with a non-IFR pilot, but forced myself to be methodical on the checklist and the approach. When you're in an airplane and you rush things, bad things happen.

Time: 0.6 Dual, 0.4 solo
Landings: 4 dual, 2 solo
Take-offs: 1 Short-field, 1 soft-field, 4 touch&go normal.

A Day of Firsts - Again - December 11

2008-12-12T07:07:00.007-05:00

It is not unexpected to constantly experience "firsts" when you're in a new locale, or when you're on a steep learning curve. Today I was on both.

Flight booked from 1-3. I had a preflight briefing from the CFI as my usual instructor was at work (I was working "flex-time"). My plan was to work on the basics. She agreed. Winds were only 6 knots slightly from the right of runway 10, landings were not going to be a problem, so she launched me straight solo. That's a first - every previous solo flight required a checkride for a circuit or three to ensure my skills were within conditions before the self-unloading ballast got out and I went solo.

Temperature yesterday afternoon was -11C, and the air pressure (according to the altimeter when set to runway altitude) was 30.19. While I was physically 382 feet above sea level, I calculated the density altitude to be 3080 feet below sea level. The air was thick (dense), and both the wings and propeller were going to be high performance. I had minimal weight with only myself, and slightly more than a half tank of gas, aboard. This bird was going to climb like a homesick angel.

I had a long list of activities to practice. At first look it seems to be a too-long list, but it was all basic activity (climbs, descents, turns, etc).

Today's plan:

Normal take-offs were getting routine, so work on short takeoffs, and soft-field take-offs,
Fly to the practice area,
Practice the basics - turns to a heading while maintaining altitude, climbs and descents to an altitude while maintaining heading, maintaining altitude while in cruise, do some slow flight manoeuvres. If I was feeling comfortable I'd add steep turns and forward slips.
Return to the airport, then practice normal landings.

As the Diamond has a plastic canopy it is necessary to have a nice warm-up before taxiing, otherwise any FOD that hits a cold plastic canopy may pit or shatter, rather than just bounce off. The engine was warm from the previous flight, so the warm-up during the preflight checklists was sufficient.

Taxi was slow and careful - the apron and taxi-way were both snow-covered with occasional bits of bare pavement. The runway was mostly bare, with occasional icy bits. Another first - this was the first time I'd be working on anything except bare pavement.

First take-off was a short-field:

Position right at the end of the runway,
Elevator full-back, to maximize brake effect,
Stand on the brakes,
Full power, check guages,
Release brakes,
Release elevator to neutral, rotate at normal speed (44 knots), climb out at Vx (best angle of climb, 57 knots),
When the virtual 50 foot obstruction is cleared, lower nose to climb out at Vy (best rate of climb, 68 knots).

I proceeded solo to the practice area - the third first in a short while. While exciting, it also felt really weird. There was one other aircraft in the practice area, and three others transiting the area, so I claimed a patch of sky over Constance Bay and proceeded to work my plan.

Climb to 3500', and level off on a smooth transition (no floating feeling) and without busting through. I did a Vy (maximum rate) climb, and was climbing at 1300 feet per minute. Last summer I was seeing 600 FPM. Went well,
Shallow (15 degrees of bank) 360 degree turns in both directions while maintaining altitude. Went well - maintained altitude easily,
Medium (30 degrees of bank) 360 degree turns in both directions while maintaining altitude. Turns went well, altitude maintenance was sloppy. Exit on a heading went well. Using external references (the horizon), noted that most of my turns in the circuit were banked about 20 degrees. Since I've spent the last three months in Circuit Hell, thirty degrees of bank was more than I was used to, and a bit uncomfortable, so I decided that medium banked turns were the place to work, and didn't try steep turns (45 degrees, or even 60 degrees) on this flight,
Descents were slow. Most (almost all) small GA airplanes have air-cooled engines, so the front cylinders cool quicker than the rear cylinders. Thermal shock occurs when you put the cylinders through hot-cold-hot-cold cycles. With the very cold air, to minimize the thermal shock you want to re-warm the cylinders periodically when in idle conditions (like on a descent), or else just keep some minimal throttle. With the high density air and throttle for 1200 RPM, descents were gentle. It was easy to hit and maintain the desired target altitude,
Traffic starting coming in from the north and were announcing that they were passing over Constance Bay (exactly where I was practicing, although I was higher), so it was time to stop playing on the freeway. I set up for slow flight, with gentle turns, and transited down to Kinburn,
With the very cold air I decided to not practice forward slips (which is an engine-idle manoeuvre).

By this time I was bored with driving around in the sky, so it was time for some circuits. Descend below 2500 feet (gradual descent) to get under the Ottawa wedding cake, proceed to the town of Carp while continuing to descend down to 1900 feet (1500 feet AGL), pass over the airport, check the runway and the wind-sock, descending turn to circle back to the active side, cross at 1400 feet (1000 AGL), join the mid-left downwind, and practice normal landings, stop&go, and different take-offs.

On every landing it is essential to get stabilized, meaning that you're riding down on rails with only minimal control adjustments, and then only to keep yourself on the rails. I've found that my approaches are horizontally stabilized (tracking the centre-line, and land on the centre of the runway with no yaw), but not vertically stabilized. I tend to start off too high, use minimal power, get too low, bring the nose up to have a lower descent rate, get going a bit slow, then add in some power, arrive at the threshold with minimal energy, and run out of energy and drop (stall out) the last 2 feet to the runway.

It all starts with being too-high at the start of the final approach, so I wanted to get well ahead of the aircraft:

Fly the downwind at 110-120 knots, radio calls made, pre-landing checklist done, throttle back opposite the threshold, nose slowly up to maintain altitude and lose speed, reset the elevator trim, flaps to take-off, and then turn to base when at the correct position and speed is 60-65 knots,
After the turn to base is complete, flaps down to landing, trim for 60 knots,
I'm landing on runway 10 today, so I should be flying 90 degrees from runway heading, or a 190-degree, base leg. Often I will squeeze it to 70-80 degrees, which means I am closer to the runway threshold when turning final, and therefore compressing the final approach,
Turn final, make the radio call, and get stabilized both horizontally and vertically,
Pick my aiming point (difficult on a mostly snow-covered runway - it's all white), and see if it is static on the windscreen, or if it is tracking up/down (which means you will undershoot or overshoot). Adjust elevator to keep the aiming point stable, adjust power to maintain 60 knots), fly the final. Today the atmosphere was easy - no sink off the end of the runway, and the crosswinds were both mild and non-gusting,
Gentle flare to cruise attitude - I had been starting my flare a bit late and was therefore a bit rushed and aggressive,
Stop rotating at cruise altitude - no nose-up when rotating to the flare,
As the aircraft starts to sink, nose-up to maintain a very gentle sink rate (no sink if just above the runway).

I was doing stop&go (rather than touch&go) landings today, to practice the different take-offs. Post-touchdown, I needed to:

Pick an area of the runway which had good traction (or - at least - equal traction for both wheels),
Slow down carefully using brakes,
Radio the back-tracking call, turn,
Complete the pre-takeoff checklist while taxiing back to the take-off position,
Set up for the take-off,
Launch.

The next four take-offs were all soft-field:

On the soft part of the field taxi is done with some power (so you don't get stuck) and full-back elevator (to minimize the weight on the nose-wheel),
Turning at the end of the runway is completed without stopping,
Smooth application of full power,
Nose-wheel will want to come off the runway at much less than rotation speed due to the full-back elevator - when the nose starts to move relax most of the elevator so the nose wheel is only slightly off the runway,
At rotation speed (44 knots) lift the nose wheel up, and get the aircraft off the ground. My stall speed is 38 knots with take-off flaps, so we can easily fly at 44 since we're not at maximum weight, we are at full power so the airflow over much of the wing is in the prop-wash and much faster than my airspeed of 44 knots. And because of this aircraft's rapid acceleration we're probably up to 50 knots by the time we lift off.
Nose down, and stay in ground effect. This is not a short-field take-off, so there is no urgency to climb out. Accelerate in ground effect to Vy (68 knots), and climb.

Final landing, full stop, taxi to the gas pump, go do paperwork and de-brief.

Time: 1.4 hours solo
Take-offs: 1 short-field, 4 soft-field
Landings: 5 normal

Needs improvement:

Because I've spent so much time in the circuit in the last three months, medium and steep turns feel very unusual. Time to become re-acquainted,
Altitude tracking on medium turns,
Vertical stabilization on final approach. Today was much better, but it still needs practice and improvement to make it slick,
Flying downwind and base at 180 degrees and 90 degrees from runway heading. I have a tendency to pinch by 10-20 degrees,
On a soft-field take-off, I tend to yaw to the left when leaving the surface. Need more right rudder to counteract the propwash, and perhaps a bit of right aileron to counter-act the cross-wind,
On a soft-field take-off, staying within ground effect. I still tend to leap off the runway and get higher than ground-effect. It was especially tough today because of the dense air, which resulted in a very high-performance wing and propeller, and everything happened very quickly.

Needs a re-visit, just because it has been so long:

Need more time in very slow flight (50 knots), just to get comfortable with that regimen of flight,
Need work on stalls (didn't plan on working on them today),
Need practice on forward slips (smooth entry and exit). Didn't work on that today because I had a full workload, and didn't want to thermal-shock the engine,
Spiral dives. It has been a long time since I reviewed them. Must have an instructor on board to practice them,
Steep turns.

Went well:

Getting down to a good altitude at the start of the final approach. I tend to be too high, primarily due to getting behind the airplane in downwind and base. Even with a light load and dense air, today's focus on the pre-final phase of the landing generated very good results,
Climbs and descents were good today. But needs more practice, as there remains a tendency to blast through the target altitude on a climb, espceially when things are busy,
Slow level flight - 60 knots with flaps in take-off. But it is boring,
Gentle turns with altitude tracking and rolling out on a specific heading,
Radio work. Solo. With frequency changes,
Taxi on a slippery surface,
Short-field take-offs,
Horizontal stabilization on final approach.
Flare - today was much better, no climbing during flare, and the level-off altitude was good,
Nose-up during touch-down - I greased all five of today's landings.

Firsts:

Taxiways and runways which were not bare pavement,
Launched without a checkride,
First time solo away from the airport.

Next lesson is next Sunday. It's a short booking period - only 90 minutes - so I'll suggest we focus on slow flight and stalls.

Precautionary Landings - Nov 30

2008-12-01T17:10:00.002-05:00

We started today with a 30 minute briefing, where we went through the Precautionary Landing methodology. Then, out to pre-flight, and off north to the practice area.

I started with a short-field take-off: Position as close to the end of the runway as possible, radio call "rolling", full nose-up elevator, full brakes, full power, check gauges to ensure full engine power has been realized, release brakes, relax elevator, rotate at usual speed (44KIAS), initial climb at Vx (57KIAS) until obstruction is cleared, then climb out at Vy (68KIAS), then flaps to cruise and climb at 75KIAS.

North towards the practice area only to see a bank of low-lying cloud due to the unfrozen Ottawa River delivering moisture into the below-zero air - but we found a corner of the practice area which was clear sky, and met the lateral cloud-distance requirement.

When practicing precautionary landings:

Be a nice guy - do one practice landing only per field, rather than buzzing the same farmer all day.
Make an informational radio call, as one normally already does periodically in the practice area.
Stay away from livestock, or any disruption of farming activities. Absolutely avoid any buildings which are marked with the livestock symbol (yellow and black marking on the roof).

Precautionary Landings are all about the choices, setup, and careful COWLS examination of the candidate landing area.

From altitude - survey the general area, determine the wind direction (or best guess from whatever tell-tales, ATIS, history, ground-track or the GPS will tell you). Select a candidate field (you want to land into the wind if at all possible, hence the determination of wind direction first).
Brief your passengers. Seats locked in the upright position, tray tables stowed, secure any loose items, sharp items out of pockets, etc.
Enter the circuit as one always does. Descend to 1000' AGL, and fly a downwind track after entering from the mid-left or the straight-in. Perform the pre-landing checklist. Abeam the threshold reduce power, start losing airspeed and start deploying flaps. Turn base at the usual point, full flaps, slow to the usual approach airspeed (60KIAS), but maintain 1000' AGL rather than descending, turn to upwind.
Fly an inspection pass along the length of the chosen field, from circuit height and distance along the upwind side. Perform the COW part of the COWLS check.
At the end of the landing area perform a recovery - full power, retract flaps in stages, maintain 1000' AGL, turn crosswind and then downwind.
On the downwind track a second time, perform the pre-landing checks a second time. Abeam the threshold start losing airspeed and start deploying flaps. Turn base, flaps to landing, slow to final approach speed (60KIAS), descend to 500' AGL, turn to upwind.
Maintain 500' AGL and 60KIAS along the upwind. Time the duration of the flight along the upwind track to get a landing zone length. Perform the LS part of the COWLS check.
At the end of the landing area perform a recovery - full power, climb to 1000' AGL, flaps to cruise. Turn crosswind and then downwind.
On the downwind track a third time, perform the pre-landing checks a third time. Issue the PAN PAN radio call.
Abeam the threshold, start the regular landing sequence. Start losing airspeed, start deploying the flaps, turn base, flaps to full, speed to 60KIAS, turn final.
Perform the landing. Perform a short-field landing, soft-field landing, or (more likely), both.
On a simulated precautionary landing do not descend below 500' AGL. Do a low&over along the field, and recover at the end.

The COWLS check:

Communications - After landing there will be a requirement to communicate position and a requirement for help, so if at all possible one should land where communications are available.
Obstructions - On the approach path (trees, communications lines, hydro poles), in the landing area (ditches, hay bales, livestock), and in the climb-out (in case of overshoot, or if you plan to fly the aircraft out of the field).
Width and Wind - Confirming the direction of the wind, and ensuring that the landing area is of sufficient width. A major issue with landing on most roads in this area is that they are not wide enough, they have wires criss-crossing them constantly, they have 3000lb hunks of metal on them that are not expecting an airplane to join them, and there are all sorts of low-level obstructions right on the side of the road (signage, mailboxes, fence posts, etc). Generally, landing on a road is a great idea from a surface perspective, and a rotten idea due to obstructions and width.
Length - Making sure the field is long enough. This is a precautionary landing, not a forced landing, so there is no excuse to select a field and then crash into a fence at the far end. Use a timer to measure the length... 60KIAS is (close enough to) 1 nautical mile per minute, or 6080 feet per minute, or 100 feet per second. If the field is 12 seconds long then it meets the minimum length requirement for the plane I fly.
Surface - Big obstructions (hay bales, cows) can be checked from 1000' AGL, but at 500' AGL one wants to carefully check the surface for ditches, depressions, piles of rocks, firmness, etc. If a crop is growing in the field then the height of the crop is of interest (a sod farm is perfect, freshly mown hay is great, 6-foot corn will ground loop you).

Returning to the airport the wind was variable and all over the place. We were expecting runway 10 (the same runway we took off from), but the windsock favoured 28. I crossed over the airport and descended and joined the circuit straight-in, got in too close and couldn't get down in time so we flew a low&over, and found the wind had switched back to runway 10. So we climbed back to circuit height, did a runway change, and landed.

Time: 1.1 Dual
Landings: 1

The instructor made a notation in my Pilot Training record (PTR) that I am now authorized to fly solo to the practice area.

Upper-air work - Nov 23

2008-11-26T13:26:00.004-05:00

Today was upper-air work review, as a step towards cutting me loose to travel to the practice area solo.

Power-off stalls - Maintain altitude, slow nose-up while shedding speed, pull the stick right back into the gut and get the stall to happen, use rudder to keep the wings level (never aileron), stick forward to recover, pull back to level flight (do not induce a secondary stall) and add power.

Power-on stalls - Same as power-off stalls, but require more nose-up to make the stall happen, expect the "break" to be stronger, expect a need for right rudder to counter-act the slipstream against the fuselage. Stick forward to recover, pull back into level flight (do not induce a secondary stall), and add power.

Slow flight - Reduce power to idle, nose up to maintain altitude, when flying slow add some power to maintain altitude, keep lifting up the nose and adding power until we are at cruise RPM, but with a very slow airspeed (just above stall speed). Watch the CHT (Cylinder Head Temperature) to ensure the engine does not overheat (high RPM, low volume of cooling air flow). Practice turns (always shallow), level flight. To exit slow flight one has to lower the nose and add power (if not already at full power).

Forward slips - Throttle to neutral, left (or right) rudder to get the nose pointing away from the direction of flight, using as much aileron as required to maintain the same ground track. Use elevator to maintain speed (aim for 70 knots with no flaps, 60 knots with full flaps). Rudder should be at full deflection, use more/less stick to determine ground track, aircraft should be descending at a significant FPM due to plowing through the air sideways. To exit from the slip gently, and simultaneously, remove both the rudder and the ailerons.

Steeps turns - Oddly, I found this most difficult. Hours or grinding out circuits have get me very used to left-hand turns, and shallow-banked turns. Lots of aileron to get a 45 degree bank, use rudder to keep the turn coordinated, add some elevator to hold altitude, and some power to maintain airspeed. I had trouble maintaining altitude.

Coming back home I did two touch&go circuits, then a full stop.

Time: 1.5 hours dual
Landings: 3

Need to work on: All the upper-air work was OK, but rusty. Need to get practiced so it is once again second-nature.

Next steps: Briefing on forced-landings and precautionary landings, off-airport. Practice same, plus continue to review upper-air work. Do a W&B, and review spins and spiral dives. Then, assuming all is satisfactory, I'll be signed-off for away-from-the airport solo flight.

Polishing the Flare - Nov 12

2008-11-12T18:55:00.003-05:00

This afternoon I played hooky from work - I'll be writing all night this evening, so I don't feel guilty about a few hours this afternoon.

So the CFI and I went up for a some review. I always suck when I fly with the CFI. Except today, where I was so-so.

I started by having her demonstrate a soft-field take-off. I had done them, but I always end up leaping up into the air and out of ground effect and off into the blue at a comfortable but insufficient margin above stall speed.

I took control, and I tried a short-field landing, which ended up being a decent approach but a totally sloppy three-point landing. Bad. Always two-point, always. Stay off the nose-wheel.

Next circuit was a floater, and certainly not short. And left of the centre line.

In exasperation I declared the next landing was going to be a normal landing, and I was going to grease it, which I did.

Next circuits and landings were OK, but a bit of a rush.

Final landing I declared to be a forced landing. Silly me. I corrected and said it was going to be a simulated forced landing. Some anonymous person on the radio replied with "that's better".

I haven't done a forced landing for a long while, and I hadn't used a forward slip in a long while. I cramped the runway, decided to not use a forward slip, but had lots of runway. I landed past the mid-way point so I would have failed on a flight test, but it was a decent landing.

We had a good chat after the flight, and had a few suggestions to improve the flare and landings.

Time: 0.7
Landings: 6

Need to work on:

Re-familiarize with forward slips
My flare tends to be a bit late, and therefore a bit rushed. Try doing it earlier and with a more gentle rotation.
Anticipate the touchdown, and slowly keep pulling the nose up, rather than start dropping and then pulling the nose up to arrest it.

Old circuits, new airspace - Nov 8

2008-11-09T11:04:00.005-05:00

Saturday afternoon's lesson was 2:30-4:30. Throughout the morning it had been dumping rain, with mist and low ceiling. At about noon the weather started to break, and we have a nice high ceiling and perhaps 40% cloud cover by 2:30. My flight was the first one of the day for the school, and throughout the two hours there was virtually no traffic. With the bad weather this morning, there were no departures, and there certainly was not going to be the just-before-sundown swarm of arrivals.

Runway heading is 280 degrees magnetic, and the wind was from 210 degrees, so there was a stiff (10-15 knot) crosswind 70 degrees from the left. But while it was stiff, it wasn't gusty.

Back-tracking down the runway there was a flock of seagulls sitting and pooping in the middle of the runway. I approached them slowly, hand on the mixture control ready to immediately shut down the engine if something started flying my way (a bird collision with the airplane is a clunk - a collision with a moving propeller will certainly be messy, and could be expensive. Eventually they all bugged out.

Exit 28 on Bravo to the run up area, did the pre-flight check, get back on Bravo, holding short of 28 and three of the birds were back. I didn't want to do a take-off run through birds, and seagulls are stupid - I had no confidence that they'll get out of the way when I started my run. So I taxied the 300 feet down the runway to shoo them again, backtracked to the position, then we took off.

If the birds had returned while backtracking then I would have just taxied 400 feet down the runway and started my take-off run on a 3500 foot runways instead of 3900 foot.

We started with three touch&go circuits at Carp. After the second take-off I told the instructor "let's just stay dual today". The circuits were going well, but the crosswind was stiff and I wanted the extra ballast so I could practice the crosswinds without dealing with the long float times.

After the third touch&go we headed north to the practice area to practice some straight&level flight, working the GPS (Garmin 430), switching radio frequencies, calls when leaving and entering different areas, lookouts and basic airmanship.

Over Fitzroy Harbour we turned west, left the practice area and entered Arnprior's airspace.

Wow. This is new territory.

En route descent from 2000' to 1400', turn south over the gravel pit, fly over the Ottawa River, then "downtown" Arnprior (CNP3), over the field and join the mid-left downwind.

The approach to the runway is over water (first time) but that was not a factor in either the visual cues, or in the activity of the air.

As we approached the runway threshold there was significant wind shear, as the wind blows over open fields and water, then over a ridge and then descending land - shaped just like an airplane wind, requiring lots more throttle to maintain airspeed and a reasonable rate of descent. Suddenly we moved out of that flow of air, airspeed quickly went from 55 to 70 knots, and we started climbing. Chop the throttle, glide down to a landing.

Next circuit I kept my final approach much higher and caught only a bit of the turbulence.

Because of the strong winds I tried doing my approaches at 65 knots instead of 60, and reducing power to 1200 RPM instead of idle during the flare. That worked much better. Though on one landing my power was at about 1400 RPM and we floated forever. I choose to stop&go rather than touch&go.

Turn south after the last circuit, en route climb to 2000 feet, overfly Packenham, nudge through the Ottawa Practice Area airspace (more radio calls), then more radio calls for Carp's frequency, power-off descent over the town of Carp, join the mid-left downwind, drill through the sink at the end of 28 and land.

And on this landing, with the winds from the left, I landed on the left main landing gear only (as you are supposed to), then lowered the right main, then the nose wheel.

In all, this was a Very Good Day.

Time: 1.5 Dual
Landings: 9

Done well:

Managing those dumb birds, having a contingency plan if they kept returning
Radio work, including frequency changes and area changes
Straight & level flight - I was tracking within 20 feet even when working with the GPS
Crosswind landings
Airport approaches
Handling turbulent air on final approach

Crosswinds - Nov 5

2008-11-05T21:05:00.006-05:00

Working from home today, and it was looking like a long day at both the start and the end of the day - and I made the mistake of looking at the flight school's schedules. They had a bird available in the middle of the day, as well as an instructor to do a checkride.

I did not feel terribly sharp today, and my flying showed it - I sucked. Of course, it was the CFI that I was flying with.

While I have been introduced to Shorts and Softs, today was a day with some crosswind, on which more practice is needed. So we kept it simple.

Started with a soft-field takeoff, which started well. The nose wheel came up and we continued the take-off run, then the plane got off the ground too soon, I got above ground effect, the stall horn blared, I flew level for a while until I accelerated, and then correctly climbed out at Vy=68 knots. I need to barely keep the nosewheel off the ground during the roll, barely climb off the ground when ready to fly, stay in ground effect and accelerate to Vx, then climb. Not an auspicious start.

The first circuit was OK, except for holding altitude. I was up and down like a toilet seat at a mixed party. Suggestion was to do the downwind radio call sooner, get it over with so I can plan the approach and landing, and also give other traffic earlier warning. Good feedback - noted.

We fly left-hand circuits at Carp, and today (on final approach) the wind was from the left. I have not seen the wind from this direction in a month, and I didn't plan for the wind on my turn from base to final so the turn to final was late and resulted in a pear-shaped turn. Three times in a row! This is elementary - figure this out for the first landing - maybe the second. NOT the third! Grrrr.

Handling the crosswind went quite well. In my 'net reading someone suggested to think about crosswinds less, be less analytic, and just fly it like a video game: Look out the window, see things happen, work the controls to make the right things happen, repeat. So I just flew through the crosswind and it went OK. The crosswinds didn't have much of a gust factor which made it easier, though they did change through about 60 degrees from west towards the south during my 1.1 hours.

The first three dual landings were OK. Not slick, and a little bit of flare through cruise to slightly nose-up, but nothing unsafe, no stick pushes, and no drops or bounces. The real nasty sink was again present at the end of runway 28, so power addition during descent was required.

On the second landing I got behind the airplane. I turned downwind to base and didn't have any flaps out, had to get them out in a hurry, chopped power to get down, and generally scrambled. I wasn't worried about not getting it all done, but the secret to a good landing is to have a good approach. And one of the secrets for a good approach is to not be rushed. The landing was so-so, primarily because I was doing a lot of stuff too late.

Full stop after the third circuit. Advice from the CFI was to work on the crosswinds (it was a great day for that), and to work on flying with precision - track the altitudes, don't get pear-shaped on turns, and so-forth. CFI got out, I started up and went out solo for four circuits.

First circuit was OK for altitude precision, but I had to be really patient about getting the aircraft down on the ground. The last flights either had nasty gusty crosswinds, or were dual, and so I had forgotten that when flying solo in this aircraft you need to start shedding speed and altitude early. I wasn't feeling sharp enough to put in a side slip, and I had not recently practiced it, so I just rode it out. Slowing slightly to 55 knots instead of 60 knots helped - the further one gets from best glide speed of 73 knots, the shorter a distance you will glide. In short final I brought the speed back to 60 knots for the flare.

Traffic was busy most of the day, which was no issue. We sorted it all out. I can handle the situational awareness.

Handling the crosswind was OK - it was there (7 knots 60-80 degrees from the left) but the side slip handled it easily, and there was minimal gusting. I'm glad I had a chance to practice it.

Sink at the end of runway 28 was nasty, as it always is when the wind is from the south. I flew over it twice (crowbar descent), and through it twice (adding lots of power and still going down). Handling sink and shear is now routine.

I have noticed that I generally barrel in the general direction of the runway threshold, I don't really have a set pattern for making landings - a target altitude for the turn to final, a planned RPM for the approach, etc. I must ask an instructor for suggestions, to make the approaches less of a contruction, and more like the execution of a set play.

On the fourth circuit I just decided I wasn't feeling sharp. It was a warm day for November, and the haze was out with a vengeance. There was no horizon, and there was perhaps 5 statute miles visibility. I called a full stop, and came home.

The flying last Sunday morning was exhilarating. Today was a muddy struggle. I'm pleased that I can fly adequately and safely when not at the top of my game, but today wasn't an educational outing, it was a mental grind.

I have two lessons booked for next weekend. Rain is forecast, but if we can fly then I think we'll go to the practice area and practice the basics - straight&level, climbing turns, slow flight, etc. A periodic refresher on the basics is a good idea - and when things are not working right then often there is a fundamental reason, not a complicated reason.

Time: 0.5 dual, 0.6 solo
Landings: 3 dual, 4 solo

Short Field Operations

2008-11-04T20:58:00.004-05:00

This how-to posting is to make notes for future reference, and to internalize my lesson.

The fundamental principal of short-field operations is simple: Don't waste runway.

For short field take-off:

Do the math - get out the AOM, calculate density altitude etc, and make sure you have enough runway - you can skip this step if practicing from a long and proven runway, but if there is any doubt then this is a mandatory step,
Position the aircraft as close to the end of the runway as reasonably possible - runway behind you is wasted,
Pull the stick right back - when you apply power the nose will tend to dip, so this counteracts this tendency. It also will push down the tail, making the brakes more effective,
Toe brakes full on,
Throttle to full,
Check the gauges - make sure the RPM and all gauges are at expected values,
Release the brakes, expect the nose to jump left so be ready with right rudder (and, if the nose wheel is castered, unfortunately you might need a touch of right brake until airspeed gets to the point where the rudder is effective),
Release the stick to the neutral position,
Rotate at Vr (as usual), and climb out at Vx (57 knots in the Eclipse). Get the aircraft off the ground right at the documented airspeeds - if you rotate and then climb at higher speeds, you will have spent more time hurtling down the runway building up airspeed rather than climbing,
When any obstructions are cleared, drop the nose to accelerate to Vy (68 knots in the Eclipse).

For a short field landing the secret is in the approach. You can't land an airplane before it is ready , so the trick is to do all that pre-landing stuff before the threshold of the runway. That way, when the aircraft is ready to land you are just past the threshold of the runway rather than 500 feet down::

Within the confines of safety, use a slightly slower approach speed - e.g. 55 knots instead of 60 knots, plus add half the gust factor if the wind is gusty. The energy of any moving object is F=MV*2 (mass times velocity squared). Since the mass is constant, an aircraft flying at 55 knots (compared to 60 knots) has 91% of the speed, but only 84% of the energy. If we flew the approach at 50 knots (the AOM says a normal approach speed is 52 knots) then we'd have only 69% of the energy as compared to 60 knots. Whatever energy you carry into the landing is energy you need to shed before the airplane touches down. It takes more time, and more runway, to shed more energy,
Use a bit of throttle during the descent. This is a precision approach, and you want to be able to both add a touch of throttle, and take out some throttle, to adjust the descent profile. In a glider we approached with half-spoilers, so we could both add in more spoiler (if long), and take some out (if short) - really important, since we didn't have a throttle,
The aiming point is before the runway threshold, as is the flare. The aircraft floats for a while in cruise while you bleed off airspeed, so you do the flare and float before the runway starts, rather than floating over the limited runway you have,
There is a bit of throttle during the descent to manage the descent profile, but you want to have the engine at idle by the time you start to flare. Any engine power beyond this point pulls you forward, and lengthens the float,
After touchdown, flaps from landing to cruise. You lose some aerodynamic drag by raising the flaps, but it significantly lessens the wing's lift - and brakes are much more effective (tires have much more traction) when there is a heavier weight on them,
After touchdown, apply full brakes without locking them,
After touchdown, apply back stick pressure to maximize the weight on the main wheels, to manage the descent of the nose wheel to the runway, to minimize the weight on the nose wheel, and to minimize nose-dip (maximize propeller clearance) due to the heavy braking - but without popping a wheelie or jumping back up into the air.

Finally, I'm told that the examiner will declare that there is a 50 foot obstacle somewhere before the start of the runway which must be cleared. This is mostly a mind game - a normal approach will easily clear such an obstacle.

Landings - Nov 2

2008-11-03T19:46:00.003-05:00

Today's lesson is scheduled for 8-10am. I love flying in the morning - the air is calm so you can get a great understanding of control inputs (and their effect) vs. atmospheric inputs aka thermals.

And the learning is faster, since you spend less bandwidth controlling the effect of the elements, and have more capacity to absorb new knowledge.

And the air has a freshness and crispness to it, due to the frostiness of the morning temperatures and because the daily smog hasn't built up.

Because I'm getting tired of Circuit Hell, I ask for something new. Let's do circuits elsewhere. Let's do precautionary landings. Let's do something besides drilling holes in the air and squashing bugs and testing the undercarriage. Not to say that I don't have a lot to improve in my landings - I do. But mommy I'm bored.

So we do the preparatory for Shorts and Softs - two more types of take-offs and landings.

Types of take-offs (and landings) of which I am aware:

Normal
Crosswind
Forced
Precautionary
Short field
Soft field

After today's lesson I still need to learn about precautionary landings, and off-airport forced landings. But some new pskills to practice have been introduced.

Winds having been my nemesis lately, it was great that they were at most 3-5 knots. Initially favouring runway 28, then variable, then building slightly and favouring 10. Low enough that the steady wind was just a routine part of airmanship without any extra effort to manage.

After the classroom work we got into the bird and the instructor demonstrated a soft-field takeoff, and then a landing; then a short-field take-off, and then a landing.

Then it was my turn to roll through the four of them (and a normal landing as well, just to reinforce the muscle memory.

All the landings (by myself and the instructor) were really good. No chirping tires, no yaw, no bounces, no balloons, no scary moments. A few were greasers.

This was a Really Good Day. Follow-on posts will describe the techniques for each landing type.

Time: 1.0 Dual
Landings: 8

Crosswinds and Solo - October 18

2008-10-18T16:59:00.005-04:00

Today's flying was from 2-4pm, or 1800Z - 2000Z

METAR CYOW 182100Z 35007KT 15SM FEW060 10/M03 A3032 RMK CU2 SLP272=
METAR CYOW 182000Z 35010KT 15SM FEW060 11/M04 A3031 RMK CU2 SLP270=
METAR CYOW 181900Z 35011G16KT 15SM FEW056 11/M03 A3031 RMK CU2 SLP270=

We were using runway 280, which is at 280 degrees magnetic. The magnetic deviation in Ottawa is 14 degrees west, so the runway is actually at 266 degrees true. The winds were from 350 degrees true (35011G16KT), or at 85 degrees from the right - pretty much a pure crosswind. Of course, the winds decreased as the day progressed (and after I was on the ground)
11G16kt means the winds were at 11 knots, gusting to 16 (that's 20 km per hour, gusting to 30 kmph).

Did four circuits with the instructor... first time in a while that I've had mean crosswinds, so I wanted to be sure I was OK to go (and, I presume, so did he). The final approaches were reasonably well aligned with a side slip, the landings were busy, but not scary. Though I didn't put it slick on the centre line each time.

But I was cleared to go solo. I wasn't sure what the combination of a light aircraft, and strong crosswinds, was going to hold in store - but it would be a learning experience.

Taxiing down the runway the windsock alternated between straight out, and rather floppy, indicting that the winds were alternating between 5 knots and 15 knots. Joy.

Takeoff and circuit was fine. On the first landing attempt I was again good on the final approach, the aircraft floated as expected, and the wind continued to gust. I eventually called bingo, and decided to go around - overshoot.

On the second circuit altitude varied all over the place... I would be flying along at 1400 ft (circuit altitude), and then suddenly find myself at 1550' with 20 knots more airspeed when I hit a gust. By the time I was on final I decided that this was a good learning experience, and I can fly in these conditions if I had to... but I didn't have to. On the final I radioed for a full stop. The landing was actually pretty good... a gust hit me and I ballooned, so a bit of throttle took me further down the runway and gently descending, I managed to stay near the centre, and by the time I was wheels down my nose was well up in the air.

I decided to pick up up the self-loading ballast (as instructor David sometimes calls himself), as his added weight would allow us to float less and land earlier, thus reducing my exposure to gusts.

As I backtracked to the start of the runway I noticed we had no oil pressure, and a medium-high oil temperature. We went to the run-up area, and found the oil pressure needle started to move at 1200 RPM, and was approaching the green at 1700 RPM. The engine had lots of oil (I had checked it), and the school responded to our radio inquiry saying that this was not unusual.

I developed a protocol with David... I'll do the take-off, he watches engine RPM (minimum 2000, with 2200 normal), and oil pressure (I wanted it up into the green with no fluctuation). If anything wasn't in range, he says "reject" and I'll keep us on the ground.

The takeoff went fine, the needles were within specifications. On the climb the oil pressure was at the bottom edge of the green, and the oil temperature was at the top edge of the green range. We apparently had sufficient oil, but it was quite hot.

Then I remembered that the air inlet baffles were still in place - restrictors that reduce the volume of air entering the cowling, and thus allowing the engine to stay warm in cold-air conditions. Depending on the outside air temperature (OAT), we can use zero, one or two baffles. We had two in place, the OAT was 56F, and we should have had none. Normally, during the course of the day, we take out baffles as the day as the OAT increases.

I landed, and we went home. It was a decent approach, and an OK landing.

Time: 1.5 (0.4 solo)
Landings: 7 (2 solo)

Done well:

Handling crosswind on final approach (best I've done)
Patience on the landing
Situational awareness, positional awareness of traffic
Radio work in a busy environment

Needs improvement:

Need to keep the stick to the upwind side during a crosswind landing, and expect to land on one wheel. I tend to square up the airplane during the flare, which results in drift across the runway.
Should have looked up cold weather operations in the Airplane Operating Manual (AOM), and removed one or both of the baffles before flight.
In still winds I find landings happen slowly. In crosswinds the rest of the flight is easy, but landings are busy. This remains the flight phase where I have fewest skills, and continue to need practice.

Scary bits:

On the solo overshoot I put in the power at the same time the nose pitched well down (due to a gust getting under a wing). Suddenly I was nose down with full power. I got the nose up in a hurry and got out of Dodge. My main gear just kissed the runway... glad I was nose-up (the Eclipse's prop has a 10 inch ground clearance - you don't want to be nose-down on a hard landing)

Solo Circuits - October 13

2008-10-13T19:13:00.005-04:00

Partway through the day (today is Canadian Thanksgiving) I checked the flight school's booking system, and saw that there was both instructor and aircraft availability. So I phoned them up, made a booking, and went flying.

Another great day - minimal wind, very high ceilings, fall colours, and only a few thermals.

Two circuits with David, as warm-up and check ride. Very busy... when I did my full stop to let David off there were three aircraft behind me also doing a full stop.

Today's (self-set) objectives:

Circuits are to be crisp - fly the rectangle, don't blast through circuit altitude on the climb out, maintain altitude in the circuit regardless of what else is happening (radio, pre-landing checklist, etc).
Practice the flare and touchdown - know there is going to be float, be patient, do not balloon, do not bounce.

In all, I was better today than yesterday.

Circuit headings were crisp,
Altitudes were tracked (within 50' - need to get a bit better),
I blew through circuit altitude only a few times, and in only a minor fashion,
Did a runway change... I was on base for runway 28 at 1100, and the aircraft departing radioed and noted that the windsock was slightly favouring runway 10 - so I did a radio call declaring crosswind for runway 10, climbed up to circuit altitude and continued,
On two final approaches I let my speed bleed to 50 knots before putting in some horses - stall is 34kt so there was no danger, but the CFI-mandated airspeed is 60kt,
Saw the numbers tracking up/down the windshield much easier. Seeing the peripheral things is an indicator of higher available bandwidth, which in turn is an indicator that it is taking fewer cycles to do the basics.
Flared at a lower height (yesterday I overly-cautious and much too high),
Was gentle with pulling back the stick, didn't rotate through cruise to nose up (OK, I think there was one balloon),
Flew for a long time in ground effect - several times - waiting for speed to bleed. Was patient,
Was better at getting down earlier, working for as close to the threshold as possible, thus maximizing the remaining runway,
I was feeling the descent better - that first post-flare sinking movement when the airplane signals it wants to go down, and which is the time when you start to pull the stick back to control the rate of descent. If you're too slow in recognizing this movement then it will likely be a hard(er) landing.

With the exception of one greaser of a landing (which was right of centre, alas), the remaining landings involved a few bounces, no scary drops, some gentle nose-ups to manage the descent rate, and a few where I got the nose up too fast and then ballooned. Landings were not pretty, but none were scary, all were comfortably on the mains, with minimal or no yaw, and all were on or near the centre line.

I had one approach where I was slow to idle the engine and get the flaps out, and so I called an overshoot rather than doing a salvage. On another I was also slow to get down, but when I was plenty high I put in a forward slip and landed only a little bit long.

As I was climbing out on one of the later circuits, I noticed that I had to think through my radio calls or else I was going to verbally stumble, an indicator of getting tired. I was thinking full stop, but traffic got on my tail so I did a touch&go, then did my full stop on the next circuit.

Next objectives:

Maintain the crispness in the circuit
Keep working on gentle flares - rotate to cruise only
** When the aircraft starts to sink, gently pull the nose up - no balloons!

Time: 0.4 dual, 1.3 solo
Landings: 2 dual, 11 solo, 1 overshoot

Solo Circuits - October 12

2008-10-12T20:15:00.003-04:00

For my next flights, I'll first be doing a few circuits with an Instructor. This will verify that I'm not having a bad day, and that the conditions are within my limits. It also allows the instructors a chance to ensure I'm not getting into some bad habits. After a series of these ongoing check rides I'll blast off directly on my own. And, of course, when bring in a new skill (shorts, softs, precautionary, instrument, cross-country, etc) it will always be preceded with dual instruction.

Pre-flight the aircraft. 4.25 quarts, 3/8 tank. Before we take a lap, we make GPUP happy by filling her with fluids.

Two laps around the block with Instructor David. Both landings good, David gets out, I go flying.

Today it was all about adjusting to the lighter load. Even with a full tank of gas (24 gallons, or 144 pounds), when it was just me in the aircraft then I floated for what seemed like forever.

Today the wind favoured runway 10 - the last time I had flown 10 instead of 28 was over a month ago... so it was a chance to get out of the habit of following the usual ground cues, and position according to the runway.

Landing #1 - Never happened. I found myself on medium final, very high.

If forced to land I could use a forward slip, but the CFI wants students to set up the landings right, not using forward slips to escape mistakes (especially newbie solo students) - I'll practice routinely adding in, and taking out, forward slips when I have more hours under my belt.

Or I could just wait it out and land by the middle of the runway - but that would leave me with less than half the runway for the takeoff.

Fawgetabawtit, I called a low&over and flew down the runway at a few hundred feet, and practiced shuffling left/right using side slips.

Why the blazes could I not get down? I knew I turned from downwind to base a bit early, found myself high and idled the engine, but I should have managed to get down.

Then I noticed my heading - by now I was flying downwind for runway 10, so my heading should have been 280. It was 260. I had caught myself sneaking in closer to home. By the time I shave 10 or 20 degrees off each of crosswind, downwind and base, I'm really encroaching on the threshold. Resolution - fly a rectangle - no cheating.

Landings 2-8:

Circuits on the correct headings
Need to watch blasting through 1000' AGL at the end of the climb
Did pre-landing checklist every time - while tracking altitude
Caught myself being lazy - flying by adjusting trim, rather than flying using the stick and then trimming to relieve pressure
Except for one approach, tended to be a touch high on final, resulting in a landing in the first third of the runway - barely (the other approach I was down nice and early).
Radio is easy, takeoffs routine, lookouts good
Final approach was on the centre line, and stable
Landings were on the centre line (except for one)
Yaw was well-managed at the landing (except for one)
In the later landings a bit of a crosswind developed from the left... which I handled with no problem.

But on every landing, I floated, and had trouble getting the aircraft down. Once I was in ground effect, the aircraft handled very differently with the weight of only one person in the seats. It was outside my experience, and so this will be my new learning for the next while.

I bounced. I floated. My timing for the flare was all mucked up. Pulling the stick back to mediate the descent was ham-handed, often resulting in a balloon up (and requiring a touch of power to regain airspeed to regain lift to gently descend again - rather than dropping).

Time: 0.4 Dual, 0.7 solo
Landings: 2 dual, 7 solo, plus one low&over

Non-landing - need to work on:

Precision flying... rotate at exactly 44kt, climb at exactly Vx and Vy, headings in the circuit right on the rectangle, tracking altitude +/- 20 feet.
Fly the airplane, trim the pressure

Landing - Need to work on:

When adding a touch of power in a landing, expect the nose to go left.... and stop it from doing so (this pulled me left of the centre line, and created some yaw, on one landing)
Gently in the flare... pull back on the stick nice and slowly, do not go past cruise attitude
In the landing, when the aircraft starts to descend to the runway then gently pull back to mediate the descent. I was pulling back on the stick the way I always had (with two people in the aircraft), from mechanical memory. With only one person it cause a balloon - I need to fly according to the way the aircraft is responding, not according to how I've always done it.

Post-Solo Pics

2008-10-09T21:18:00.004-04:00

Myself (I am on the right), and my instructor David.

And myself and CFI Juliette:

Solo - October 5

2008-10-05T20:58:00.004-04:00

Parting words of advice as the CFI climbed out.... expect to float more before landing, be patient, wave to the audience, the aircraft will land when it is ready.

So I ran the pre-start checklist, started up, listen to the radio - where did those three aircraft come from? - taxi over to an open area, and do the run-up.

And then don't move to the runway, idle for 10 minutes while three aircraft landed, full stop each, and taxied down Alpha. They were an older yellow taildragger (a Piper Cub?), a Cessna 152, and a Cirrus SR20. I had lots of time on my hands to watch. In one sense, it was nice to sit there and let the nervousness drain.

After the last arrival passed I took Alpha, crossed 04, backtracked, took the position, smiled to myself and took a breath, pushed the throttle open, rotate. Airborne very quickly.

A good quick climb, blow through 1000' AGL (amazing what 150 pounds less gross weight means!), get at altitude and stable on the downwind, radio call, pre-landing checklist, throttle back, 80 knots, flaps to take-off, turn base, 65 knots, flaps to landing, trim for 60 knots, turn final, radio call, flare, wait, wait, wait some more, land.

I'd like to say I greased it, but there was a minor bounce. I was dead smack on the centre line with no yaw, and decelerating, within the first 800 feet of the runway.

Remember - you're not finished flying until the last part finishes moving. Don't get elated just yet.

Taxi to Alpha, post-landing checklist, radio calls, cross 04 to the apron, do the run-up.

Radio the flying school, I suspected this was the last flight of the day for this aircraft, confirmed, taxi to the front of the hanger. And "congratulations". I said thanks, please inform David and Juliette they can start breathing again.

Taxi to the front of the hanger, David is there doing the wands thing, guiding me to a full stop.

Throttle idle, electrics off, mixture idle-cutoff, the last part stopped moving, key out, do the paperwork, open the canopy.

The canopy in the Eclipse opens up and back, and when retracted you can stand up.

I stood up. And pumped my fists in the air and yelled "YES".

Pictures, push G-PUP back into the hanger, off to the desk, more paperwork (including the first PIC time in my logbook), pay the bill.

On the whole - it was anti-climatic. I can do this. My instructors prepared me well.

Time: 0.4 (and a good piece of that was spent waiting on the apron).
Landings: 1

Done well:

Darn near everything

Needs improvement:

Do not blow through an assigned altitude, no matter how light the aircraft is. Anticipate, manually fly to the altitude, trim, hold it. This is basic!!!

Checkride - October 5

2008-10-05T18:44:00.005-04:00

Lesson booked today from 4-6pm. Weather turned out great... minimal wind (NavCanada was arguing with itself on whether the winds were westerly at 6 knots, or variable at 3 knots), cool air, and a cloud base of 4000 feet above ground level).

I arrived early, pre-flighted the airplane, and found that the left white position light was burned out. Woooo hoooo, snag#2 in my piloting career. The light is optional for daytime flight.

I was then informed that I wouldn't be flying with my instructor, but with the Chief Flight Instructor - and two make two lines on the flight planning form. I had expected to take some flight with David, then with the CFI (Juliette), and then go solo.... but apparently I am to be cast into the maw of the Big Bad CFI without first drilling a few holes in the sky with my friendly instructor first.

I wasn't too nervous during the checkride... had some trouble getting trimmed up on the downwind and oscillated around a bit.

Taxi - had to enter 28 to let some traffic off the runway, then get back on Alpha to let a touch&go come through
Takeoff #1 - Slick
Circuit #1 - Created some skid because I used some left rudder in a climbing left turn... and under full power the aircraft still wanted some right rudder - even in the right turn. And didn't track altitude all that well.
Landing #1 - good. Stabilized approach, on the centre line, no yaw, no bounce, no drop
Takeoff #2 - Slick
Circuit #2 - Much better, less nervous
Landing #2 - Stabilized approach, just to the left of centre, no yaw, flared through cruise and got my nose up a bit... but just waited it out. No bounce, no drop
Takeoff #3 - Slick
Circuit #3 - Fine...nailed and stuck my altitudes
Landing #3 - Right on the centre line, very decent

The CFI asked to be dropped off at the 04 threshold, but we had two full-stops arriving behind us, so we went right back to the apron.

And then she got out....

Time: 0.5
Landings: 3

Gusty gusty gusty - October 2

2008-10-05T18:37:00.002-04:00

Another flight booked, with my instructor, from 1630-1830. The weather looked fine a few days before, and on the morning of the lesson it was pretty good weather - except for the winds. Mid-afternoon it was expected to get windy -- but healthy winds from 290 wouldn't be a too-big issue on runway 28.

Except for the gustiness... 29012G24KT means 12 knots gusting to 24, and that can bounce you all over the sky.

Phone call at about 2pm... cancelled.

Flying Solo

2008-10-01T21:55:00.003-04:00

This morning I drove my daughter down to Smiths Falls, where she took - and passed - her G1-exit driving test.

This evening she took the car - solo - on a short jaunt to a nearby store.

There have been times in the past year where I was grinding my foot into the floorboards, or holding my breath, or grasping the door handle.... while she bounced off the curb, or remained oblivious to the near miss she just had.

But she's a decent, albeit inexperienced, driver. At least she knows she has limited experience, and she could get into the deep end if she isn't careful.

I have no doubt that I scared the bejeebies out of my instructors. At least they had dual controls.

Best Little Whorehouse in Paris

2008-09-30T22:46:00.003-04:00

See previous post, to explain why in the name of Beetlejuice I would ever post this.....

In December 1981 I was sent on a one-week business trip to Paris. The trip was excellent, everything we wanted to accomplish was a success (and more), plus I had a chance to tour the city.

I was travelling with some sales reps, and were in serious danger of getting stuck in the hotel bar for much of the trip. The inside of one hotel looks pretty much like the next, as do hotel bars, and so I agitated to get out on the town.

Aside from the Louvre, left bank, Notre Dame, and many other sights, we also toured the local night life. We ended up a good distance from the hotel, in a random direction, and so we caught a taxi to get us home, or closer to home. During the taxi ride someone asked if we were ready to call it a night, and after a short debate we all decided that the night was still young. So we asked the taxi driver to take the five of us to a bar close to the hotel.

Our French was poor, his English was mediocre, but communication was achieved, and he dropped us off in front of the Black Cat... and followed us in?

The doorman was black, wore a black tuxedo, and must have been 6'6" - and just as wide. He had no neck.
The walls were black.
The ceilings were black.
The floor was black.
Every table in the place was one of those dinky 12" diameter tables that would not hold three beer glasses.
Every table came pre-equipped with a stunning woman in a state of minimal dress.
There was a beaded curtain at the back of the room, which we noticed when a stunner and a customer got up from their postage-stamp of a table, and retired to whatever was back there.

We stood in the doorway, not wanting to enter, and not brave enough to leave (the taxi driver was standing between us and the street).

I went to the bar and addressed the grey-haired matron, inquiring if she spoke English. Fortunately, she did.

How much is a beer? $20.
A mixed drink? $20.
A coke? $20.
Are all the drinks $20? No, the champagne is $100.

I could imagine sitting down, a blond would be at the table, fingers snapped, and a $100 bottle of champagne opened faster than you can say "uh oh".

I went back to the doorway, and told the guys "We have one chance to get out of here, and that is right now." We turned and left.

The taxi driver refused to give us a ride to the hotel - he was peeved because he didn't get his payoff, we assume.

Next day was a touring day for we two techies, while the sales dudes did whatever sales dudes do when the techies are not there to keep them honest. So we walked by the Black Cat (it was about 2 blocks from some government leader's house, which was guarded by some mean-looking dudes with big automatic weapons) and I took a picture.

Some weeks later, as I was showing my pictures to my wife, just after the Eiffel Tower there was a picture of a low-rise building with a Black Cat sign on it. Nancy inquired as to why I would have taken a picture of this random storefront. "Oh, that's the whorehouse we went to."

Three Things

2008-09-30T22:34:00.003-04:00

Via Aviatrix, the three things challenge:

The Challenge

Post 3 things you've done that you believe nobody else reading has done.
If anybody responds with "I've done that," add another thing.
Encourage your friends to paste this into their own journal to list the unique things they've done.

My List

Visited a whore house in Paris, told my wife about it, and lived to talk about it (this will be explained in the next posting on this blog, or else I am sure everyone will leap to their own conclusions) (what are the chances that a non-anonymous poster will comment "I've done that"?),
Roasted a turkey over a campfire in the middle of a Canadian winter,
Produced music videos - before MTV (1972-1974)

Fall colours - September 29

2008-09-29T23:15:00.003-04:00

What can you write about circuits when you've been flying them for what seems forever?

Though the fall colours have come out in the last week, and it looks like it will be a spectacular year.

Pre-flight I found my first snag - the nosewheel valve stem had no cap. Temperature was above freezing and there was no moisture, so we took the aircraft anyway. Noted it so the staff could find a valve stem cap and install it.

Slight crosswind from the right on 28, but no gusts. I did three touch&go, then three low&over, then another 5 touch&go and a full stop.

Time: 1.8
Landings: 8

I need more practice with side-slips, so I flew the low& overs at about 100-200 feet AGL to practice moving the aircraft from one side of the runway to the other while the pointy-end stayed aligned with the runway (no yaw). First one was sloppy, the second and third one had some good moments. I need to continue practicing side slips.

Tony Hunt came out and did a touch&go in his Husky, then departed to the west and arrived from the north. Both my instructor and I were confused by "Husky - i.forget - Hotel - Yankee", thinking that we were hearing Whiskey not Husky. The phonetic alphabet works as designed, you can figure out words because no two have the same phonetic construction (Canadian call signs will have Golf, Hotel or India as the first letter - but Tony was giving his aircraft designation).

Landings were all decent, a few were good.

When we got back into the school I remarked to the CFI that they must have done an engineering change to the aircraft, because everything is now happening much slower than it used to. I'm noticing a lot of the other small changes that come with increasing experience... for example, my landings used to be very focused affairs, with tunnel vision on the numbers. Now my vision is much broader - to the point where I have peripheral vision through the flare.

Done well:

Softer focus vision
Altitude maintenance in circuit (I wandered only once, and then by 50 feet)
Traffic management - one other aircraft in the circuit was doing stop&go practice (soft field or short field), and backtracked on each landing. I had to manage my speed and length of downwind so we could co-exist in the circuit.
Radio calls - anticipate a busy airspace, keep the information complete and verbiage to a minimum.
Landing on the centre line (I had one of the left of the runway, otherwise all landings were on or near the centre of the runway)
Smooth finals
Minimal yaw at touchdown
Calm, slow, gentle responses to deviations from the desired flight path when on final
Lots of variations in landing approaches... high, low, gliding, easing off the power at different altitudes from 600 feet (and gliding in) to easing off the throttle while flaring

Needs work

Side slips
I tried a forward slip when I was very high on an approach - it was mucky and I got somewhat right of the runway - though I did recover with a nice&slow left shuffle, and put it right on the centre line with no yaw.

Crosswinds - September 18

2008-09-18T11:04:00.003-04:00

I had booked three hours of flying this morning. based on progress, if things went well, today could have moved into a check ride and solo.

When waking up this morning I didn't feel sharp. Sleep has been disrupted all week, and the schedule is busy so I didn't make it to the gym.

Arrived at the flight school plenty early. Pushed out airplanes, added some oil, checked the weather, and pre-flighted the airplane. Paid special attention to the checklists since I wasn't feeling perky. - That's what checklists are for - to make sure things get done without relying on the brain to remember.

Weather

Flying was booked from 8-11am, 12-15Z.

METAR CYOW 181300Z 35010G17KT 15SM FEW020 BKN050 09/04 A3036 RMK CU1SC6 SLP283=
METAR CYOW 181200Z 35013KT 15SM FEW016 BKN050 BKN070 09/05 A3033 RMK CF1SC5AC1 SLP273=

350 True is 80 degrees to the right of runway 28 (280 Magnetic), or effectily a direct crosswind. 10 knots, gusting to 17 knots, aside from being a strong gust, was going to be interesting since the maximum crosswind component for landing this airplane is 20 knots.

Flight

During taxi the weather-vaning was serious, and I had full rudder and often a touch on the brakes, to stay on the centre line for the backtrack.

Takeoff was smooth, including a touch of left rudder (normally you need a bunch of right rudder as you apply power).

As soon as we got airborne I had a 20 degree crab into the wind to stay on runway heading.

And we were bouncing all over the place - the air was very unstable, especially for early in the day.

Flying was fine. My first downwind was a bit far from the runway since the wind had blown me south on the crosswind leg. I corrected on the subsequent circuits.

Tracking on final was difficult. I had right aileron and left rudder applied, and was still drifting somewhat left. On the first landing I did an overshoot since I was well left of the centre line, to the point of being too close to the edge of the runway.

To handle a crosswind landing one uses a side slip, with the aileron (the stick) into the wind. This generates a slow gentle turn into the wind, at the same time that the wind is blowing you back. Done correctly, the two cancel out and your ground track is straight to the runway. Because you have right aileron the nose of the airplane will be off to the right, which you correct with left rudder.

Today we had gusting crosswinds, mechanical turbulence close to the threshold of 28, and a few interesting wind shears (airspeed suddenly dropping from 60 knots to 40 knots, with a stall speed of 34 knots, can be exciting). All in all, this taxed my limited experience in handling crosswinds.

It was good to practice, since I hadn't seen much crosswind lately. But the landings were all hectic. I got better as the lesson progressed, and even landed on the centre line a few times, but it wasn't worth continuing with the nasty gusts.

And there is no way that a rookie student should fly solo in those gusts.

Things done well:

Patience on the landings - even when things are bouncing close to the ground, just working through them and not over-reacting,
Take-offs - even in the crosswinds,
Flare, and being patient while waiting for the ground to arrive,
Reaction time when gusts, or wind-shear, hit.
Yaw control was acceptable.

Things to improve:

Crosswind landing - I needed more stick to handle the crosswind, but was reluctant to apply it.

Time: 0.9
Landings: 5

Round and round we go

2008-09-07T20:31:00.005-04:00

Son of a gun, it is coming together!!!

The low-level practice, and having patience, is making all the difference. Several dozen (several hundred? it seems that way) landings ago I was alarmed at seeing the ground rushing up at me, and landing was a great big panic. Now it seems to proceed along quite nicely, there is lots of time, I think I know what to do, and there is lots of time to control the aircraft.

Wx was light occasional rain, ceiling variable between 1200 and 1500 feet above ground level. Several aircraft in the circuit.

Today's first takeoff was one of my best. Tracking the centre line dead-on. Rotate the nose, and let the plane fly when it is ready. I had been doing some reading, and the suggestion was to get the nose up and keep accelerating down the runway - the plane will fly when it is ready. It works! And is very smooth.

Circuits good. Some days (when distracted) I blast right through 1000 AGL, or don't track. Today went well.

Had one aircraft arriving from the north, crossing over the airport and joining the mid-left downwind. He announced as being over the airport as I was coming in on the downwind (having stayed in the circuit after takeoff), we I couldn't see him, and we were both closing in on the join between the downwind and the mid-left entry point. This is no time to keep sky-searching, so I called a 360 and did an orbit, then re-joined the downwind. Unfortunately I ended up doing the downwind rather close to the airport, but still shed the altitude by getting out the boards, getting the speed down to 60 knots (best L/D is 73 knots), and had a glide right in to the touch&go. Instructor approved the decisiveness when faced with the uncertain position of the closing aircraft.

I landed on the centre line a few times, greased a few landings, but had a few mild bounces.

On one landing the instructor added some right rudder to counter-act yaw, and there was another realization.... I didn't think the aircraft needed any rudder, when what actually happened was that I didn't need to add any rudder because it was being added for me. So we did the remaining 5-6 circuits with a running commentary from me.. I just talked about what I was seeing, what I was doing about it, so the instructor could determine what I wasn't doing, and what I wasn't doing yet. That way, he could determine what I was missing (and apply correction to keep us safe and minimize the wear&tear on the aircraft), and avoided having him try to guess what needed to be done (when maybe I just hadn't done it yet).

One uglier landing: I flared through cruise and into nose-up, gained some altitude, and applied a tiny bit of power since the aircraft needed the energy to have a gentle descent. Unfortunately, it needed a slightly bigger nudge of power. As we were coming down I just gave it more and more nose-up, the timing was decent, and so the landing was a bit harder, and no bounce.

Easiest and nicest landings were ones where I carried lots of altitude and eased the power to idle, then just glided in to a landing.

A few times I carried some altitude to the threshold and then eased off, had the altitude to handle the power cut, solidify the new attitude and flare through the landing.

I had one landing where I eased off the power while rotating through the flare - and that worked not too badly. Must practice that some more - there will be landings where you need to add power to get to the runway, and then have to ease off the throttle at a low altitude and low speed.

I did one landing where I started the flare comfortably high, but it was nice and slow, and that was a good landing. Landing is a good time to not rush things.

For the final landing I suggested a simulated forced landing at the airport. Chopped power, pointed at the threshold, traded airspeed for altitude, got to best cruise, did the cause check (oh my, throttle is at idle), had lots of altitude so went to full flaps, then kicked in a forward slip and rode that down from 1100AGL down to 200AGL. We crossed the threshold perhaps 300 feet AGL, lined up with the runway, smoothly removed the slip, and glided in to a decent landing.

Landings: 8
Time: 1.2

I'm buzzed. It is coming together.

Goal Setting

2008-09-02T09:24:00.001-04:00

http://www.flightofthesilverdart.ca/

"On a cold afternoon in February, the vision of flying a powered aircraft for the first time in Canada came to be when the Silver Dart took to the air above the frozen waters of the Bras d'Or Lakes in cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

This inaugural Canadian aviation feat on February 23rd, 1909, was the result of innovative thinking, entrepreneurial spirit, unrelenting determination and a talented team of experts who had a common vision."

My goal: PPL by February 23, 2009

Wave to your Audience - September 1

2008-09-01T21:54:00.003-04:00

I didn't have a few of the required tools to perform consistently smooth landings, so The last few lessons were with the Chief Flight Instructor (CFI), a level 1 instructor. I wanted to bust through the plateau, and a change in teaching methodology is one way to do that.

And so today (12 days after the last lesson), in mid-afternoon (usually the height of the daily thermal activity and usually with increasing winds), we went flying again.

I was concerned with the layoff, so I did some reading and some visualizing, to reactivate the little grey cells.

Pre-flight, taxi, take-off, flying, radio work, all were fine. There were a few thermals, and a bit of mechanical turbulence, but they were easy to handle. I found a balloon in the final if at a higher altitude, and sink at lower altitudes. The centre line tracked reasonably well, yaw on approach and landing was much less (but not yet zero), flare was at a decent height, never did a stick-push, and added a nudge of power if we bounced or flared upward to minimize the descent rate.

For the first time I had enough bandwidth on final approach to easily see the runway numbers track up and down the windscreen, so I could adjust power and pitch to maintain a landing target. Until now I had been doing this as an approximation - and it was hard to do anyway when bouncing and yawing down the approach.

When we started there was no traffic - we actually sat on the threshold at the take-off position for a minute doing a visual re-acquaintance with cruise attitude, yaw (over the nose) and looking at the wings' angle with the side of the runway. This had been a glorious long weekend here in Ottawa, so maybe everyone was at the cottage, park or in their backyard?

As circuits progressed we were joined by lots of traffic. Approaches from all angles, different aircraft. Wayyyyyy back that I couldn't do radio calls and fly at the same time, now there is a visual acquisition to be performed, while tracking altitude and direction, making a mental inventory of traffic, remembering call signs, and making radio calls.... while the pre-landing checklist is completed.

I greased the first landing. Several were performed with no reminders or coaching. All were near the centre line. One had the nosewheel on the centre line. Most had minimal or no yaw.

Time: 1.2
Landings: 7

Things to improve next time:

Power management - easing off the power earlier, or doing it in the flare itself if I need the power to get to the runway.
We had a few mild bounces as I ran out of energy before I ran out of altitude.
Keeping in the rudder, to eradicate the yaw right to touchdown. I have a habit of releasing the rudder as we're about to land.
On the whole, I'm just a bit behind the activity on the landings. Something happens, it takes a wee bit of a time to react. That reaction time is decreasing, but needs to decrease further.

What I did well:

The flare - the timing is getting pretty decent. Nothing scary today, and a few landings were slick.
If the nose gets up during the landing, a nudge of power and continue to land the plane. No stick-pushes.
Final approach - not quite on rails, but only minor control inputs were required. There was a bit of mechanical turbulence today that I reacted to - a bit late, rather than as it happened.
Power and attitude management on final.

As for the "Wave to your Audience" title - I was trying to land the plane. Wrong method. Correct method is to fly the plane (at a very low altitude) until it lands. After flying to cruise attitude, sometimes this means being very patient as speed and altitude bleed off and the nose comes up - and this is where my instructor coined the "wave to your audience" phrase. What I was doing was getting the plane on the ground. What I needed to do was to just be patient, keep flying, and let it land.

All in all, it was a very re-assuring, and good, day.

At the debrief, the CFI was well-pleased. Apparently I have all the tools, and what I now need is practice. I'm back to my primary instructor for the next few lessons, then a checkride with the CFI, then solo.

Flaring, touching, and going - Aug 21

2008-08-21T12:57:00.003-04:00

I booked today's lesson from 10-12am - I wanted quiet air so I could do the direct learning, and not have to fight through active air to get to the new skills.

And I booked the lesson with the CFI - last lesson she had some insights that I didn't get from the first instructor, so I'll stay on the quicker learning path. They have a third instructor (that I've never flown with) who is quite good, so I'd go to him as a third option, if I had to. Besides, I'm taking an early&long lunch from work, and my "regular" instructor has a full time job, so I feel no guilt.

Last lesson my flying wasn't quite unsafe, but it sure was ugly. I was quite disappointed in myself, and wanted to do much better this time. Beware, I've been visualizing perfection.

Today's objectives:

Fundamentals - do them right
Circuit - fly it on rails
Approach and Final - smooth
Power Management on Final - Delicate, smooth, early, nudges
Flare to cruise attitude (not beyond)
Be patient - Landing can be a relaxed event that takes time
Touchdown - on the centre line, no yaw
Takeoffs after touch - remember to rotate at 44kt
Fly smoothly (last lesson I was jerking the aircraft all over the place)

Today I was determined to be exacting in my flying... I had made such a hash of it on the previous lesson I just wanted to do the basics smoothly, completely and properly. Today I managed to do the following right (again):

Taxi was right on the centreline, and smooth (though I got too fast on backtrack).
Radio calls were terse and clear. Next step is to put a bit of life into my radio calls.
Checklist was methodical. I forgot to test the flaps during the first power-up cockpit check, and was going to do it when the Instructor walked out to the aircraft -- so I just tested them after the start.
As we approached the run-up area off Bravo there was an aircraft already there, so with lots of time to spare I made a proposal on how to approach, and how to position, and why (she agreed).
Take-offs were nice and clean today, tracking the centre line, gently rotating at the correct speed. No brake drag, no stall horns due to rapid rotation.
Flying smoothly, on-heading. No jerkiness.
Don't be rushed in any phase of flight. There is lots of time. Including during the flare and landing
I ended up putting out flaps and reducing speed at different times (downwind, base, etc). CFI had no issue with that since everything was easily under control before turning final, and it demonstrated that I'm flying by objective and with a feel for the handling, rather than flying by rigid rote.
Speed management on final, power management on final.

The first landing was a touch&go. Went not badly, smooth enough landing, but with yaw. Pulling up the nose during the final sink to the runway went well, which made for the smooth landing.

Low & Over

The next two approaches were low&overs, where we flew down the runway at about 100' AGL. In rural areas we are not allowed to fly lower than 500' AGL, except when landing or taking off. Flying below 500' AGL over a runway is allowed (it's like a landing that never quite got to the ground).

Having a long flight down the runway at low altitude provides a nice long opportunity to get a perspective on cruise attitude. The closeness to the ground gives very good feedback on ground tracking, runway alignment and yaw.

I tracked the cruise attitude, and attempted to track the centreline of the runway without yaw. The instructor managed the throttle - it was a really weird feeling to not have my hand on the throttle. Airspeed is the combination of attitude and power, and to be changing the attitude and not also automatically adjust power was uncomfortable.

We discovered that I was aligning with the centre line by looking over the cowling of the aircraft, and as a result there was a constant left yaw because I was lining up my eyes, the end of the runway, and the wrong spot on the cowling (gee whiz, I was always landing on the left side of centreline, and then heading for the left of the runway, I wonder why?). A Really Easy way to check alignment is to look down the wing - the line of the wing and the line of the runway edge make it easy to see if you are not at 90 degrees (and thus have yaw). From this develop the perspective to see the yaw when looking forward.

And using a spot on the cowl is a sloppy cheat anyway - because the spot changes from aircraft to aircraft. I don't use the hood of my car to stay in my lane when driving down the road, there is no reason to use the cowling of the engine to fly straight down the runway.

Yes, my lovely wife who rarely reads this, I was flying at 60 knots (111 kmph) 100 feet off the ground while looking out the side window. But there is nothing to worry about, dear.

Flaring

On the whole, my flares were much much better. I was starting them sooner, pulling back the stick gradually, and generally getting into a cruise attitude without blowing right through to nose up.

Not there yet, but no longer ugly.

Yaw

Aside from not lining up the aircraft properly (using the cowling), I figured out that I was pushing the rudder to correct, then releasing. Sheesh. I need to push to correct, then let off the correction but hold the prevention - otherwise the yaw sets in again and I have to re-correct.

Balloons

I flared through cruise attitude to nose up and ballooned on one landing.

I landed hard once and bounced, and ended up nose-up and above the runway.

In either situation you end up a short distance above the runway, nose pointing above the horizon, at a low airspeed. My natural instinct has been to put the nose down into a cruise attitude by pushing the stick forward, and then restart the landing process. Very Bad.

The correct thing to do is just keep the nose-up attitude, add a nudge of power if there is any significant altitude involved (to slow the descent), and then just let the aircraft settle while adding more nose-up to slow the descent.

What I did wrong

I know better - everything in this list is within my skillset, I just FUBAR'd it today.

Backtracking on the runway I was moving too fast (25kt). This particular aircraft has a slightly more coarse propeller, and will slowly accelerate even at idle (especially with a tailwind). Don't go that fast.
On one landing I ballooned up during the flare, and I did a bit of stickpush to bring the attitude to level. Bad. Never. Just continue the landing with the nose-up attitude. Might need a nudge of power (e.g. 50RPM) to control the descent rate.
My altitude tracking was poor for the first four circuits. Actually, it wasn't very sharp at all today. I nailed it on the last circuit.

Did much better

Reduce (but have not yet eliminated) yaw on landing
Flare to cruise attitude, not more
More relaxed process during the landing
Final approach near the centre line of the runway (but not yet on the centre line)
Landing on the centre line (but I had at least one wheel on the centre line a few times today)

On the whole, today's lesson made good progress.

Time: 1.3

Landings: 5? 6?

Checkride - Aug 10

2008-08-10T17:00:00.003-04:00

I'm not ready for solo. But not too far off..

Last Wednesday I couldn't do anything wrong. Landings were smooth, approaches were on the rails, and so forth.

Today I had two fundamental problems.

I got myself flustered. I knew I had an opportunity to solo, and I was flying with the CFI for the first time in several flights. And I spun myself up a bit. The things you have lots of time to practice (radio, taxi, take-off, flying) went well. Most everything else was so-so to poor.
I've still not honed the skills for consistent, smooth approaches and landings.

After the second approach I knew I wasn't going to solo today. But I was going to achieve my second objective, which was to work with a different instructor and get a different view of what I needed to work on.

Active runway was 10, on which I've practiced once before. The air was really bumpy, with some minor sink off the end. It's a lot easier to fly in still air.

Landings were much closer to, or on, the centre line. Yaw at touchdown was minor. Good improvement.

My timing for the flare to cruise was FUBAR. The start of the problem was in power and speed management for the approach.. once again I was running out of energy before the runway, and often starting the flare too high. Things happen fast on a landing, and with the fluster I really wasn't on top of things. They weren't unsafe, but it sure wasn't slick. I was rather rushed and wanted to make things happen, and one thing you need to do when landing is be patient. I got nervous on one landing and pushed in some power... I needed to nudge in the power.... this caused an overshoot.

Afterwards we had a good debriefing. "Not quite there" was how it was described. I now know what needs to be done next, and have the skills to do it, but just have not yet put it all together. The CFI wants to book another session, but I'm out of town for the next week.

You need a humbling experience from time to time.

Time: 1.1
Landings: 6

Secrets to work on, and things I learned (benefits of a different set of eyes):

Keep the speed at 60kt - exactly (didn't do tto bad, but wasn't surgically precise)
Keep aligned with the centreline - exactly (though I'm a damn sight better than 4 lessons ago)
When I nudge the stick to correct for drift I tend to not bring the stick back to centre, but more than centre - which then re-establishes the problem I tried to correct by moving the stick in the first place (new observation)
When I flare I'm not coming to the cruise attitude, but passing right through to a slight nose up. With the speed we're carrying at this time this results in a minor balloon (this one change is going to save me all sorts of grief)
When I do balloon I was putting the stick forward (almost always a bad idea). But on one landing I was just patient with the minor nose-up attitude and we settled down to the ground, applying more flare as we descended... didn't even bounce.

Done well:

Basic flying
Take-offs

Needs work:

Approach needs work on the power management. No rapid throttle changes, including when cutting power.
Flare to cruise attitude, not past to nose up.

Tomorrow's Weather

2008-08-09T21:20:00.005-04:00

I'm scheduled to fly tomorrow from 2-4pm - what's the weather?

The Weather Network, which is probably one of the most popular TV stations in Canada, says that tomorrow afternoon there will be thunderstorms, with a 70% probability of precipitation. That's good enough for deciding whether to go to the beach or to a museum, but not good enough for flight planning.

Nav Canada's website is more specific. Unfortunately, aviation weather forecasts are coded as tightly as possible, a throwback to the days of teletypes that worked on 300 baud networks, which is about 30 characters per second. As a comparison, my home's broadband Ethernet connection is about 7,000,000 bits per second. Even dial-up is usually 56,000 bits per second. There is movement afoot to produce aviation weather forecasts in plain text, but change is slow. Heck, pilots still use slide rules.

The current weather:

METAR CYOW 100000Z 14003KT 15SM SCT060 BKN100 18/16 A2983 RMK SC4AC3 DIST SH ESE SLP103=

METAR - Meteorological report (of actual observed conditions)
CYOW - At Ottawa International Airport, Ottawa, Ontario
100000Z - as of 00:00 Zulu on the 10th day of the month (which is August). EDT is 4 hours behind Zulu, so this is the weather report at 8pm EDT
14003KT - Winds are from 140 degrees true, at 3 knots (anytime a direction is written down, it's in degrees true)
15SM - Visibility is 15 statute miles
SCT060 - Scattered clouds at 6000 feet Above Ground Level (AGL). With the SC4 we know that these clouds are strato-cumulus, and they cover 4/8 of the sky
BKN100 - Broken clouds at 10,000 feet AGL. With AC3 we know these are alto-cumulus clouds, and they cover another 3/8 of the sky
18/16 - Temperature is 18 degrees Celsius, dew point is 16 degrees
A2983 - Altimeter setting is 29.83
DIST SH ESE - Even though there is no rain at the observation station, there are distant rain showers observed to the east-south-east
SLP103 - Sea level air pressure is 1010.3 (29.83 inches of mercury is the same as 1010.3 millibars)

Tomorrow's forecast:

TAF CYOW 092338Z 100024 VRB03KT P6SM SCT060 BKN100
TEMPO 0002 P6SM -SHRA BKN050 BKN090
FM0200Z VRB03KT P6SM BKN080
BECMG 0608 09008KT
FM1100Z 10010KT P6SM BKN070
TEMPO 1113 P6SM -SHRA BKN030
FM1300Z 10010KT P6SM SCT020 BKN050
TEMPO 1324 5SM -SHRA BR OVC020
PROB30 1822 2SM TSRA BR OVC020CB
RMK NXT FCST BY 03Z=

TAF - Terminal Area Forecast - the weather forecast for within 5 nautical miles
CYOW - of Ottawa International Airport, Ottawa, Ontario
092338Z - Issued at 23:38 Zulu (19:38 EDT) on the 9th (of August)
100024 - Valid from 00 to 24 (a 24 hour period) on the 10th (of August)
VRB03KT - Winds will be Variable at 3 knots
P6SM - Visibility will be +6 (plus 6) statute miles
SCT060 - Scattered clouds at 6000 feet AGL
BKN100 - Broken clouds at 10,000 feet AGL

TEMPO 0002 - Temporary change from the forecast, from 00 to 02 (8pm to 10pm EDT).
P6SM - Visibility will remain at +6 statute miles
-SHRA - With light rain showers
BKN050 - Broken clouds at 5,000 feet AGL
BKN090 - Broken clouds at 9,000 AGL

Then at 0200Z (10pm EDT) the temporary conditions end, and we revert back to the original TAF (first line) as the basis for the rest of the forecast.

FM0200Z VRB03KT P6SM BKN080
FM (From) is a permanent change. Everything in line 1 (the TAF) remains the same unless specifically modified. From 02:00Z (10pm EDT) onwards, winds remain variable at 3kts, visibility remains at +6SM, but there is now only one layer of cloud, broken at 8,000 feet.

BECMG 0608 09008KT
There will be a gradual change (becoming) over the two hour time period from 06Z to 08Z (2am to 4am EDT) of the winds, from 090 degrees true at 8 knots. 0608 is the time period over which the change occurs, but once it does happen then the change is permanent for the rest of the forecast period (unless subsequently specifically modified). All other weather stays the same.

FM1100Z 10010KT P6SM BKN070
From 1100Z onwards there is another permanent change, the winds will now be from 100 degrees true at 10 knots, the visibility is still +6 statute miles, but the cloud base has descended another 1,000 feet to be broken at 7,000 feet.

TEMPO 1113 P6SM -SHRA BKN030
For the period from 11:00Z to 13:00Z (7am to 9am EDT) there will be light rain showers, and one broken cloud base which is at 3,000 feet ASL

FM1300Z 10010KT P6SM SCT020 BKN050
From 13:00Z onwards there is another permanent change: The wind continues to be from 100 degrees true at 10knots, the visibility is still +6 statute miles, but the cloud bases have changed once again, with one scattered cloud base at 2,000 feet ASL, and another broken cloud base at 5,000 feet ASL

TEMPO 1324 5SM -SHRA BR OVC020
From 13:00Z for the rest of the day there is a temporary change (this far into the future in unsettled weather this likely means temporary periods) of 5 statute miles visibility, light rain showers, mist (BR derives from the french word for mist), and overcast clouds (a solid cloud base) at 2,000 feet ASL

PROB30 1822 2SM TSRA BR OVC020CB
And just to make things interesting, there is a 30% probability, between 18:00Z and 22:00Z (2pm to 6pm EDT) of 2 statute miles visibility, thunderstorms and rain (TSRA), mist (BR), and a solid cloud base at 2,000 feet (OVC020) with embedded cumulonimbus (CB) - which are commonly known as thunderheads.

My scheduled flight time is from 2-4pm - right when there is a 30% chance of thunderstorms. I may not go flying in the afternoon. And it would be a good idea to get the grass cut in the morning.

V-Speeds

2008-08-07T13:51:00.015-04:00

V-speeds (Velocity) are the indicated airspeeds used, or airspeed limits, for the operation of a specific type of aircraft. They have to be memorized, for when you're flying you won't have time to look them up. During flight examinations, the examiner will quiz you, and they must be known.

Airspeeds have been determined by the aircraft manufacturer mathematically, in wind-tunnel testing and during flight testing. They are all documented in the aircraft's Flight Manual.

All of the values are treated as hard limits, however, failure or damage isn't automatic. For example, Vne (Never Exceed) is 164 knots. The manual describes it as "Do not exceed this airspeed in any operation", but if you fly 165kt you're not going to immediately disintegrate in mid-air. However, you are now in test-pilot territory, and the aircraft has not been tested to provide safe operations at that airspeed.

I have to have them memorized, which is why I'm writing them down. Among other things, the airspeeds are in four* different sections throughout the Flight Manual, so getting them together in one spot is useful.

For the Diamond Eclipse with the Sensenich propeller (all speeds are KIAS**):

Vne	164	Never Exceed
Vno	118	Normal Operations
Va	106	Maneuvering Speed
Vfe-to	100	Do not exceed with flaps extended in takeoff position
Vfe-ldg	78	Do not exceed with flaps extended in landing position
Vx-to	57	Best angle of climb with flaps in takeoff position
Vx	60	Best angle of climb with flaps in cruise position
Vy-to	68	Best rate of climb with flaps in takeoff position
Vy	75	Best rate of climb with flaps in cruise
Vr	44	Rotate speed (the speed that you start to lift the nose when taking off)
	52	Approach speed for normal landing, flaps in landing
	52	Balked landing takeoff speed, flaps in landing (the manual doesn't specify this, but this would probably be Vx-ldg)
	34	Stall speed, flaps landing, 0 degrees bank
	40	Stall speed, flaps takeoff, 0 degrees bank
	42	Stall speed, flaps cruise, 0 degrees bank
	20	Maximum demonstrated crosswind speed for takeoff or landing
	73	Best glide speed, flaps in cruise

* The four sections
Chapter 2 - Airspeed limitations
Chapter 3 - Airspeeds during emergency procedures
Chapter 4 - Airspeeds for normal flight operation
Chapter 5 - Performance - Stall speeds

**KIAS

Knots Indicated Air Speed - there are several speeds when aircraft are involved, including

TAS - True Air Speed
CAS - Calibrated Air Speed
IAS - Indicated Air Speed

IAS is the number you read off the airspeed indicator, is the most readily available, and the one used by pilots when flying the airplane. However, it is also almost always not your true air speed, due to variations in air temperature, pressure, mechanical errors in the system, placement of the pitot, and so forth. This is worth another post in itself. Sometime.

Every day should be like this - Aug 6

2008-08-06T23:42:00.005-04:00

Arrived at CYRP at 5:50 for tonight's lesson. Regardless of the weather, tonight was going to include lots of preparatory work.

We sat in the FBO cafeteria for 40 minutes and reviewed stalls, spins, spirals, emergency procedures, forced landings and lots of other bookwork. While a nasty thunderstorm cell rolled right over the airport and pelted us with rain for 30 minutes. After the book learning was complete, we looked out the window to find blue sky with the odd cu.

Preflight, and off we went.

Takeoff was right down the centre line. Nailed 2,000' right on the money, and maintained, while flying to the practice area, then climbed to 3500'.

Stalls... put the Eclipse into a stall, kept the stick hard back and worked the rudder pedals to prevent falling off to one side into an incipient spin. My previous record (in 2006) was 4 seconds, today I maintained 15+ seconds while losing 1100 feet of altitude, before falling off to the right, where I recovered the spin. Climbed back up to 3500', did a second stall which I recovered right away by lowering the nose and adding throttle.

Spiral Dive... Are routine to recover, the trick is to recognize a spiral dive quickly and recover before Vne (Never Exceed). Flying past Vne is test pilot territory.

Climb back up, and get into Slow Flight. A couple of gentle turns, maintain altitude.

Back towards CYRP, dropping from 3000' to 1400' using a forward slip, radio calls leaving the practice area and joining airport traffic, cross over the airport and join the mid-left downwind.

Final approach was on rails. Just after a major storm goes through the air is quite stable, and the wind for runway 28 was from 300 and slow - maybe 5 kt - so little crosswind effort and no mechanical turbulence. I chopped power at about 600' and glided it right to the landing. Rotate, and a good landing (especially for the first one of the lesson). Flare was slightly higher than it should have been, so it was accompanied by a slow rotation. No bounce, little yaw, and just to the left of the centre line. Touch&go.

Second landing. Final was on rails. Flare a bit lower. Power was at 1200 RPM until I chopped it before flare. Decent landing. Just to the right of centre line. Touch&go.

Third landing we did a simulated engine failure forced landing at the airport. I conserved lots of energy to the runway, but forgot to do the Cause Check. We were at about 40', at 65kt, and a third down the runway when I called Overshoot, throttled up and did a proper overshoot. If I had no engine I could have used a slip to get rid of the altitude and speed, and could have got it down. Or landed without the slip and stood on the brakes. Or both. But I proved I could make it to the runway and knew how to get it down, no need to do anything extreme on a simulated engine failure. Especially as a student, and at low altitude.

Fourth landing was also a simulated engine failure, forced landing at the airport. While flying to the threshold I put in a forward slip and shed 200', then glided to a decent flare and touchdown. Again, I ensured I comfortably made the runway (28 is notorious for sink approaching the threshold), so touchdown was a distance down the runway. Touch&go would have been possible but edgy (and a major issue if there was power failure during the takeoff roll), so I backtracked, worked the pre-takeoff checklist (see yesterday's blog), and did a takeoff right down the centre line.

Fifth landing was a normal full stop. Final on the rails (man, I love smooth air!), a smidgen to the right of centre, with a flare that was a touch high.... but lots of back elevator made it reasonable.

Time: 1.1
Landings: 5

What I did well:

Final approach was on the rails
Landing on the centre line
Minimal yaw
Forced landings (airport)
Slips

What I could do better

Flaring closer to the ground... but today was markedly better than previous.

Next flight:

Checkride with the Chief Flight Instructor (CFI) Sunday @ 1400. And depending on her assessment.....

Working on the flare - August 4

2008-08-05T11:06:00.004-04:00

Two more hours in the circuit. Things are coming along nicely.

Final approach is getting better - much more stable, smaller movements on the stick, good coordination with rudder and - importantly - the throttle. Asta la bye-bye to the pendulum.

Today's crosswinds were from the north (right) so I anticipated that there would mechanical turbulence in the lee of a cluster of trees to the northeast of 28's threshold, and it was right there on very short final. No issue, just be aware that throttle might be required. It was.

At the end of last lesson I figured out that I was double-flaring: As the ground got bigger in the windscreen I would feel the usual apprehension about all that black asphalt filling the windscreen, raised the nose to slow the rate of descent, descended, and then did the "real" flare into cruise and touchdown. All this activity usually meant that I ran short on airspeed in the second flare, which meant a harder touchdown. Today's objective: One flare only.

I was also flaring too high. Last lesson I had the instructor demonstrate the landing and I kept eyes-out to see the perspective. Today's objective: Trust the perspective, don't be afraid of the ground, flare at the right altitude.

The circuit was much busier today - we usually had 3 aircraft in various positions, including arrivals from all directions. Learned to make sure I knew where announced aircraft were, and to be very clear in stating my position. And learned what to do in the case of circuit conflicts - twice aircraft did a quick 360 to add to spacing (as it worked out, neither rotation was done by me). And once I flew the downwind at 115kt rather than 80-90kt, both to increase the spacing from another aircraft following me in the circuit, and also to get some practice in shedding all that airspeed before turning base and final.

I remember back to my first lessons, where I couldn't make a radio call without losing 30 degrees of heading and 250 feet in altitude. Now I can track the course, make the radio call, keep a picture of traffic, and work the checklist. It's like driving a car, where - after the initial learning curve - you don't have to think about keeping it in the middle of the lane.

The wind was varying today. We did a runway change while in the circuit, which involves flying downwind for 28, crossing over at midfield, then downwind for 10, then base then touchdown. By the time we got on the ground we looked at the windsock and it has switched back to favour 28. After that we ignored the windsock variations, as it always came back to favour 28 anyway.

I greased 3 of the landings. One had a very minor bounce. Nothing scary.

Today's mistakes:

When traffic was arriving I got rather concerned that we couldn't spot the incoming traffic. I should have levelled off at 1400' ASL, but got up to 1600' ASL instead due to inattention. The wrong altitude had the effect of not placing us in the expected position when they were scanning for us - a critical part of circuit management, and safety in general, is doing what is expected of you.
When doing touch&go, the only configuration difference between landing and take-off are the flap settings - this makes it real easy to switch from landing mode to takeoff should you have to reject the landing. After landing on 10 and seeing that the wind had shifted back to 28, I pulled onto taxiway Bravo (near the threshold of 28, but at the far downwind end of 10) so the aircraft following had the option to land on 10. They decided to go around and go downwind for 28, so I pulled back onto 28, backtracked to threshold, positioned and took off. Take-off was very sluggish, but RPM was fine. I nearly rejected the takeoff before I realized that I had not lowered my heels to the floor, so I was probably slightly on the brakes. During the climb-out the aircraft was still sluggish, and that's when I realized that the flaps were still in the landing position. When I was on the taxi-way I should have run the pre-takeoff checklist from the list itself. I did run it from memory - but forgot the flaps setting.

For the last few landings I set a goal of getting my touchdowns onto the centre line - I am chronically off on the left side of the runway. Part of this is maintaining a sideslip right through the landing and landing on one wheel (the upwind wheel) so the wind doesn't push me across the runway. Another factor is to anticipate the left yaw when removing power from the engine. And part of it is probably the fact that I am in the left seat, and the cowling curves down to the left.

Time: 1.4 hours (and another page in the logbook is full)
Landings: 7

Things I did well:

Taking off from the centre line
Airspeed management
Multi-tasking (with all the traffic in the circuit)
Final - getting better
Flare - closer to the ground, but not yet consistent
Runway change

Areas to improve:

Land on the centre line
One flare
Consistently flare at low altitude
Minimize the yaw at touchdown

Next lesson is Wed/6. We'll do a preflight briefing to cover a number of pre-solo requisites (e.g. emergency procedures), then continue to fly the circuit. If we're grounded by the weather then we'll do the briefings anyway, and I'll book a lesson for Friday.

Circuits! Quelle surprise! Aug 3

2008-08-03T14:38:00.004-04:00

Flying 12-14. The day started off with stratus at 1400' (OVC014), then the cloud cover lifted a few hundred feet and broke up by the time of my lesson. I was looking at light winds from the north (right side of the runway), broken CU, and isolated rain showers.

My goals for the day:

Better manage my airspeed throughout the circuit, especially on short final and the flare,
Smooth final,
Nice flare and landing.

Summary: 1 was good, 2 is coming along, and I made progress on 3.

Taxi, radio, checklists, and take-off (including tracking the centre line during the take-off ) were all good.

But I didn't feel sharp. Altitude tracking wasn't precise at the start, then I decided to start putting in the extra effort and nailing the numbers and by the latter part of the lesson I was doing much better.

One thing I did much better was throttle management... I noticed I was just parking it at a certain RPM and driving the aircraft with the controls. Aircraft move in four dimensions (airspeed being the fourth), and today I was much much better with gently nudging the throttle. I've never adjusted the throttle as much as I did today.

But I had to be active on the throttle.... the usual updrafts and downdrafts at the end of 28 were out in full force today. During one approach I was on short final maybe 100' AGL and the aircraft just started sinking. I added about 800rpm and flattened out the slope, then throttled down and settled onto the runway.

Another linkage: If doing a forced landing, aim for the threshold and make sure you make it. Don't be afraid of erring on the the high side. With all the surprise sink I saw today, if I didn't have an engine I could not have glided to the runway.

Landings were generally OK. No high-altitude drops, one small bounce, a few normal-ish landings and two that were quite acceptable. And two rejected landings.

On one of the first landings I first encountered the really aggressive sink off the end of the runway, added throttle and continued the landing. I kept accelerating down so I kept adding throttle and nudging the nose up. Time to get out of Dodge - I ended up flaring, punching up full power, touching down the mains surprisingly gently, and then climbing out on full flaps. I leveled and accelerated in level flight, then nose up and positive rate of climb, went to take-off flaps and then climbed out.

After three landings I had the instructor do the landing, and I just watched the perspective so I could judge altitude. I was starting the flare way too high. My subsequent landings were much better.

Time: 1.6
Landings: 9

What I did well:

Sharpened up. Perhaps due to the layoff I wasn't crisp. I recognized it, and put in the extra effort to fly with precision. It got better,
Maintain 1000' AAE right to the corner of turning base. Sometimes I've dropped 50-100' just before the turn. I think this comes from the confidence that I can shed the altitude (throttle, flaps, and - if need be - a slip), and so I'm not jumping the gun on getting it down,
Overshoots and rejected landings. If you're going to reject the landing, don't be afraid to make the decision - and once you decide then don't change your mind,
Side-slips and forward-slips. Using these routinely now,
Throttle management. I have never been as active on the throttle as I was today. And I wasn't just punching in a lot of RPM and then create a speed-shedding problem - there were lots of small increments,
Final approach is getting smoother. Smaller adjustments, no pendulums, but not yet slick.

Needs improvement:

No yaw on landing,
Smother final,
Don't flare so high (although I got better after I asked the instructor to demonstrate).

I'm flying again tomorrow (Monday) and Wednesday, then I have a lesson booked with the CFI on Sunday. I may solo that day... and if I'm not ready it is no big deal, as it will be good to fly with a different instructor and get some different feedback.

Debrief with instructor: I'm not doing anything which is unsafe, my situational awareness is excellent, speed management is excellent, and I've pretty much assembled all the tools I need to fly solo. What I need to do now is continue to work on putting it all together.

New York to LA via North Bay

2008-07-30T21:18:00.003-04:00

From the FAA web site:

Flying North for the Summer

July 29 – Summer thunderstorms cause roughly 70% of all delays. The FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Herndon, Virginia uses Canadian routes to spread out traffic and rebalance the workload within the national airspace system during these thunderstorms. Canadian routes allow U.S. air traffic controllers to safely expedite the flow of air traffic through the extra airspace, which reduces the backlash of delays during severe weather.

In order for New York traffic to safely get around thunderstorms blocking routes to the south and west of the metropolitan area, controllers direct planes through Canadian routes that extend as far north as North Bay, Ontario and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

Decisions to use the routes are made jointly with Canadian air traffic control. The U.S. and Canada routinely participate in each other’s air traffic control planning teleconferences.

As a rule, the agency tries to provide several hours of advance notice when it sees a need for the Canadian routes. However, there are times when thunderstorms materialize unexpectedly or in places not previously forecast, and our neighbors to the north are quick to provide help and traffic relief.

Rained Out - July 28

2008-07-30T21:12:00.002-04:00

Lesson booked from 5-7pm, but there are a good number of thunder cells rolling through. Radar shows they are mostly in a line marching toward the airport, presumably with good weather behind them.

I pre-flighted the airplane, then went inside when it started to rain. Another student and I chatted with the CFI about flying. Reviewed the Pilot Training record, only to discover that we need to find the files from the previous CFI, because he hadn't logged my ground school in the PTR.

Finally, the solo student went flying. And got a phone call from my wife, who needed a pickup. At 6:45. When the last cell was moving through, and there was nothing but blue sky to the west. And no bookings on the airplane, or the CFI, for the rest of the night.

Went home and studied emergency procedures.

Landings: 0
Flight time: 0

Forced Landings - July 25

2008-07-27T12:06:00.004-04:00

Captain's Supplementary Blog Entry, Star Date 2008-07-25

When flying a powered aircraft, sometimes you need to go land when you didn't expect to. The cause could be an emergency, such as a fire, bird strike on the propeller, engine problems, or a number of other things.

Or it could be a precautionary landing, where the aircraft is working fine but it would be prudent to get on the ground Real Soon Now. Examples include fuel shortages, or weather closing in on a VFR-only pilot.

Today's practice involved:

Flying downwind, which is parallel to the runway but in the opposite direction,
At circuit height, which is 1000' above airport elevation (AAE),
With no conflicting traffic (since this is only a simulation, and therefore elective),
Chopping the power, and gliding to the runway and a safe landing.

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.

Somewhere on the downwind, usually opposite the threshold, we announce our intentions (just n case there is someone in the circuit), then chop the power to idle:

Point the aircraft at the threshold - we have "no" engine, so it is not a good idea to fly further away from our friend, the runway,
Get the airspeed to 73 knots, which is the best L/D speed for this aircraft. When flying at this speed we have the most range - if you fly any faster OR any slower, you won't go as far, and being able to fly (glide) further means you have more options for landing,
Perform the Cause Check (this can be done while waiting for the airspeed to shed). Fuel pump on, mags both, fuel cutoff open, mixture rich, air alternate, temperature and pressure. Sometimes it can be as simple as descending from a great altitude but not moving the mixture from lean to rich, thus starving the engine for fuel - and correcting the problem means you again have an engine - nd no need for a forced landing,
Communicate. In a true forced landing we're going for the runway threshold and have no options, and so it becomes everyone else's responsibility to stay out of our way - but so far we haven't told anyone that we're doing something non-standard. We've got the airplane doing the right things to make the runway, and we're going to be doing a lot of focused flying in the next while, so it's time to engage everyone else and get them out of our way, so we don't have to worry about them while we need to be worrying about us. When doing a simulated forced landing we announced our intentions on the radio on the downwind before even starting and make sure there are no conflicts - and if there are then we do the good citizen thing and just do a normal circuit and landing,
Now it's time to get down, while managing the energy available so we don't end up short of the runway. Remember that the Eclipse is real slippery, and has an 11:1 glide ratio. We had 1000' of height, so we can glide 11,000'. Unfortunately, the runway is maybe 3,000' away.
Time to get out full flaps (they cause lots of drag, and allow a steeper angle of descent without having to fly faster). We're flying at 73 knots, but the maximum full-flap flying speed is 78 knots. I'm trying to get down, which means I have lots of energy in the bank, which means I can safely fly at a non-perfect L/D speed... so I drop the speed to 70 knots to give a bit more protection against overspeeding the flaps,
Still lots of energy, and much closer to the threshold, and so I kick in a forward slip. We're in a left-hand turn to align with the runway, so I use right rudder (which points the nose of the aircraft to the right, and away from the runway), and left aileron (which causes me to turn to the left towards the runway), and also use the elevator (stick forward/back) to keep my speed at 70kt. We're flying in a circle to line up with the runway centre line, but we're flying with the left wing noticeably down, and with the nose well right of our ground track. In effect, we're flying somewhat sideways and the whole left side of the aircraft is plowing a lot of air - and we're shedding altitude fast (when up in the practice area I could get a descent of well over 1000 feet per minute).
When still comfortably higher than the glide slope and well sure of reaching the runway, I smoothly lose the forward slip by relaxing the right rudder (my leg is sore by this time) and bringing the stick to centre, and continue to manage the speed with the elevator. Now I am lined up with the runway and approaching the threshold, and it's time to get speed to 60 knots (which means I won't glide as far since it is further from the optimal 73 knots), and get stabilized for the landing. If still hot, or if there is a crosswind, I can put in a side slip.
And land the plane normally.

So how'd I do on my three attempts?

First landing I nailed it. Great forward slip, smooth exit from the slip, good flare and I greased the landing a safe distance down the runway - you want to maintain a positive energy bank account at all times, for example, you could encounter sink just off the threshold. Touch&go and off to attempt #2,

On the second landing I got lazy - I took a looser circle to the threshold, my speed sometimes dropped to 60 knots (which meant I couldn't fly as far), and I didn't recognize my draining energy bank account as quickly as I should have, and didn't let out of the slip as soon as I should have. I was a bit low off the threshold and if I truly didn't have an engine then I probably could have stretched it out to the runway - but this is a simulation. I put in a touch of power, then chopped it and performed the touch&go. Off to attempt #3.

Learning experiences from attempt 2:

Don't perform a lazy circle - make a beeline to the runway.
Speed management!
Above all else make sure you make the runway. Lose the slip to get closer, and re-engage it when you're sure you have lots of energy int he bank.
No configuration changes close to the ground. Ever. I did this right. If I was energy-shy at a good altitude then I would remove the flaps, and extend my gliding range. Shedding all that drag is useful if gliding into a headwind, or if the energy bank account is low. But by the time I figured out that I was tight on energy I was close to the ground, and any configuration change close to the ground is generally a Bad Thing. Removing flaps, for example, will first result in a loss of lift and an altitude drop as well as reduce drag - but by the time I could take advantage of the reduced drag I'm probably out of altitude. And so I used the engine to get me to the runway. In a true emergency you do what is required to get to the runway, since everything else is usually a worse outcome.

On the third attempt I carefully preserved my energy and had a great approach and landing. I continued the forward slip to the threshold, when I still had lots of altitude (maybe 150'). After tracking the centre line and losing more altitude I smoothly lost the forward slip, engaged a side slip, managed my speed well, and landed it pretty much on the centre line - and still had more than enough runway in front of me to switch flaps to take-off and then touch&go.

Forced Landings: 3 (two successful, one possible if it were a true emergency)

What I did well:

Forward slips, especially the smooth exit
Side slips
Energy management (except attempt #2)
Tracking without thinking - somehow I managed to "wear" the airplane to where I wanted it, without having to think about what specific control inputs were required,
Speed management (except attempt #2)
Self-diagnosis. I damn near interrogate the instructor on the details while climbing out and during the downwind - it's my style of learning, in that I just don't want to know what works, but why it works, and how it is connected to everything else, and did I make the right decisions.
Not changing the aircraft's configuration when I was short of energy - even in a tight situation, safety first.

Needs improvement

Recognize when a shortfall in energy may occur, sooner, and then switch to a distance glide to ensure we make the runway
I have to think before engaging a forward slipping turn.
Keeping the rudder right to the floor in a forward slip.

The fun part

Gliding the aircraft right in, managing the energy so the safety buffer was always there.
Telling my wife about flying a forward slip at 100' AGL (somehow she thinks it isn't normal to be flying sideway through the air).

Overall, I learned more about forced landings from attempt #2. From attempts 1&3 I learned I could do forced landings safely. From attempt #3 I confirmed that I can figure out why things work (or don't work), and then correct successfully.

Next lesson we'll add precautionary landings and forced landings off-airport, which involves landing site selection, managing energy, managing crosswinds, etc. Unfortunately, we cannot descend below 500 feet above ground level (AGL) for the off-airport practice.

After this lesson I was exhilarated.

A beautiful night for flying - July 25

2008-07-27T11:22:00.005-04:00

Lesson planned for 7-9pm. The day had very well-formed cum throughout the entire area, so I was expecting that we might have a bumpy flight. However, when I got to the school at 18:30 most had dissipated. Winds from 200 at about 10kt when we started, but they died down as the lesson progressed, so I notched both routine and crosswind landings.

More circuits. Various instructors have told me that this is the most boring phase of learning to fly - doing laps around the circuit, scrubbing rubber off the tires and squishing bugs, taking ~6-8 minutes of flying to get 30 seconds of final approach experience and 8 seconds of landing.

I'm trying to counter the boredom by developing precision in the rest of the circuit. Hit 1000' AAE exactly on the climb out, no banks more than 30 degrees, track altitudes exactly, crisp radio calls, fly the circuit at 90 degree angles with accommodation for the wind, work the checklists exactly from the checklists themselves (often, when you look down to read a checklist, the plane wanders from the intended path).

Approaches are getting better. They are not there yet, but there is much less of the wild pendulum stuff as I work down final. My goal is to get her coming down on rails.

Speed management in the circuit and on final remains good.

My angle of descent isn't right. I tend to start out high, fly in with a steeper angle of descent with the engine at near-idle, and then when it comes time to flare my speed erodes quickly because I need to arrest a steeper angle of descent.

Part of the problem is that it's just tough the get the very slippery Eclipse down from 1000' AAE (the altitude when turning from downwind to base) down to the right height in time for the turn to final. Absolutely essential is shedding speed in the last stage of the downwind before turning base, from about 115kt to 60-70 kt, and getting the flaps from cruise to take-off. Today I tried getting the speed down to 60 kt, and flaps to landing, while maintaining altitude and before the base turn. It helped - I was lower when turning final, so I could keep in a bit of engine, and have a lower angle of approach.

Sometimes still some yaw while touching down.

Touchdowns have all been on the mains. Nosewheel landings are a Really Bad Thing - not only is it hard on the nosewheel - which is not intended to take that weight - but you can have a prop strike.

Today I noticed that when the nosewheel touched down it was chattering, so I kept the plane on the ground but lifted the nosewheel, then touched it down again. My control touch is getting finer, and landing expertise is growing so I have the bandwidth to be aware that things like this are happening, and how to fix them.

Did 5 landings initially - the first one had a nasty bounce, two were not bad, two were somewhat OK, none were pendulums or scary. None had a slick final approach, but we were not dancing about the centre line. For too many of them I turned from base to final in a pear-shaped turn, so I had to come back to the centre-line extended. Must work on that.

When landing you pull the stick back, then further back, to keep the plane (hopefully barely) off the ground as long as possible. It is always a Bad Thing to push the stick forward, as you can easily end up nose down (see prop strike). The trick is to not pull the stick to far back too quickly or else you will balloon and be a good height off the runway at a slow&decaying speed (handle it by adding a smidgeon of power, then coming in and flaring again). No stick pushes today.

There is another subtle change - my instructor has a set of objectives for each lesson, but I have influence on that list and can expand or modify it. It's more of a learning partnership, than master/student. Two lessons ago he demonstrated two forced landings at the airfield. Forced landings require shedding a lot of altitude in a hurry, so I suggested we head north to the practice area, practice entering forward slips (I've done lots of recent side slips, but am rusty on entering a forward slip), then come back and do some forced landings. He agrees, and so off we went, practiced left and right slips, came back, and did three forced landings (see next blog entry).

One more circuit, the ninth landing was surprisingly good but with a bit of yaw, off to the apron, run-up, shut down, and put it in the hanger.

Time: 1.5 hours
Landings: 9 (including three simulated forced at the airport)

What went well:

Using the circuit to be productive practice time, not just looping around time
Take-offs - of the 9 take-offs, 7 were good, one had tracking problems (on the left side of the runway), and on one I pulled up too aggressively and kicked off the stall horn. Since starting to work on making the take-offs slick there has been big improvement, now I want to be perfectly on the centre line every time.
Forced landings
Forward slips
Side slips
Taxi, radio, checklists, lookouts, stable flight, climbing turns, etc.

What needs work:

Turns from base to final - need to roll out on the centre line, not past it
Smooth final - there is less pendulum, but it isn't there yet
Speed management during flare
I want to end up in cruise over the runway at a lower altitude - this should come with less fear of the ground
Landing it not just near the centre area of the runway, but on the centre line.

Rained Out - July 23

2008-07-23T20:22:00.002-04:00

Was scheduled for two more hours of instruction today... but it's raining, the cloud ceilings are too low, and so it is a weather no-go.

Aside from last Saturday's single circuit, this is the first flight that has been scrubbed due to weather.

One circuit - July 19

2008-07-20T14:29:00.004-04:00

Saturday I had an 8-10am lesson. I was hoping for a bright sunny morning and minimal winds so we could do some practice area review, and then a few circuits.

When I was pre-flighting the airplane we had about 60% cloud cover. The cloud base was lowish, and had very soft, poorly formed, bottoms.

Another aircraft left just before we started the engine - as I was taxiing down Alpha I radioed him and asked what the trending on the clouds was like - he responded that the wind was at 290 and he was in the clear over Almonte (just west of the Carp airport).

I chose to backtrack down to Bravo and use the run-up area down there - it would give the oil more time to warm up, and more time to think about the cloud base. By the time the backtrack and run-up were complete there was 80% cloud cover, and while they still looked low, it was possible they were OK for circuits.

Here's the criteria:

For fixed-wing VFR flight below 1000' AGL, Transport Canada requires 2 miles visibility and clear of cloud.
The flying school requires a cloud base 1200' AGL, plus TC minimums.

So we backtracked from Bravo to the threshold and announced we were rolling. I mucked up the directional control a bit as we started to accelerate down the runway, as the wind was from slightly to the right of the nose, and minimal/no rudder was required. The take-off was smooth (I vowed that I would no longer yank aircraft into the air).

As we got higher on the climb-out we were saying hmmmmm - might not be a high enough cloud base. A glance up to the practice area confirmed that would not be doing any upper air work this morning.

I turned crosswind and then downwind, flying at 1100' (700' AGL). I chose this altitude so we would be comfortable clear of cloud, the base of which was varying 200+ feet above us.

I announced downwind, and remembered to announce our altitude since we were not at the expected 1400' (1000' AGL). Full stop, since we didn't meet minimums for the flight school.

Altitude management on the final was good, especially since I started at a lower altitude. Speed management as well. Lateral and directional control were not too bad.

Rotate and flare were nice, the landing was OK (a tiny bit of yaw at touchdown). I remembered the post-landing checklist. And announced to the Unicom that were home, along with a report of actual cloud base.

Time: 0.4 hours
Landings: 1 (sigh)

What went well:

Decision making. While it was iffy that we had a high-enough cloud base, there was a good chance for it. We gathered the one available data point (the departing aircraft) which indicated things would be OK. We planned to stay in the circuit, so we were not going to get in trouble if it was lower than reported. We stayed legal, as far as TC was concerned.
We also pulled the plug on the morning's flying, once we knew what the actual cloud base was. Facts trump plans.
Checklists - I formally did the pre- and post-landing. Even at the lower circuit altitude.
Adjusting for the non-standard circuit altitude, in setting up for final.
The landing.
My wife was happy, since I got home earlier than planned and could work on the gardens.

What needs to be better.

Lateral control for the final is getting better, but continues to need improvement.

Surprise! More circuits - July 16

2008-07-20T13:58:00.004-04:00

Today I was back to the male instructor (second time with him). We had a really nasty thunderstorm go through at 3-4pm, and we were flying at 7pm. The air was very stable, minimal wind, the sun was out, and it was just a really pretty time to fly.

Today's objectives:

Nail the take-offs. Now that I have realized what they are like, I want them very smooth.
Directional control on take-offs - tap-dance on the rudders as required. No more big swoops.
Vertical rate of descent on final needs to be smooth, and at the correct angle. Make minor rate-of-descent changes early.
Improve the lateral direction control on final
Eyes outside, stay away from the tunnel vision
Rotation and landing - don't be afraid of the ground, don't be afraid of a tail strike (avoid hesitation on getting the nose up)
Today, for the first time, we were using runway 10, so I could practice positioning for the landings based on relationship to the runway, instead of ground references (eg. using the cemetery of the end of 28 as a turning point)

Take-offs: Still gentle (good), smooth (good), and medium speed (tentative) on advancing the throttle. Decent directional control, meaning no large lurches left or right. But it's still a thinking process, not yet natural.

But the lift-offs were smooth - every one of them. Just got the nose wheel up at the rotate speed, maintained a moderate nose-up attitude, and the aircraft took off when it was ready. Big improvement. Vow: No more ripping the bird off the ground, just let her fly when she is ready.

Circuits. Very nice. Most important was shedding the speed, while maintaining altitude, on the final part of downwind. Getting the landing set up early made for an easier base and final.

Final approach. Good altitude control. Lateral directional control improving, but not yet good enough. Minimal crosswind today, and no sink or mechanical turbulence at this end of the runway, made it easier.

Rotation: An astounding improvement. The landings weren't greasers, but they were very much better. Pointed mostly down the runway, but need to get 100% of the yaw out of the touchdown, so I don't torque the undercarriage or scrub the tires.

The instructor demonstrated Forced Landings - abeam the threshold chop the power, then get it to the threshold and down. There's a lot of slipping involved.

After the flight we reviewed my Pilot Training Record. Solo is approaching, though I'm certainly not ready yet. In the nearer future we need to review the work from 2006 and 2007 (Stalls, Spins, Spirals). I want more work at altitude on forward and side slips. We haven't started emergency procedures. I've only seen the demonstration of two forced landings, so that's a new topic. And, of course, I need to be better on stabilized approaches, especially in a crosswind.

I had read that to accelerate the learning curve, one must fly often. It is definitely true. I can see the progress. And my self-awareness is improving.

What went well:

Rotation and climb on take-off. Wow. I just realized that this phase of flight wasn't smooth, decided to do it better, and it was easy.
Rotation on landing. Eyes are right down the runway to the horizon.
Gentle touchdowns on landing, good attitude.
Speed during final - used to be 60-70 (fear of low&slow), then I got it stabilized at 60, now I am comfortable at 55-60 and fly these speeds naturally.
Side slips
I remembered to do the post-landing checklist post-landing, rather than pre-shutdown.

What needs improving:

Directional and lateral control on final.
Making sure there is no yaw at touchdown.

Hours: 1.4
Landings: 8

More Circuits - July 13

2008-07-20T13:32:00.003-04:00

Back flying with the CFI today. More circuits. I know why they put cross-country into the PPL curriculum - it gives you something different to do when you get sick to death of circuits. And I've only just started.

Today we have wind at 220 degrees, and we're using runway 28. The wind isn't a lot, but it's there and it passes over a forest and lake before it gets to the final approach path, so there is a bunch of mechanical turbulence and more.

The usual remained good.... checklists, taxi, radio calls, climb, flying, headings, maintaining altitude.

I didn't watch my speed a few times, and got going a bit fast. And when climbing out after takeoffs I climbed through 1000' AGL a few times - maybe to 1050' or 1100' AGL. Need to hit the altitudes precisely.

Because I got going fast, and because the Eclipse is slippery, the first few landings I had problems with shedding enough altitude soon enough. I just got on that sooner, and had no further problems.

The final to 28 has some interesting sink (or wind shear, or mechanical turbulence) when the wind is from this direction. I recall one short final where we had sink (add a touch of power and change attitude), then we ballooned up (kill power), and then we hit sink again (add power, then add more power, then "gee, Jim, those orange lights are getting even larger, more power please)". I punched in a good shot of power, made the runway, killed power, and the let it slowly sink into the rotate and flare.

During landings, there is a bunch of flying in the circuit, then a final, and then a very busy 5-8 seconds of actually landing the airplane. During those seconds the student is busy doing the landing, and doesn't have much time to look out and get perspectives and so forth. It takes a while to get proficient at landings because you're only learning 5-8 seconds at a time.

I asked the instructor to make one landing - she didn't touch the wheels, but we flew down the runway at about 40' before climbing out. I took that opportunity to get a nice long look outside, look in different directions and establish a frame of reference.

Next landings I concentrated on looking in the right places. The approach wasn't on rails, but was were getting better. I made many more (fine) adjustments to attitude and speed, trying to maintain a constant rate of descent. Because I was looking at the end of the runway and the horizon I suddenly got much better at rotating into the cruise position, and then using more elevator to rotate and hold us off the runway as the forward velocity decayed.

In all, it's coming!!

Hours: 1.3
Landings: 6

What's improved:

Speed management on base and final (basically, getting rid of speed)
Vertical rate of descent on final
Flaring - changing attitude from descent to cruise to nose up
Visuals on the descent - getting away from the tunnel vision, and getting the eyes wayyyy out in front of the aircraft during the last seconds of a landing

Need to work on:

Directional control on take-offs - correctly using rudder at the start of the takeoff roll. Sometimes it's OK, sometimes it isn't, and this runway is long enough that I am gently applying power and working the throttle and rudder in concert. Need to get it quicker (in preparation for short field takeoffs)
Lateral stability during landings (vertical tracking is coming along)
Take-offs!!! They're not smooth. I reach rotate speed (44 knots), and then pop the nose up, the aircraft leaps into the air, then the stall horn blows due to the rapid change in relative wind, then I drop the nose from the silly nose-up attitude, then I get established in the climb, and then I have a smooth climb-out.

Different Instructor - Circuits - July 9

2008-07-19T11:38:00.003-04:00

My usual instructor wasn't available this evening, but an aircraft and a different instructor were available so I booked with him.

Tonight was lots of circuits. There was little mechanical turbulence and a tiny crosswind.

It is starting to come together. Taxi, radio work, and circuit flying was fine. Checklists are getting familiar.

Speed control and altitude control were right on the money! First time it has been this good.

Did a few sideslips to track the centreline and lose some altitude - they are coming along nicely, though I need to think before putting in a slip. I also need small, tender adjustments in the stick, not wholesale swings.

I rejected my first landing attempt. I was just about the threshold and was too low, so I punched in some power without right rudder, and jumped to the left as well as gained altitude. So I found myself at the edge of the runway, 100 feet past the threshold, 50+ feet in the air, too fast, and pointing 20 degrees off the runway to the left. I still have 3000' in front of me so I had lots of time to get it under control and bring it in, but there likely would not have been room to take-off again, which means a backtrack, so I just rejected it and practiced that instead. I think my instructors appreciate that I'm not going to wrestle the aircraft onto the ground dammit - there is no shame in a rejected landing, especially at my point in the learning curve.

I had realized (from my reading between lessons) that I wasn't watching the numbers track up/down the windscreen - I was judging glide slope from where I was, and not tracking the trend and therefore setting myself up for a big correction later. I added it in this lesson. I also tried to avoid using tunnel vision, stare the aircraft into the ground, method of landing.

Coming along. Still not anywhere near stable in the final, the landings are a bit rough, but no longer scary.

1.4 hours, 7 landings.

[I'm writing this 10 days later from recollection.] Need to work on:

- Smoother, stabilized approach.
- Smaller control corrections on final.
- Flare closer to the ground.
- Keep working the stick back during the flare, don't let the drop get ahead of me.

Big improvement on:

- Checklists are getting less rusty.
- Sideslips.
- Speed control through the circuit - not starting at the airspeed indicator any more.
- Altitude tracking throughout the circuit.
- Shedding more speed sooner, resulting in not being ridiculously high on final.

Circuits - July 7

2008-07-17T22:39:00.002-04:00

My flying school's CFI is a busy person, and matching the gaps in her schedule and mine is difficult. At the conclusion of the July 2nd lesson we looked at the upcoming dates, and found an hour on July 7 when she was available, 8-9pm. The following lesson was toward someones Night Rating, and it wouldn't be dark enough at 9pm anyway, so we booked an aircraft for 30 minutes ahead of time, I would pre-flight and be ready to go, and CFI would do a quick turnaround.

The logistics all worked well, and we did an hour of circuits. We were alone most of the time so the use of time was very efficient.

Taxi was fine. Takeoffs were so-so, the biggest problem being that I was dodgy on the application of right rudder to counter-act the application of throttle. Flying the circuit was fine. Radio calls were fine.

I had trouble getting the aircraft down - the Diamond is slippery, so you need to chop power and get the flaps on plenty early.

Lining up the aircraft on the final was more like a waltz, with lots of bobbing and weaving, rather than riding down on rails. I usually got the aircraft settled in as we approached the runway, but it's a pretty crappy approach. She figured out that one of my problems was that I was using lots of stick to correct for mechanical turbulance, so she blocked the range of motion with her hands to force me to limit me to nudge the stick rather than swing it.

I usually had some yaw as I moved from descent to cruise to flare, and CFI often kicked in a bit of rudder to straighten it out. Among other things, I wasn't anticipating the releif of the yaw when I chopped power.

And I chopped power at the strangest times - too early during final, in the cruise, and once while in the flare. This is not good.

After this lesson I did lots of book and web reading, doing a diff between what I was supposed to do, and what I was doing. My eyes were generally looking in the wrong place for most of the descent. I was tunnel-vision on the numbers, but wasn't watching whether they were moving up/down the windscreen so I had no idea on whether I was high, low, or which way I was moving.

When I rotated from descent to cruise attitude I was usually too high (still afraid of the ground), and I wasn't looking at the far end of the runway, so judging cruise attitude was a random guess.

And as the aircraft started to settle I would move the stick back, but I was usually too timid and the drop would get ahead of me - timely application of back-elevator by CFI would take the whack out of the landing but it still wasn't pretty.

I always landed on the mains, but I could hear the nosewheel chattering back ond forth, so I'm sure I landed with yaw.

So I don't yet have a stabilized approach, I'm looking in the wrong place, rounding out too high, am afraid of the ground, am tentative with the stick because I'm imagining pulling back and ballooning up 50 feet into a stall - or else expecting a tail strike.

I'm told this is pretty much normal at this stage. The good news is that I've sliced and diced what's happening, talked it over with, and listened to, the instructor, and have a good idea on the bits that I need to work on.

The big upside is that my basic flying in the circuit is fine - I'm hitting and maintaining altitudes, can fly a straight line, under-speed (stall risk) is not an issue.

We are both eyes-outside during the circuit and we are chatting - about flying, about what we see, about the last attempt, and about the next attempt, and I can carry a conversation as well as fly, so all of those basic flying skills are getting internalized - it isn't requiring full brain.

And after the last landing I once again forgot the after-landing checklist.

I need to make these landings less exciting.

Another hour in the book, with 5 landings.

Flying lots before the mailman cometh - July 2

2008-07-16T22:34:00.002-04:00

I am going to get in lots of flying this month, before the VISA bill comes and my wife finds out exactly what the cash burn rate is. She has a general idea of the costs, but it's when the bills all total up that one goes gulp.

Anyhow, July second was another day and another flight. We had a real stiff crosswind, which I am not ready to handle, but when the weather goddess gives you wind you use it for other lessons.

It was a day to learn to "wear" the airplane. We did slips, turns and some basic manoevers, and then it was time for illusions caused by wind, aka overcoming drift. We cruised at 1000 AGL, got the speed down (so the wind had more effect on us), and flew squares and circles.

Juliette is a good instructor - with her coaching, sometime during this hour+ of meandering along above the trees and roads and silos something internalized, and I stopped flying the plane according to inputs and directions and thinking and cause/effect, and got it working so that I stopped thinking about what I needed to do to get a particular result, and just did it and it happened.

It's like the difference between a comic (imagine Robin Williams) doing a dialog on a drunk trying to will his feet to walk - OK, first we transfer our weight to the left leg, whoa, don't overbalance, now pick the right foot off ground aaack lean forward a bit, OK, good we're going forward, wow, get that right foot out there and under me, get it on the ground, good, yes, stiffen the muscles, ready for the weight, OK, weight is coming over, whoops, I'm stuck halfway... push with the left toes, good, .... you get the idea. That's what it was like when I was trying to do ground tracks at the start. Too much thinking.

At the end, it was like wearing the airplane. The wind flattened me out into an oval sometimes, but towards the end there was little of the conscious processing.

Back to CYRP, and with all the crosswind I had the instructor demonstrate using the slips on the landing. What the heck, if I'm paying the gas, we'll use every minute of flight time for some useful purpose.

After landing I didn't do anything on the Post-Landing checklist - totally forgot. There are only 5 things on it, time to memorize it - and the others.

Get the rust off - June 30 2008

2008-07-15T22:58:00.003-04:00

And so I am going flying again, after nearly 10 months (August 8 - June 30).

The checklists used to flow. I still know what each item is, but it's like playing the piano one note at a time... plunk plunk plunk, with no melody. Don't think, be methodical, trust the checklist.

I get in and out of the plane easier - the exercise helps. A lot. Thanks Craig.

The radio calls are not that hard, but I had to think and compose before each.

The Garmin 430 was a mystery. Time to get out the manual and PC emulator.

Taxi wasn't bad. I had no idea which direction to hold the stick to minimize the effect of the crosswind on the Eclipse - one of the many little details forgotten. At least I remembered that I was supposed to do something, and not just leave the stick centered.

Takeoff was OK, but tentative. I expected to have directional control issues, and we had lots of runway, so I advanced the throttle slowly and made sure it didn't get away on me. Right rudder, maintain control, push to full throttle, keep the pointy end more or less at the end of the runway and get airborne. I still yanked it into the air rather than rotating and letting it climb when ready.

Reviewed side- and forward-slips from the one lesson I saw them last year. I remembered little from last year, so some day when we're sick of circuits I'll review them again.

Lots of slow flight, climbing turns, level flight, etc. All the basics. Altitude holds were not bad, but rough.

Then we did four landings. One was rejected (too high and not worth saving), one I was high and so the instructor demonstrated a forward slip, one touch&go was rough, and one landing.

Overall, I was pleased. Flying was not slick, but I did much better than I thought I would after a 10 month layoff.

Back in the saddle again

2008-07-14T20:38:00.002-04:00

Just because I don't blog for 9 months doesn't mean I'm not doing airplane-like things, it just means I haven't been flying. In fact, in all of 2007 I had one flight, in August. But I have been reading books, visiting aviation museums on cross-country drives (and across the pond), and getting the rest of life in order.

So with my volunteer committments to youth soccer significantly reduced, and having settled down into a new job at work, it was time.

Since June 30th I've had a number of flights. It is true, one does get tired of circuits. More blog entries, on a number of topics, to come in very short order.

But first I need to go make another booking.

A Tale of Two Airlines

2007-11-05T11:20:00.000-05:00

I'm doing a ton of flying these days, but most of it is back in carriage rather than the front left seat - so I may as well blog about some of those experiences. Author's note: One of my major hot buttons is customer service.

Last weeks' business trip involved 8 legs to visit three customers in three cities.

Story 1:

I'm in IAD (Dulles airport, Washington DC) in the United departure lounge, waiting for a 777 flight to Denver. Across the aisle is the departure lounge for an overdue United 747 departure for Frankfurt. These are smallish departure lounges, and it is hot and crowded.

The pilot for the 747 Frankfurt flight, in jacket and with four stripes, came into the departure lounge and made an announcement regarding the delay. The gist of his announcement was "Hi, my name is {insert name here}, I am your pilot for your flight to Frankfurt. We had a mechanical problem, some of you probably saw the guys with the wrenches under the engine, then wondered why we left without you -- after they had the problem fixed I took the aircraft up and did a loop around the airport to check everything out, all is fine, and we'll start boarding for our trip to Frankfurt in the next five minutes."

The passengers applauded.

Story 2:

In my hotel room in Reno, American calls me on my cell phone and lets me know that my 1:00pm flight to Chicago will depart at 1:45. Thanks, no problem.

I get to RNO and the flight is now scheduled for a 2:40 departure. We leave after 3pm. An obtuse comment about the delayed departure from the captain on one of the announcements, and I've got it figured out - the previous day's flight crew snagged something, and nobody from maintenance did anything about it overnight. They weren't waiting for a part - they didn't even order the part. Maintenance activity started when today's flight crew arrived at the 757, read the snag in the log, inquired about the resolution, and then maintenance got started.

My 2:45 layover in Chicago was reduced to 35 minutes, 25 of which were spent going from gate to gate.

Story 3

I arrive at my Chicago departure gate 13 minutes before departure, and I'm not checked in (since I had such a long layover scheduled at ORD, the checkin would happen there not in RNO). The United/Ted flight ORD-YOW was actually operated by Skywest. They had closed the flight, since all passengers had been boarded. They looked at the paper trail, listened to me curse American, determined that the door was still open, gave me a boarding pass and walked me down to the aircraft.

Astoundingly, my checked baggage made it onto the aircraft, despite the quick change involving a late-arriving aircraft, two different airlines, and two different terminals.

Epilogue

I've flown American Airlines very few times. It's never been a clean, happy experience. How do these guys stay in business??

Classic Air Ralleye

2007-08-31T13:38:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday the wife of my youth (and today) celebrated our 28th anniversary. "We" celebrated it by attending the Classic Air Rally (she has a lot of patience, not only during the exhibit day but also for 28 years). This is an annual fly-in at the Canadian Aviation Museum.

Vintage Wings Canada had a display of a Spitfire, a Mustang, a Harvard, and a Fox Moth, and another display with the internal workings of a Merlin.

There were 4 Republic SeaBees in attendence both in static attendence and a fly-by. This is one beautiful bird - or really ugly, depending on your perspective. Definately a practical, high utility, aircraft.

There a hangar beside the main museum where ?Northwinds? is restoring several aircraft, and they had a guided tour.

Free admission to the main museum was also offered. This is an impressive collection, with many "only one of two surviving in the world" units.

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home, so I have only a few really ugly grainy pictures. I may add them to this post later.

Security Lockdown

2007-08-22T20:39:00.000-04:00

Whenever possible I like to fly direct - it is one less opportunity for the airline to misdirect your luggage, and on a direct flight you are not at risk of screwy things happening at an intervening airport.

Last trip I flew Ottawa-Toronto-Heathrow due to unavailability of seats on the direct YOW-LHR flight. The 320 we flew to YYZ had a problem with a sensor relating to the ground spoilers, and after some failed attempts to reset the gizmo, the flight deck got on the phone with maintenance to confirm (45 minutes later) that this was not a Minimum Equipment List items. Fortunately we had enough fuel to fly to Toronto without going back to the gate to tank up, so we could arrive 15 minutes after my connecting flight to LHR had left. AC put me on the next flight, I got to fly in the triple-7, and my suitcase arrived about 6 hours after I did.

On the current trip I flew Ottawa-Montreal-Heathrow, so my flight would depart at 20:30 instead of 18:00 (more time with family on the Saturday). When we arrived at Montreal the International departures area was in a lockdown.

We never get the full story on this at the time, of course, and Transport Canada isn't going to share their Standard Operating Procedures, but the airline was quick to point out that they were not the cause of all the delayed flights, and stated that there was a problem with the security checkpoints.

Apparently some Einstein took a knife through security into the international departures area. TC responded by removing all passengers from all aircraft, and all passengers from the area, and searched the area and all the aircraft. Total delay was 3 hours, though my flight was delayed "only" 1:40. Nothing to do except walk up and down the hallways, enjoy some kiwi gelato, and wait for the system to sort itself out.

At least my suitcase arrived at Heathrow at the same time I did.

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/national/070818/n081863A.html

200kmph at 0' AGL

2007-08-21T06:29:00.000-04:00

I am currently on a business trip. Yesterday was Munich.

Alas, I didn't have my camera with me, for at the entrance to the airport there is a static display of (I think) three vintage aircraft.

On the freeway / autobahn, from the airport to the hotel, the taxi (a very nice Benz) achieved a top speed of 200 kilometers per hour.

I've been terrified in a taxi in Manhatten, and a few other places. Not here - this guy knew how to drive, and kept his head well in front of the vehicle.

Smithsonian - Enterprise

2007-08-17T12:51:00.000-04:00

Wayyyy back when NASA was designing the Shuttle, Star Trek fans started a huge campaign to have the first one named Enterprise. That plan was successful in the naming, but it resulted in the first test flight vehicle receiving the Enterprise name.

Enterprise was a test vehicle. All systems (computer, hydraulic, power generation, power distribution, control surfaces) had to be tested, as well as aerodynamics, structural integrity, gliding, handling and so forth. It's loaded with sensors, such as temperature and strain. It has never had "real" engines mounted in it, it was never sent into space (nor will it ever be sent into space). It was "launched" from the back of the 747's NASA uses to move the orbiters around. For the first landings it didn't even have landing wheels, but used skids instead.

It was one of two vehicles to have ejection seats (Columbia, the first orbiter to go into space, also had ejection seats for the first few flights - these were removed when Columbia entered regular service).

As a long-time follower of space programs, I knew the dimensions, weight, various capacities, unique manufacturing techniques etc. of the shuttles - but until I saw it in person I never realized just how honking huge these vehicles are. NASM also has Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules nearby - you can put a Mercury capsule into the back of a pickup truck, those things were tiny!

As you first enter the "Space Exploration" wing the SR71 would be immediately behind you. Rockest are ahead on the right, and the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo capsules are ahead on the right. And dead ahead is Enterprise.

Only a wannabe pilot would take a picture of the nose gear. The entire shuttle flight, including the landings, can be flown by the onboard computers (and for many phases of flight the flying must be done by the computers, as humans don't react quickly enough), but the gear bays can be opened, and the gear lowered, only by the onboard crew manually flipping a switch - the wires don't (normally) exist so the onboard computers cannot get that command to the hardware. There is no gear retraction capability, so the inadvertant deployment of the landing gear (for example, due to a computer program bug) would be an uncorrectable error, resulting in the guaranteed loss of the vehicle and crew upon re-entry. Recently the shuttles have been equipped with a short cable, so that if there is a major heat shield problem the cable would be installed, the shuttle would return unmanned (the crew would stay behind on the ISS if that was in the flight profile) with this little cable between here&there - so the gear can be deployed by computer

You can see the thickness of the tiles - about 6 inches IIRC.

The entry/egress hatch is on the left front side of the vehicle - at the round red dot below, behind the scaffolding. The crew-inhabitable section of the orbiter is the tile-covered area at the front, to the left of the "Enterprise" (you can see the lines of the cargo bay doors). The crew compartment is on three levels, with the lowest level being storage. On a full shuttle the flight deck carries 4 individuals, and four more (normally only three more) ride on the second level.

And below we have one the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME). Pound-for-pound, these are some of the most powerful engines ever built. Their fuel, lquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, flows into the shuttle through a 17" diameter pipe, and is then divided between the three engines. The fuelmixing/burning chamber is about 10" in diameter - the size of a basketball. Most of the burn is in the nozzle. One of the common questions on the newsgroup sci.space.shuttle asked about wearing a space suit and hitching a ride into space. It wouldn't work - the noise level in the engine chamber would turn you into jelly within a few seconds.

Smithsonian - SR71

2007-08-16T15:52:00.000-04:00

I had two hours to kill before a flight back (business trip) from Washington. Sitting in an airport bar for 4 hours is not my idea of a fun time. Besides, if you go through security at Dulles well before a flight then they get suspicious and sent you through the extended security check (the sniffer machine, digging through luggage, etc).

So I made my way to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. The museum is in a corner of Dulles airport, and the transfer bus to the museum (or back to the terminal) is 50 cents.

Except for two exhibits (one is a Cessna, one is a simulator with a long lineup), NASM is a no-touch museum. It's huge. I had minimal time, so I flew through the place. There is an IMAX theatre, but I didn't have the time (this trip).

Greeting you after security is the SR-71 Blackbird. Upon retirement, it was flown from Palmdale California to Washington/Dulles/NASM, a flight which took 68 minutes and 17 seconds.

Here's the bird, nose-on.

Jumpseat

2007-08-10T09:44:00.000-04:00

[This is a story from a while ago - passenger access to the flight deck is now strictly verbotten.]

A "snowbird" is a Canadian term for someone (usually a senior or retiree) who spends most of the year in Canada, but heads to the south for an extended visit during the winter. Many snowbirds own a condo or trailer or house down south. The popular locations are Arizona and Florida.

My mom is a snowbird, spending 4 or 5 months a year in Phoenix, rather than winter in Northern Ontario. For her first winters she/we would drive both ways so she can take more luggage, her dog, and her car. One year, when I was driving her back, I left Ottawa at 6am, arrived in Phoenix in the early afternoon, and by 3pm we were on the road back home. That was the last car trip - she's getting on in years, shouldn't be driving that distance (4-6 days in a car is tiring), and she couldn't see the sense of taking 6 days to make the trip when she could do it in 6 hours.

In the fall (of 1999, I think) I had driven her down, and was flying back. I had some expired upgrade coupons, but the aircraft was only one-third full so the gate agent said "why not?", and upgraded me from budget tourist el-cheapo to business class.

After enjoying the meal and the wine, I noticed that the flight deck door was open. Myself and two other pax spent the trip on the flight deck. The captain was the PNF and chatty, the FO was doing all the system monitoring and was flipping the jeppesen charts to the next available airport.

Flying over southern Ontario it was absolutely clear. At that time I lived in the area, and I could point out the small towns and name them - the crew could name only those with an airport.

I got the jump seat for the landing in Toronto. It was a Saturday evening and things were very quiet, but we did some racetracks northwest of YYZ - apparently there was a new software load in the ATC computers, and they were being very careful with the traffic load for the first few hours.

The captain did the landing - and he greased it.

Thanks to OBL et al, flying the jumpseat on that flight will likely be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Driving Lessons

2007-08-07T09:36:00.000-04:00

My daughter is learning how to drive. Dad (moi) is sitting in the right seat as we slowly roll around the parking lot of ScotiaBank Place. After she gets the basics under control we went for a drive on the quiet back roads, then residential areas.

My hands were firmly clenched around the door handle most of the time. She didn't hit anything, or even come close, but I had more than a few nervous moments.

I can only imagine how clunky my flying looks to my instructor. But she has dual controls.

Airborn once again

2007-08-05T21:39:00.000-04:00

After spending most of yesterday digging crabgrass out of the dirtpile that used to be my front lawn, today I decided that it was time to break the 8 month 8 day drought.

Today I went on a flying lesson.

I qualify with "lesson" because I've flown 25 legs (I think) so far this year due to work. And last Sunday I engaged a pilot and aircraft to take a friend and I sight-seeing tour around Ottawa. But it was time for me to drive.

Before leaving home I read through all of my notes from the last spate of lessons, and arrived somewhat prepared, but fully expecting that I've forgot most everything. We started with a very brief pre-flight briefing, but she (and I) thought it best to have a list of things to do, get back into the air, get to know each other, and get a realistic assessment of what the next steps will need to be.

I did the W+B correct (I asked the instructor to check it in detail since it had been so long since I completed that last one), pre-flighted the bird, then we climbed aboard. I scanned through the checklist and realized that I had not checked the (wooden) Sensenich propeller, so I called myself on the oversight and climbed out, did the check, then climbed back in.

Run-up etc - good (but slow due to unfamiliarity with the checklists).

Taxi - good. I think back to the drunken-sailor taxiing I did when first learning, today was decent (the Eclipse does not have nose-wheel steering, so it's rudder and tow brakes). I may have set a land speed record when backtracking, comment was that I should be slower - but at least the rudder was effective.

Take-Off - one of my best (so far). I've managed to create a few hairy take-offs, with wheel barrowing, wild weaving, yank-it-into-the-air-and-nearly-stall, etc... but this one was pretty unremarkable.

Radio work - good, somewhat stumbly due to rust.

Upper air work - turns good, altitude holding poor, straight flight (including drift) not bad.

Slow flight - not bad. No problem with stall recognition and recovery. I was always trying to hold the nose way up until we have a honking good stall and then recover (student procedure), but in The Real World you start recovery at the first sign of a stall.

Turns - OK. I hold altitude better in a right turn than in a left turn.

HASEL, observation, eyes-outside - very good.

Climbs and Descents - good. Actually, I spent most of the day climbing because I tended to lose altitude in turns, and because we were doing stall recovery practice.

Slips - new. I had not had a lesson those in power flight, flew a few in a glider some time back, and we covered those today. I think I want the rudder pedals a bit closer next time.

Circuits - I'd never done circuits before, always just coming in for a landing. But we did two touch&go, followed by a full stop, with a gentle 80 degree crosswind. Flared a bit high on the second T&G with a somewhat firm Tough, the third (the landing) had a not-too-bad flare and touchdown.

Total Hobbs: 1.7

Next lessons: Slow flight, I need much work on holding altitude in straight flight and turns (no surprise), but ready to start circuits.

Really good: percentage of time with eyes-ouside was very high.

Needs work: Altitude maintenance.

Surprise: I was uncomfortable with slow flight (it used to be fine). 80kt - 120kt was comfortable, when we got slow my spidey sense was tingling. More air time in slow flight will bring this into my comfort zone.

PSTAR Complete

2007-07-22T13:47:00.000-04:00

I did some studying over the past few days for the PSTAR exam. This morning I went to the flight school and wrote the exam. 49/50. I missed a question regarding minimal visual range for helicopters flying through a Control Zone in Special VFR - NOT something that is going to cause me concern. Solo students can't even fly Special VFR, so one has to wonder why TC would have such a question on the pre-SOLO exam. Oh well......

So I now have my Student Pilot Permit. Time to go flying.

References:

New CFI

2007-07-19T17:09:00.000-04:00

I received notification that the flying school has a new Chief Flight Instructor.

Carpe Diem.

So I visited the school earlier this week and sat down with her for an hour to:

Introduce myself,
Discuss how I learn (I'm an analystic internalizer connect-the-dots person),
Discuss the next steps in my development,
All the full-time instructors at the school have changed since I last flew. I wanted to see if I would be happy with her as my primary instructor,
Find my ground school exit exam, and see where my areas of weakness are (she couldn't find it),
Discuss how best to make up the three Ground School sessions I missed due to business travel,
Procedure for writing PSTAR (drop in any time),
Had her photocopy my medical certificate for the school's files.

It was a good meeting. We have an action plan.

Itching to fly

2007-07-01T22:04:00.000-04:00

Happy Canada Day!!!

So much activity, so little time.

Work is busy - in addition to lots of North American travel, I've been 'across the pond" three time in the last three months for sales calls and business development. Since my job isn't directly in sales my own job (I am a Product Manager) continues, so when I get back home I have to do 4 weeks of work in three.

Aviatrix has a new job! Congratulations to her, I read her blog every day.

I haven't flown since October -and it bites to not be flying. A positive financial change is rumoured, so I'm taking the plunge and re-applying myself.

I have been reading constantly. PSTAR study is ongoing. I need to make-up three sessions from last winter's ground school. And I scored a solidly passing mark on my exit exam from ground school (despite missing a few sessions due to business travel), but it was too far from 100% to satisfy my personal safety standards -- so I have some remedial work to do in both making up the sessions, as well as the knowledge. The objective of the learning is not to pass the exam, it's safety - and it's my butt that up there.

I get emails from the glidng school mailing list, and they are building my desire - the weather has generally sucked in the last few weeks for gliding/soaring, but they are still getting up there and flying. Gliding is the most exquisite way of falling, and I am still lured.

The front hall still needs painting, the front sidewalk needs to be lifted and re-aligned, and the front lawn needs to be re-built. She Who Must Be Obeyed has a list.

My frustration is showing - I really want to go flying again. Based on past history, strong desire the first step in moving forward.

Women Fully Clothed

2007-02-25T22:12:00.000-05:00

Last evening the wife of my dreams, myself, and six others went to the show: Women Fully Clothed. They perform about once per month, and from the show schedule it seems to be centred in Ontario (all the women have full-time entertainment jobs, presumably in Toronto).

This show will especially appeal to the middle-aged surburban woman (about 75% of the audience, by my estimate). But husbands of same certainly will appreciate the show. Having been through parenthood is an asset.

If they are performing anywhere in your area, make an effort to see them.

http://www.womenfullyclothed.com

Beware of Thunderstorms

2007-02-17T13:16:00.000-05:00

An amazing story today from New South Wales, Australia, where two paragliders unsuccessfully tried to skirt a thunderstorm, got caught in an updraft, and soared to in excess of 30,000 feet.

One died.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/02/16/1171405421626.html?from=top5

35yo Ewa Wisnierska, reached a height of 9947 meters (about 32,600 feet), had no oxygen supply, survived -40C temperatures, encountered hailstones the size of baseballs, and lived to talk about it.

According to her GPS unit, maximum climb rate was just under 4,000 feet per minute.

Ewa, buy a lottery ticket.

Snow-stranded

2007-02-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

Just got back from a business trip, which took me to Columbus Ohio for one day. Due to the winter storm which socked in the US midwest, I spent most of two days there.

We flew there&back in a Dash 8. Going there was low-altitude and in cloud, so I got to watch the wing leading edges ice up, and the infalatable boots blow them off.

KCMH de-ices and anti-ices planes wherever they happen to be. I shudder at all that glycol draining off to wherever - the airports around here have a specific de-icing pad with a catchment system in place.

I changed my flight back online on www.aircanada.ca, and three hours later the changes were not still in the United company. The check-in, which was incredibly inefficient, took forever, but she could not assign a seat. So I went to the gate to get my seat assignment, and I still was not shown as being on the flight, so we did it all again.

Stories from other passengers were "amusing". The weather truly sucked, precipitation was active, and there was rain, freezing rain, and snow, in below-zero temperatues. Streets were tough to go through, cars were parked in the ditch, and the passengers were complaining that they couldn't get where they wanted. An inconvenient combination of a death wish and ignorance of the technicalities of flying?

Airlines really need to work on their communications. One very irate [twit] was chewing out a gate agent (hah- just wait until you want to get a standby seat!) when she explained that a flight was delayed some number of hours, and all he heard was "cancelled".

Me? It flies when it flies. CMH has free wireless, so I got online, read blogs, wrote a report, processed email, and generally kept busy. And got home safe.

And I got to the mall in time to buy the Valentine's Day earrings for my wife.

Flying Bananas

2007-02-11T10:57:00.000-05:00

An "artist" has become inspired to build and launch a flying banana over Texas. Approximately 300m in length, filled with helium, unmanned, high-altitude.

Being an artist, he's doing this with OPM (Other People's Money). Frankly, I could think of a few thousand things that would produce more lasting value than floating a yellow banana in the very high altitude over Texas, but woe to anyone who speaks out over funding the Arts.

I support funding "the Arts". Hopefully, someday, we may have the courage to recognize that not all proposed projects in "the Arts" are worthy, some are just tremendously stupid or nondescript ideas.

The banana irks me on two fronts.

First, it's funded by public money. I have no problem if somebody thinks this is a good idea and wants to put money into it. But taxpayer money is also being tossed in. There is also likely indirect tax money (my money) - I'll bet that the private and corporate donors are also writing this off as a donation or a marketing expense on their taxes, and so the oter taxpayers (you and me) are taking up the slack. Go ahead and float your ballon, but don't ask me to pay for it.

Secondly (and this is an aviation blog so there is - finally - an aviation relationship), it is a Really Dumb Idea, technically speaking. For example:

Helium is a rare gas, really expensive, and finding 200,000 cubic metres of it for a 1 month lark is going to be a challenge.
Helium atoms (molecules) are Really Small - so small they'll (slowly) pass right through even a dense substance such as glass. The plan is to have this thing hover over Texas for a month, and without really terrific materials and contruction the helium will seep out long before that time.
Because the thing flies, there are standards to be met. Our artist figures to bypass all the rules by launching from Mexico (apparently he thinks Mexico has no airworthiness standards) and going so high the blimp will technically be in outer space, above the legislative reach of the FAA. Alas, the height required is so high that the banana won't visible from the ground - which rather defeats the original inspiring purpose.
What goes up must come down, and this thing is supposed to suddenly magically and simultaenously self-destruct and then burn up on the way to the ground. Of course, what will really happen is that it will start to leak, be unable to maintain altitude, and come fluttering/drifting down in some random location.

Obviously, this guy is not an engineer. Though his website says the project is "in the final stages of engineering", perhaps that is a marketing statement.

If the objective of art is to get people talking and thinking, he has been successful. Hopefully, he'll stop here. It would be a lot cheaper and safer, too.

More paperwork done

2007-02-09T21:42:00.000-05:00

Checked the mailbox today, and was pleased to see that another step towards solo flight has been accomplished... my medical certificate has arrived in the mail.

Category 3. And even though my left eye is 20/800 uncorrected (and virtually uncorrectable unless I have a coke bottle lens), my right eye is about 20/25 uncorrected, and 20/20 corrected. The only restriction on the certificate is that I must wear glasses when flying.

Woo hoo.

Radio operator certificate - done.
Medical certificate - done.

Next up - the PSTAR.

I guess I better get flying again. Though I have been travelling weekly on business travel, I've generally been in seat 2C, not the front left one. Dang.

Mid-Winter Celebration

2007-02-08T14:50:00.000-05:00

One of the traditions at "my" gliding club is a mid-winter dinner, held just after the mid-point between the end of one gliding season, and the start of the next. The dinner is held in either very late January, or very early February, at a local country hotel. The food is hearty, the conversation vibrant.

Of course, everyone asked me where the blazes I was all last summer, having not shown up at the club once. I then confessed as having moved to the dark side, to power flight from gliding. One of the highlights (lowlights) of the conversation was around cost, where a power lesson approaches CA$250, and a glider rents for CA$21 per hour.

But it got me thinking about what to do for next summer, where I believe I will continue the power lessons to the point of license (or rec permit), and also do some gliding. I'll also get myself on track for flying the tow plane, so I can get hours and lots of circuits, but not have to pay to fly. So I guess I'll need to add a tail-dragger validation as well. All in due time.