Today I flew with my instructor, Kelly Wiprud, over to the Aurora State Airport as well as a small strip nearby called Lenhardt. The plan was to learn soft field operations, as well as simulating takeoffs from high-altitude airports (or what they call high pressure altitude).
It was a little hazy today and we had to fly under a broken ceiling that was hanging at about 1700 feet above the ground along the flight path from Twin Oaks over to Aurora. The ceiling lifted as our session went on, and once over near I-5 and the Aurora airport, the ceiling was broken and the lower clouds were scattered.
Kelly had me do a short-field landing and takeoff, followed by another short field landing on Aurora's Runway 35 (which is actually a huge and long runway, but this is just practice). We then taxied back to 35 to take off a third time. For this departure he told me to set the throttle to only 2,000 RPM for the takeoff roll, which is well below the typical full-power setting of around 3,000 RPM. The purpose was to simulate taking off from an airport at a much higher elevation, say around 5,000 or more feet MSL.
I set the throttle as instructed and we slowly started rolling. It was a very soft and sluggish feeling, and it took a lot of runway, but sure enough the airplane eventually gained speed, left the ground and slowly climbed out. After climbing a while to experience what high altitude performance feels like, I applied full power and the little airplane took off like a rocket (well, not really - a Cessna 150 is a bit of a slug performance-wise - but you could definitely feel the performance increase in a big way, relatively speaking).
We departed the Aurora pattern and headed the four-or-so short miles over to the Lenhardt strip, a privately-owned-but-open-to-the-public airport. This small facility has a paved strip similar to the one at Twin Oaks (even the runways numbers are the same) as well as a grass strip alongside the asphalt one. Our target today was the grass.
Kelly took control of the airplane as we approached and showed me the approach and landing procedure for a soft field. The approach is similar to a short-field approach, except you don't come in as low on the final. The approach is conducted with full flaps on the final leg, but rather than "dragging it in with power" as you do in a short-field approach, you approach the end of the strip on a fairly normal path, start the flare and then apply a little power to float the airplane slowly to the surface with the nose high, and then once you touch down you hold the nose high until is lowers itself with the slowing speed. Then you keep the pressure off the nose by pulling back on the yoke and exit the strip.
While taxing on a soft field, it's important to get the carb heat shut off so as to avoid sucking anything being blown up from the ground into the carburetor, and you want to try to keep moving. Stopping, on some very fields, could mean getting stuck. That would be bad. Our field was very well maintained, but it was still a little bumpy.
The takeoff for a soft field is fun, and very different than other takeoffs. During the taxi you configure 10 degrees of flaps before you start your takeoff roll. The takeoff consists of pulling back on the yoke to get the nose high, applying full power, and holding the nose wheel off the ground while the airplane builds speed and starts to fly. As soon as you're in the air, the air speed isn't high enough to climb yet. So, you hold the nose down and fly just above the strip, in ground effect (which is a pillow of air that is generated between the wings and the ground when flying just above the surface). When in ground effect, the airplane floats along and accelerates pretty quickly. Once the airspeed is fast enough, you can climb at an angle that results in the maximum climb rate speed (Vx).
After Kelly showed me the procedures, He handed the plane back to me and I flew the patterns to and from the grass runway. It really is fun - and a bit of a mind stretcher - to fly in profiles that are so different than the standard takeoffs and landings.
After my successful soft-field practice, we headed back to Twin Oaks. We transitioned south of Aurora and Kelly pulled his signature move, turning off the GPS (which I really hadn't looked at more than twice the whole session anyhow) and having me eyeball my way back to Twin Oaks. It's not the easiest airport to find if you don't know where it is, but I'm getting pretty familiar with the area, and am starting to get better and knowing where to look when referencing the paper chart (map).
Looking ahead, I have a lot of flying over the next few days. Thursday will be a big day for me. The weather is forecast to be good, with some winds, so I have a plane scheduled to fly solo for a couple hours either side of lunch. My pan is to fly to some assigned airports within 25 miles of Twin Oaks in the morning and to go to a couple others after lunch, plus practice some ground reference maneuvers. After that I'll take a break and then meet Kelly back at the airport at about 5:00 for a lesson covering night flight operations. It will be a busy day!
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