I went in to the flight school today with the intention of flying a cross country to Upper Cumberland Regional Airport. The weather, however, had a different plan. Instead of flying to the cross country, since the weather was bad over the plateau, we decided that I should do a solo lesson. Josh recommended I fly out to the practice area and do some ground reference maneuvers and then come back in a do some touch and goes. With some discussion about cross countries and future lessons, I checked out the plane and headed down for preflight.
The preflight was pretty uneventful. I climbed in and started the engine. I radioed for clearance and moved to do a run-up. Everything checked out. I called for taxi and was cleared to taxi to 23L. I was ready to go and immediately called the tower upon reaching the hold-short line at 23L. The cleared me for takeoff and I took the runway, firewalled the throttle, and took off. They handed me off to departure over the end of the runway and cleared me direct to the practice area. Realizing that I had failed to dial in the departure frequency before taking the runway, I quickly dialed it in and switched over. I called them and made contact and they answered that I should “sqauwk 0355 and check transponder on.” That’s when I realized I had switched the transponder off rather than switching it to altitude. I quickly switched it over. This was not a good start.
I got out to the practice area and did a few steep turns while searching for a good place to do turns around a point. The steep turns weren’t bad. There was a little altitude fluctuation but otherwise they were good. I had initially searched out the barn that I originally used for turns around a point, but it was now a very busy construction site. I was a little uneasy about using it as a point, in case anything were to happen. I attempted to find another point, but I was unsuccessful. Thankfully, the workers left so I lined up for some turns. I had a little trouble initially setting up the turns, the wind was a bit dodgy, but I finally got set up. I made a pretty sorry turn around a point. I lost about 200 feet in altitude and I was bordering on a steep turn by the time I had made it back around. I tried one more the other direction which was only better in the sense that I maintained altitude.
I elected to move on to s-turns. I turned out toward 321 and attempted to set up a downwind entry. I started over the Superior Car Wash and proceeded snaking down the highway. Half my s-turns were pretty good the other half were really spectacularly bad. It was really depressing, but to be honest not totally unexpected. I tried some more moving back up the highway. They were only marginally better. I suppose this is to be expected since the intent of these exercises is to teach me, the student, how wind effects the path of the aircraft on the ground.
Slightly disheartened, I decided to try to find my grandparents’ house and then head back for some touch an goes. I flew and flew looking for their house and never did locate it. I assume I was flying right over it. A quick glance at the time and I realized that I had better try to get in the pattern if I was going to do anything else. Just as I was about to key the mic a guy on an instrument flight plan, who wanted to land at Sky Ranch, began what would be 30 or 40 minutes worth of radio calls.
For those not in the know, Sky Ranch is a grass strip just outside the class charlie air space at McGhee Tyson. It has no instrument approaches. So those wishing to land there must file a flight plan as if they are going to McGhee Tyson and then cancel in the air before heading to Sky Ranch. Even though I was VFR my entire lesson, there was a very distinct ceiling at about 3500 feet so there were a ton of instrument plans being canceled in the air. Enough had been going on that I was familiar with the procedure. ATC vectors you around until you break through the clouds and then you cancel and continue VFR for your approach. I didn’t think it was a hard concept. Nevertheless, I wasn’t able to break in for at least 20 minutes. Finally, I was able to request permission to return for landing.
I elected to forego touch and goes in an attempt to lighten the load on the controllers and myself. They vectored me in, which was easy. I came straight in to my base leg and turned final. I set it down in the first thousand feet and made it to the first turn off. It was a really good landing. I taxied back, secured the plane and headed up stairs. All in all it wasn’t the best lesson ever, but I left with the resolution that I would practice more. If I could do it perfectly there would be no need for training.
Hopefully we’ll get the cross country in next time, otherwise I’m probably going to change destinations.