Thus far I have only done one lesson per week. I felt it was the best balance of affordability and flying. Not to mention, I was doing the ground school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Last lesson however, Josh asked if I was flying any more this week and mentioned that he had time available today. To make a long story short, I scheduled a lesson. This morning I looked outside and it was a perfect day for flying. Any more I can’t think of any bad days to fly. I got to the airport and talked to Josh. We would finally work on ground reference maneuvers. As usual, I went out and did a thorough preflight on the plane. Nothing was out of place. As I was doing the preflight I noticed how quiet the field was. As someone that works at the airport, I’m used to the hustle and bustle of the week. This was downright pleasant. Something else I noticed was that a ton of planes were gone including 21693 which I usually fly. Since I was flying 783SF I remembered to set the heading so that it matched the compass. Preflight complete.
Take off and radios were easy as there wasn’t a lot of competing for radio time. We were up and off to Walland Gap for ground reference maneuvers. There was a bit of a crosswind on takeoff but it wasn’t an issue. I was feeling really good about my flying. I was maintaining altitude well and I had set the aircraft up for cruise. I had even gotten it trimmed really well.
The first maneuver was turns around a point. Josh explained the ideal point and I asked me what a good point would be. I saw a nice barn but there was a house right next to it. That is bad if the plane comes crashing down. So Josh suggested a similar structure that was further away. We discussed entry options and got set up for a downwind entry for left turns. Now, I had been studying ground reference maneuvers for a while now and I was pretty familiar with the general idea of the maneuvers, but like everything in aviation, it is a lot different in the air. So I attempted a turn. Now, it wasn’t terrible, but I had entered way too close to the barn, so I was in a decent bank for the first part, but ended up in a borderline steep turn. So Josh had me stretch it a little before the next downwind. The next two turns were much better. Then I switched around for right turns. It was a little harder because I had to look through the plane, but it was easy enough. All in all I would say I did alright. My main concern at this point wasn’t the quality of my turns but that I was really struggling with altitude maintenance.
We quickly moved to s-turns. Believe me when I say the hardest part of this maneuver is finding a straight road to use for your perpendicular line. Luckily Hwy 321 has a nice relatively straight stretch from around the hospital to Heritage High School. We discussed entries again and set up for a downwind for left turns. Josh flew the first one and talked me through it. Then handed me the controls as we rolled level over the road and told me to keep going. My first one wasn’t very good, but the second one wasn’t too bad. The main problem I have with both maneuvers is too much bank on the upwind sides. The third and final left was a little troublesome because there wasn’t a good point for the first part. It was just a moderately sized stand of trees. Too big to be a point on there own and lacking a decent standout, so I just tried to use the middle. As I came around the last part Josh said to keep going back the other way. This had the effect of getting in the right hand turns without going to the trouble of setting up to enter on a downwind. I also got to use all the same points. As we reached the school again I ran out of road halfway through and had to pretend the road kept going. It wasn’t as hard as it could have been because I could still line up by looking to the left.
Josh put me on a heading back toward the practice area. Remembering back to his brief outline at the beginning of the lesson, I knew we were going to try “an emergency procedure.” I didn’t know what he had in mind. After a little bit of flying headings, Josh reached over pulled the throttle and told me “you’ve just lost your engine. Now what?” I immediately started thinking fly the plane first, navigate second, do other stuff if you can. My basic outline was pitch for best glide (68KIAS) and find a suitable landing spot. The next question was “what looks like a good landing spot?” I mentioned that roads were often mentioned spots but that traffic was a problem. I then suggested a nice open field. Josh said for me to pick one. I found one that looked nice and flat, didn’t have any big obstacles at either end, and looked long enough for landing. Unfortunately we were perpendicular to it and we were well past turning for the most direct landing. I also noticed that the mountains were on our right and that they might prove to inhibit a landing into the wind. i knew it wasn’t ideal but I figured the best bet was a tail wind landing from the other direction. We had plenty of altitude, and thus plenty of time, to get around for a nice approach. So I started a turn for what was effectively a downwind. Once we were abeam what would be the touch down and just before I started a turn, Josh said that we made the field and we started back home. His only comment was not to forget to look back, that there were some good spots behind us as well.
Once we were headed back I radioed the tower and said we had the field in sight and we were looking to do some touch and goes. They didn’t object so we did 3. The first two were not so good due to a minor crosswind. I have a little trouble with crosswinds at the point where you straighten up the plane and dip the wing to compensate for the wind while simultaneously flaring. It seems that something always gets left out. Usually, I don’t flare enough and we get the new pilot bump. Sometimes I miss the straightening out part and we land a little crooked. I never break anything and its never unsafe but its still an issue because it could become a problem. On the final landing, the crosswind was gone and consequently I made another really nice landing. It wasn’t the picture perfect landing from last time but it was still grade A.
On the agenda for next time: more traffic pattern! I’ll be hitting the pattern again in preparation for the all important solo flight. It is right around the corner. Something I tried to do today but failed to do was get some sort of multimedia going. I was running late and the camera didn’t have any charged batteries and I couldn’t find a cable for the audio recorder. I’ll make sure to set that up for next time.