My fifth lesson had me a little worried. This lesson is a transition point. From here on I am responsible for most of the radio communication. I knew this was coming and I realize it is silly but I was worried about it. I did my normal preflight. Everything was perfect as usual. Josh came out about 3/4 of the way through and did his checks. Engine start was perfect. Run up was perfect.
Then came the part I feared. “What now?” Josh asked. I knew the answer was listen to ATIS and so I tuned it in and wrote down the information I needed, which was the letter, active runways, altimeter setting, and wind. I thought I had it but I missed the altimeter setting, It was 29.00 not 29.90. “Now what?” Call up clearance delivery and tell them who we are and what we want. I listened for a second – there was no talking. “Knoxville clearance, skyhawk 21693.” Immediately after I released the button another pilot from one of the scheduled carriers called them. As usual, the controller went with the bigger plane. I waited a good minute after he cleared the other plane and Josh had me call them back.
“Knoxville clearance, skyhawk 21693.”
“Skyhawk 21693, standby,” responds the controller in a very nasty tone.
I continued to wait. Finally, he calls us back. I relayed that we wanted to fly vfr to walland gap and that we had information lima. He responds that we should expect 23l and that after take off we should fly a heading of 230 and that we should squawk 0333. I read back, “Expect 23l, fly runway heading, err 230 after takeoff squawk zero three three three, skyhawk 21693.” The response I get is “Actually, runway heading is different, that’s 230 and squawk ZERO THREE THREE THREE.” Be sure to read that in the most pissy tone you can muster. At this point Josh says to me that its a little technical and confirms that I had read back the correct squawk and triggers the radio and says “right 230 and squawk ZERO THREE THREE THREE.”
Then we switched to ground and they very nicely had us taxi into position 3 behind two other single engine planes at Alpha 2. It felt like we waited forever. Finally, we were cleared to position and hold just after a little business jet had landed. Right after he cleared the runway, we were cleared for take off. I said, “cleared for takeoff, 693,” pushed the throttle all the way in and we were gone.
Not to long after taking off I realized that it was going to be a really bad day to fly. It was incredibly bumpy. This did not translate well in the maneuvers. The steep turns were probably the best I performed all day, but they featured some prominent altitude changes. Slow flight was a real struggle. That said I felt like I handled it alright. I managed to control the aircraft at about 45 – 50 kias despite the turbulence. That said my heading shifted quite a bit due to huge bumps.
Our final exercises were stalls. I did one of each with a higher degree of success than I expected and we headed back early. Josh had to cut the lesson a little short because they had a meeting at 5:30. So I called up the tower and let them know we were coming back and that we had the field in sight. They cleared us to land. It was about 4:55 when we were cleared to land so Josh did most of the landing and we hurried back to the ramp.
This was the first time I would actually have to park the plane and tie it down. I thought it would be hard to turn the plane around in the little area between the hangars, but it wasn’t too bad. I manage to get the job done with out crashing into any other planes or the hangars. Then Josh had me get the tow bar and steer whilst he pushed. That was the harder task. I can’t see the tail very well from in front of the prop. So I had a little difficulty putting the tail where it needed to be. Josh then took my logbook and went to fill it out while I stowed the tow bar and tied the wings and tail down. I don’t think he realized I’d never done it before. Nevertheless I succeeded, albeit nervously and I started back to the office to retrieve my logbook. Josh let me know it was a good lesson and we laughed about the radio incident. I now have 5.7 hours in the logbook.