The Value of Flying on the Ground

I've been thinking back on the critical phases of my flight training so far, and have to say that there was one thing the flight school and airport owners offered up the very first day that has been truly invaluable: Sitting in an airplane while it sits on the ground or in the hangar while the weather prevents actually flying the airplanes.

It's very true that traditional "hangar flying," a term that's used to describe sitting around and talking shop with others in the aviation and piloting community, is an valuable part of learning to fly and staying current. It's also an important part of joining a truly close-knit community. But the non-traditional "flying" I'm referring to is more often than not performed solo, on your own time.

If your slight school or FBO has planes sitting on the ground, ask if you can sit in the airplanes (without the keys, so they don't have to worry) and "dry fly" the airplane. Don't pump fuel into the engine with the primer or mess around with the throttle too much, and definitely don't run down the batteries by sitting there with the master switch on continuously. But do get in an airplane of the type you're training in (the same one if possible), close the doors, put on your headset, get out the checklist and your maneuvers handbook, and use this calm and quiet time to go step by step through everything you need to be learning, over and over. Muscle memory is helpful for procedures you need to perform repeatedly while flying, and muscle memory is built by repetition of the proper movements. Take breaks when you start to overwhelm yourself. Ten minutes walking around looking at airplanes or trees or whatever can do a lot to make you mentally ready to start ground flying again.

The little things in flying can have a substantial impact. When I first started flying the Cessna 150's, my brain was completely stuck when it came to the simple task of operating the accelerator control, which is a push/pull knob mounted in the lower center part of the instrument panel. For some reason, every time I was supposed to reduce power, I pushed the knob in, which actually accelerates the engine. I was consistently doing the opposite of what needed to be done, and was having a truly hard time changing my habit. It's not good to inadvertently apply more power when you're supposed to cut power just prior to landing. It took a few lessons, but mostly it was the repeated dry-flying of the airplane that got my mind to change gears so it knew to pull the knob to reduce power and push it in to increase power. I even used some analogous memory aids: For example, my boat has a similar throttle lever - you push it awat from you to go faster, pull it toward you to slow down. I believe strongly that letting my mind find its way though this little mental block on the ground, in the airplane but not under the divided-attention stresses of being in the air, made a huge difference. And there have been a variety of other similar procedures and tasks that improved substantially for me as a result of taking the time to "fly" the airplane on the deck.

Another thing I did a couple times was invite a friend along with me to the airport for the dry flying time. I was excited about flying and wanted to share it anyhow, and my friends were interesting in seeing what it's all about. I mean hey, who doesn't like airplanes? I explained everything I was learning to them, out loud and carefully. One of my friends patiently let me explain the pre-flight walk-around inspection and then sat in the small C-150 with me for almost an hour while I pretended to fly and tried to make it as verbally graphic as possible. It has to be tedious after the first ten minutes, but he was a saint. I'm grateful for good-sport friends, heh.

More than once the Twin Oaks Airpark owners commented that they wished more students would show up at the airport and sit in the airplanes to practice like I do. It's free, is a great use of bad-weather time or spare cycles between errands and meetings, and really does make a difference.

Here comes that Oregon weather

I won't able to go flying again for a week and a half because I'm flying commercially to Barcelona, Spain for work. As it is, the gray skies of Oregon in November have settled in during the late part of this week, as always seems to happen around Halloween.

So, when I get back I'll be hoping for some flyable skies on two days I'll be in town, and then I'll be back on the road and hoping for more reasonable weather in mid-November. Yeah, right. :)

Meanwhile, I'm going to be spending a lot more time reading ad studying for the written tests, as well as the next phase of flight lessons, which involve navigation and flying cross-country and more complex airspace. It'll be fun.

Great student pilot podcast and pretending to fly on the ground

When I told some people in my "network" I was beginning flying lessons recently, Tim Heuer (@timheuer on twitter) pointed out a great podcast by Bill Williams (@billwil on Twitter) called The Student Pilot Podcast. He started it almost a year ago and has used the audio format (and some video) to record his learning experiences from beginning to end. I've spent some time listening in, and it's been especially useful. I like the way he throws in the occasional comment about being too low or too high on approaches, those little details that make a difference and let people like me know it's truly a learning and growing experience. It's a good informal learning tool, and for someone like me who's just getting started, it's especially nice to be able to hear complicated stuff like radio traffic procedures and to vicariously share in Bill's training milestones. A couple times last weekend as I was flying (on an airliner) to Philadelphia and listening on my iPod and laughed out loud at situations happening in the podcast, which drew a couple funny looks from the passengers around me. In his latest episode, Bill highly recommends another site and podcast called Uncontrolled Airspace. So, I'm checking that out this evening. It looks quite good, too.

I was supposed to fly this morning for a couple hours and do a bunch of landings and approaches with my instructor, but we had to cancel due to high winds and cruddy weather. Yesterday the weather was poor, too. But I dropped by the airport anyhow since I was in the area and asked if it was permissible to sit in the aircraft while they're on the ground and "pretend" to fly. I've recognized early on that running through the procedures and drills in a calm, quiet, non-distracted environment might just help when it comes time to actually fly, especially after reading my newly-acquired copy of the C-150's Pilot Operating Handbook (or POH) and realizing there were a couple things I'd missed in the cabin.

I was pleased to find out from the kind and friendly people at Twin Oaks Air Park that not only would they allow me to sit and practice in unreserved aircraft, they encouraged me to do so as much as possible. Just turn out the lights if everyone's gone - Nice! One of the people there said, "I really wish more people would do that," and my instructor Kelly said, "Yeah, that's a good idea, you'll save yourself some money" (by potentially reducing the number of flying hours needed to become proficient).

So, I headed for an unoccupied Cessna 150 with my trusty visual flight procedures book, the POH and a few other odds and ends, and started practicing the in-cabin procedures for things like startup, taxi, run-up, take-off, departure, airport traffic patterns, approach and landings. I also did a pre-flight inspection on a couple different airplanes. After about an hour of practice time my good friend Dave, who's about to complete his own private pilot license as part of his pro-pilot schooling, dropped by the air park, so we geeked out on all the aircraft there for a while. Dave was pretty impressed with the trainer/rental fleet there as well as a big, old, very-cool airplane on pontoon floats that's parked there (I think maybe it's an old Beaver, but I'm not really sure - I'll have to ask).

Dave and I left the air park, and I went and grabbed some food. I realized I still wanted to practice some more, so I selfishly decided to call another friend (who's also named Greg, which makes for a bit of confusion in a group but we do okay when it's just the two of us) to see if he'd want to go check out the airplanes and help me learn. He didn't hesitate to say yes, so we headed back over and spent a good hour and a half, with me explaining everything I'm learning out loud to Greg while I practiced it and checked myself with the checklists and maneuver instructions. I also found myself teaching him a lot of what I have recently learned in my ground lessons and study, which is a great way to reinforce it for myself. Ultimately, I'm learning more and better by sharing it with others.

It's amazing to me how much information I've picked up and learned in the past week and a half. This middle-aged brain still works, heh. I'm also realizing that one of the things I like the most about doing this pilot training is that there is so much information I have absolutely no clue about. Much of what I have been involved in over the past several years has been quite fun and rewarding, but this is all those things plus it's really, really challenging. I guess that's what I need right now: a good challenge tied to a fun undertaking. It's invigorating.

Sounds like we're focusing on landings next time around. After spending some time getting more familiar with the controls and practicing procedures on the ground, I'm looking forward to it. That should happen Monday, if the weather cooperates.