My Long Solo Cross-Country - The Oregon Coast

The weather turned from completely terrible to amazing here in northwest Oregon this past week, and I took advantage of it in a big way, getting in a bunch of flying while I can.

As I mentioned in the last post, I went with my instructor on Tuesday and was introduced to flying under the hood for instrument conditions simulation. It was the first time day people had been able to fly in weeks, and the weather just kept improving from there.

I also mentioned at the end of my last post that I'm glad for the training I've received, which has been excellent. A good part of training is focused on dealing with the unusual and unexpected. I put it to good use, as you'll read further on.

I'd been doing a bunch of flight planning in preparation for my long solo cross country flight that I needed to get done as I (hopefully) near the end of my private pilot training. I'd planed three different trips, all of them longer than necessary by a safe margin (and a couple of them probably just too long to be realistic for one day worth of flying in a slower plane like the C-150). On Wednesday, I filed a VFR flight plan with the FAA for a three-leg flight from Twin Oaks Airpark in Hillsboro to Newport, a town on the Oregon Coast to the southwest. From there my plan would take me to Astoria, a port town at the northwest corner of the state where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. I would then fly to Woodland State airport in Washington and from there almost due-south back to Twin Oaks.

I arrived at the airport mid-day Wednesday and saw the fog had cleared and the overcast cloud layer was quickly burning off and breaking up - A good sign. I'd planned my flight to leave at noon, but in reality I would not be able to get off the ground until closer to 1:30 p.m. Fortunately (planning-wise), I found out the Woodland State airport runway was closed according to an FAA notice, because it apparently had been under water and was not serviceable yet. It turned out that with my late departure I'd need to find a way to shave some time off the flight in order to make it back before civil twilight anyhow, so Woodland wasn't really an option anyhow.

I departed the airport at Twin Oaks (7S3) and flew to the Newberg VOR (UBG). When I climbed to about 2,000 feet and looked over the ridge to see what the conditions were to the south, beyond the ridge the VOR sits on top of, I was greeted by an overcast cloud deck that surprisingly covered the entire Willamette Valley floor almost as far as the eye could see. I would not be able to fly over that legally or safely as a student pilot, but I had discussed this potential circumstance with my instructor before I left. I observed that a few miles to my west the conditions were clear, and I let the Seattle Center (who had me on their radar and was aware of my flight plan) that I was going to fly a few miles west and then turn southwest over the VFR area to reach Newport. And that's what I did.

My path took me over the coastal range just for a few more miles than would have been the case if I'd done a straight shot from Newberg's VOR to the one at Newport. I climbed to 7500 feet , which was higher than I had originally planned in order to make sure I had plenty of gliding range should an emergency situation occur, and I steered to ensure I had prospective landing spots in view (which is what one should be doing at all times anyhow). I made my way down to Newport just west of my originally planned track and took a look at the city, it's lighthouse and it's distinct bridge from the air for the first time. The airport was east to find, just south of the bridge, and I checked the weather and winds on the automated radio channel and then prepared to land.

The Newport Municipal Airport (ONP) is a nice facility, with two big huge runways (compared to what I'm used to). I set up to enter on a 45-degree entry into the downwind leg for Runway 34. There was a stiff crosswind, partially a headwind, with a crosswind component of probably 7 knots with some light gusting. As I flew the final leg toward the runway the gusts became apparent and I had to really work to crab the airplane into the strong quartering headwind. I stayed on the centerline and straightened out just before touching down, and put it down one wheel at a time (in the correct order even). I had to make sure I was "steering" into the cross wind with the ailerons, just to make sure the winds wouldn't try to lift the right wing.

I fueled up the airplane and shot a goofy little video of myself at the airport in the afternoon sun (you can click on the video to see it larger and in HD-ish quality on YouTube). The temperature was spring-like, which is nice for January. As soon as I was fueled up I got back in the plane and prepared to depart on the next leg of the flight, which would take me to Astoria, about an hour or so north of Newport. My path of flight would take me straight up the shoreline of the northern Oregon Coast.

It was so nice out I flew with the window open for a couple minutes twice on the way up. I saw lot of smaller, interesting airports while enroute and had the chance to see this beautiful piece of our country from a whole new vantage point. I'll be going back there again in the future for some scenic flying, for sure.

When I finally reached Astoria and stated to descend, I was a little worried about the fact that one of the fuel gauges was now reading almost empty while the other one was showing almost full. Now, I know these gauges are notoriously inaccurate, which is one of several reasons why you don't rely on them. Instead we check the fuel level in the tanks manually with a measuring stick and determine how much fuel will be burned on the flight leg by leg. My concern was of the self-questioning type: Had I been a lunkhead and left the right tank cap off when I refueled? I thought back and was certain I had not since I double checked, but at the same time I wanted to visually confirm it was on there. So it was good I was arriving at an airport.

I took a look down below me at the Astoria Regional Airport (AST), which I understand was a military airfield in another life. I crossed midfield 1,000 feet above traffic pattern elevation and determined that the winds were favoring Runway 8. I continued to the north after crossing midfield and did a right turn until I was headed back to the airport and then entered a downwind leg for Runway 8. I made the approach and then an uneventful landing on Runway 8. I eventually found a taxiway, and after trying to figure out where I was I made my way to the ramp to park and look at the top of the wing to see if two gas caps were on there.

Once parked, I was relieved to find both caps properly in place and secured. So it turns out I'm just paranoid, not an idiot. I can live with that. I got out the fuel level stick and confirmed there was still 8+ gallons in each tank. Then I saddled back up and got ready to go. I departed from Runway 8 and climbed out, turning toward Hillsboro, since it was time to get back, and Woodland State was still underwater.

The sun was going down while I flew the last leg, so I got to see a coastal sunset as I made my way home. I was still surprised at how warm the air was as I flew at about 5,500 feet toward Hillsboro. I was getting dusky as I arrived and descended to the small Twin Oaks airstrip. It also got very cold very quickly, as I descended into the inverted cold layer. I'd been pulling the carb heat as I flew and descended, since it was prime conditions outside. I entered the pattern on a descending 45-degree entry leg into the downwind leg and started my downwind run.

As I came abeam the numbers, I pulled the carburetor heat knob out, reduced power to 1500 RPM, and dialed in 10 degrees of flaps to start the landing routine... and the engine quit. It was a little quieter than usual, I remember noticing that first. What the?!?! I pushed the carb heat back in, pulled it again, no go. Checked the mixture, it was okay. Primer knob locked in place, check. Key in the on position, check. Pushed in the throttle all the way, nothing. Got the nose properly positioned for glide and glanced to my left at the end of the runway. I had enough time to try to get the engine back online one more time before I'd have to turn to assure I could make the runway. Checked the fuel valve, it was on. Set the throttle in a few notches and turned the key, noticed the prop was spinning, so I pushed the throttle in again and the engine came back to full-power life. I fed it more fuel quickly and assured it was running and not stopping, confirmed the carb heat was still on, reduced power and tried to calm down a notch.

I was still at proper pattern altitude and in a good position to make my runway landing, engine or not. I reduced power a bit more and turned to my left base leg, then set my flaps, and made my turn to the final approach leg. I dialed in some extra flaps since I was a little high (the extra power surge on the restart/whatever-it-was had caused me to balloon a little altitude), then landed the airplane right where it belonged, about 100 feet past the numbers on the runway.

I have to admit, as irrational as it is, for a brief second there when the engine power was unexpectedly gone, I looked to my right and half expected to see my instructor Kelly sitting there telling me my engine had just died, as he's done so many times in the pattern when simulating an engine failure in almost exactly the same place. My mind just started doing what it does every time he does that. It was pretty much automatic. Not as organized as it could be, granted, but automatic nonetheless.

I taxied to the fuel pump, powered everything off and killed the engine, removed my headset and seat harness, and jumped out and onto the ground. Wow, that was an experience. I was a little jumpy with adrenaline from the experience.

In discussing it with the Starks (who own the airport and have been flying since forever ago) and my instructor there at the airport, we determined that I'd been descending into a prime-for-ice-condition cold, moist layer from a warm, dry layer with the engine running in the lower end of the green operation zone. I'd been applying carb heat periodically while descending to prevent icing, but when I entered the downwind leg and applied power to maintain altitude the carb heat was off. I flew the downwind leg in these prime conditions for carburetor ice and apparently built up quite a bit until I again applied the carb heat. When the ice suddenly melted, it likely entered the engine and cause it to bog down and stop producing power. I don't remember seeing the propeller sitting completely still - It was always spinning, I think. It's not like I was looking at the prop, I was focused on solving the problem and those things I needed to check to get the engine running normally again, and making decisions about when it would be necessary to forget the engine and just glide to the field. At any rate, most likely some melted ice (water) got aspirated into the engine and had to disperse before it would run properly. The airplane checked out okay, and it was basically a non-event, but without the proper good training, it could have been a lot scarier.

The next day I went back out, check on the plane and found out it was fine, then got back in it for a couple hours and flew a bunch of take-offs and landings at Twin Oaks and Hillsboro airports. It was a good day of flying, and I wasn't about to let the jumpy ending of my awesome cross-country flight get the best of me, so I went back out and got back on that horse and kept up with my training.

It was a great couple days of flying. The weather has remained excellent, and I was able to fly again on Friday with my instructor. More on that next time.

First Solo! (and some other stuff)

I'll get to today's rather fun and exciting lesson shortly, it's a milestone day. But first a quick description of yesterday's lesson for posterity's sake.

The goal of Saturday's lesson was to fly to someplace not too far away, but where I had never flown before. I chose Scappoose, since the weather report was good and it was a new destination. I drive through that town almost every day and I flew there with my friend Dave once, but have never had to navigate there myself and have never landed and airplane there.

We took off from our home airport, Twin Oaks Airpark, and headed north. I eventually managed to get a word in edgewise with the busy Hillsboro control tower and received permission to cross their airspace. Then I flew over the Cornelius Pass ridge and turned left to find Scappoose. Of course it was right where it belonged, and I quickly located the airport on the far side of the town. We did several landings and a bunch of emergency and equipment failure drills, such as engine-outs, flap motor failures, and aborted landings. I made a couple little mistakes, and one big one: starting a touch and go with 30 degrees of flaps still down and failing to retract them while trying to climb out (which is a no-no). I could still climb the airplane, barely, but very slowly and not over tall obstacles like, say, trees. Bad idea, not safe. Kelly taught me the lesson by killing the engine while I was about 20 feet over the runway (with lots of pavement left), which required me to reflare the airplane, get it on the surface, start it back up and exit the runway. Honestly it wasn't until I got onto the taxiway, stopped and looked over at the wings (at Kelly's direction) that I realized my mistake. A good lesson, and well taught. Nothing like having your instructor cut the engine on you over the runway to make you really think. I don't think I'll miss that one again.

After a bunch more landings and drills, Kelly told me he'd have jumped out and let me fly solo if I had the insurance. I told him if he did that today I'd be ordering him back in the airplane, hah. My mistakes, especially the flaps one, had me a little worried, I guess. What else might I forget? He said I was ready, and learning from mistakes is what it's all about.

More insurance... How much insurance does one person need, really? Kelly had asked me to get the airplane renter's insurance set up last week but I spaced it out while traveling. So, before we went flying to Scappoose I went online and made the purchase. There's a wait of one day before it becomes valid. I guess they don't want to start insurance on the same day (makes sense, someone could crash and buy insurance the same day to try to cover it), so the effective date for the policy was one minute after midnight on Sunday.

We departed from Scappoose, and I had to dog-leg to the left on departure to fly around a suddenly-appeared flock of geese that thought they owned the airspace. We headed back to Twin Oaks and climbed to 3,000 feet, where we flew a simulated an engine failure directly over the airport at high altitude. Kelly showed me the first one, then I flew it again. Essentially you locate the runway and fly a spiral over the runway to lose altitude but stay close to the runway until you're ready to enter a downwind and land with no power. Another good lesson. I felt good about the session by the time we were done. Except for the forgotten flaps on the one landing, I'd flown pretty well.

Anyhow, on to today's lesson...

Today our original plans were to fly from Twin Oaks to Aurora State Airport to do some landings. Kelly had told me he wanted me to solo at a large airport, and Aurora's runways are huge (5,004 long x 100 ft wide) compared to Twin Oaks (2465 long x 48 ft wide). Soloing at Twin Oaks for the first time is just a real challenge due to its size. He's had lots of students and only one of them did their first solo at Twin Oaks.

We got in the air and I travelled on the compass heading I'd derived over to Aurora, but once past the ridge between the airports discovered that the low-lying haze over there was simply a little too thick to be safe. You could see down through it, but if you were to fly down into it and try to look horizontally through it, the visibility would be insufficient and dangerous. So, as often happens when flying, we had to change our plans. Kelly pointed out that this was good practice for the FAA check-ride, since I'll certainly get diverted from my planned route. He killed the GPS display and said I was to divert back to Twin Oaks on my own and enter the traffic pattern to land there. We could still do some landing practice, he said. So, feeling a little disappointed but completely understanding and agreeing, I turned back and found the course to Twin Oaks.

I located the airport visually on my flight line and flew the traffic pattern to land. We flew the pattern five times and did one flaps-dead drill as well as one go-around. On the last landing he pulled off his headset, unplugged it and told me I was on my own for this one, no prompts and he would not be able to hear me. Of course, he was sitting right there but you get the idea. I landed it just fine. After completing five landings Kelly called it good and told me to taxi to the lawn next to the ramp and park the airplane.

As I was pulling it up to the parking spot, Kelly told me he was going to jump out, and I was going to fly the airplane alone as soon as he endorsed my logbook. I was caught completely off-guard, since we were at Twin Oaks. I think I said something like "I am?" and he told me I was definitely ready, and that I would do great. I felt surprisingly calm and he told me to rely on my checklists and to take my time and have fun.

He signed my logbook and endorsed it, allowing me to fly solo in the Cessna 150, and said "Okay man, you're ready!" He shut the door and there I was alone in the airplane. Rather the letting panic set in, I picked up the checklist, took one quick deep breath, and found myself totally focused and clear-headed, working through the checklist and starting up the airplane, making the radio calls and taxiing to Runway 20. I did the engine run-up and checked the sky for airplanes, then made the call on the radio: "Twin Oaks traffic, Cessna six-six-five-eight-niner, departing runway two-zero, Twin Oaks." I pushed in the throttle, checked the instruments, rolled down the runway and lifted into the air.

I made the left turn upon departure that's required at this airport so the neighbors don't get blasted with airplane noise, and noticed that the little Cessna 150 climbs much, much faster with one less person in it. Now I see why people call it underpowered! I leveled out and trimmed the airplane and continued to climb. It was about this time that I has my "holy sh*t" moment, suddenly realizing what I was doing all by myself. Every now and then I look out the airplane window during a lesson and have a little moment of clarity in which I get a little flabbergasted about the fact that I'm leveraging a number of the laws of physics in a metal can burning gasoline to spin a propeller really fast, just so I can overcome the conflicting laws of what mother nature intended. That and I realize the fact that there's a thousand-plus feet of thin air between me and the ground. "There but by the grace of God go I." That's pretty much what I think. Then I usually say something out loud like, "Woah man, this is fun!"

Anyhow, as I was saying... Lots of extra climbing power available without anyone in the right seat. I was able to climb almost all the way to traffic the pattern altitude of 1200 feet before turning to the upwind leg. I made my radio calls as I transitioned around the pattern, and eventually set up to land. Carburetor heat on, throttle to 1500 RPM, 10 degrees of flaps, check speed, trim for the proper speed. I flew downhill a bit, looking back at the runway on my left. When it was time I made my left base leg turn, added some more flaps, and then turned to line up with the runway on final approach. I was a little high, so I added a little more flaps and checked my speed to make sure I was not getting too slow. Then I floated toward the end of the runway, cut the power to idle, crossed the end of the runway and landed just past the numbers after floating a little. That sound of tires hitting pavement... A successful landing!! The insurance company should be so proud, heh.

I exited the runway to the taxiway, "cleaned up" the airplane (retracted flaps and turned carb heat off - the term has nothing to do with bodily functions, heh) and headed back to the departure end of the runway. On my next take-off, I had to sit at the end of the runway for a few minutes and wait for a couple huge flocks of geese to leave the departure area. Geese are very bad for airplanes, and airplanes are also bad for geese, so it's a good idea to wait. On departure, a rogue flock of geese appeared from who-knows-where and I turned left a little early to steer clear of them. Other than that minor issue, all went well. The plane flew great and my landings were good (especially the second one). After my third landing, as directed, I parked the airplane on the ramp, shut it off, and got out.

My whole body started to shake a little as I put my feet on the ground and the rest of the world caught up to me. Kelly walked over, congratulated me and took my picture next to the airplane. I took care of the aircraft paperwork, and then we sat down to fill out my log book. I got to make my own log book entry for the first time: .4 hours of solo time. Nice!

I have to say again, Kelly is a great teacher. He knows how to take advantage of those "teachable" moments to make truly valid, important and memorable points, and he reads me well. He knows when to push me and when to hold back. I'm lucky to have him as my instructor.

A student pilot's first solo only happens once. After that, it's still solo flying, but first only happens one time. I did mine today around and onto a 48-foot-wide runway at an nice little airport owned and run by the some of the nicest people in the world. Not a bad deal. It was a pretty freakin' awesome day.

Sometimes it's best just to call it a day

The weather this morning was blustery and wet, but flyable - at least technically. After a ground school session about weather and reviewing my pre-solo written test, we headed for the aircraft. The rain had been coming down off and on, and there was a pretty strong wind from the south.

Long story short, I just wasn't in a mindset to fly. We decided to fly patterns around the airport and do landings, but the winds and my general disposition were not compatible with each other. After three approaches and some messy landings, I told my instructor I just wasn't dialed in and wasn't going to get anything out of the lesson. So, we stopped after 30 minutes and called it good for the day. I was frustrated and more than a bit discouraged. I needed to stop at that point.

Looking back at this morning before the lesson, several other things I had scheduled got turned upside down, and I had a lot of unresolved things on my mind that had nothing to do with flying. Add to that the fact that I was not comfortable with the weather (I wouldn't fly in it for fun, that's for sure heh), and the inevitable situation was that Greg was not going to perform.

Anyhow, that's over now and I have another lesson tomorrow afternoon. It looks like the weather will be better, and hopefully I can get some experience landing the plane with quite a bit less stress.

On the positive side, the takeoffs I did were a new and useful experience, because the strong headwind tried hard to pitch the nose way up high, so I had to hold the nose down with a lot of control pressure to avoid a dangerous stall attitude. Also, I got to experience for the first time in a substantial way how a strong wind aloft really pushes the plane around in the pattern and how you need to compensate by turning into the wind on legs where you're flying perpendicular to the wind direction.

Anyhow, back at it tomorrow afternoon. It's another day.

Windy landings and the oatmeal-brain effect

Today I flew for almost an hour with my instructor, Kelly. When I got to the air park, the winds were calm and the clouds were starting to clear. It was looking much better than over the weekend, when the weather had been pretty bad. But as I pre-flighted the aircraft, the winds started to pick up. By the time I was done with the inspection, there was wind of about 10-12 miles per hour.

We'd scheduled landing practice - Nothing but patterns and landings. Winds were within the safety limits, and I imagine Kelly was thinking I'd have to learn to do this sooner or later, and so now's as good a time as any. We got the aircraft ready, taxied and got in the air. I'm feeling more and more comfortable with the whole process each time, and "ground flying" the airplane helps. Taxiing and turning the plane on the ground is a lot easier now than it was the first day, for sure.

Once in the air I could tell right away it was going to be a different flying experience. It was bumpy and a little gusty. Holding turns at the right bank angle was noticeably more challenging than on previous flights and our speed over the ground with the wind behind us was pretty quick. Gusts tossed the plane around a bit and I had to level the wings pretty much constantly for the first part of the flight. Before departing, we'd checked the weather for the local area. Aurora, our original destination, had winds sustained at 16 miles per hour and gusts up to around 25, so we clearly weren't going there. We checked McMinneville (which was the same story as Aurora), and then Hillsboro, which was calmer with winds at 11 miles per hour and gusting a bit higher.

Hillsboro is a tower-controlled airport, and this was my first time flying into one. I didn't have to worry about radio communication, Kelly was handling that. Granted, I only have five hours under my belt and I should not expect much of myself, but I'm allowed to be nervous. Fortunately for us, this normally busy airport has only a few student pilots flying at the flight school there right now, so it was not as busy today as it often is.

Compared to Twin Oaks, which has one 50-foot-wide runway, Hillsboro (HIO) is freakin' huge. Two ultra-long runways as wide as a large freeway can be spotted easily from only 1,000 feet above the ground from several miles away. I had no problem locating it, that's for sure. I was able to look around and recognize a bunch of buildings, roads and locations I recognized, which was good. The places we've been flying over up until now have been relatively unfamiliar to me.

As I said, today was all about landings. It was clear as we flew that the winds were pretty quick aloft, since our ground track in a crosswind required me to "crab" into the wind in order to maintain a good line over the ground while in the landing pattern. Think of it as pointing off to the side, into the wind a bit so you don't get blown away and off track. From the outside it looks like you're sliding a bit sideways down your flight path. I think I got the hang of that pretty well, and after being caught off-guard in a couple turns and figuring out I needed to adjust more for the crosswinds while turning, I felt a bit more comfortable.

Landings were another story. The winds at HIO were coming toward us and somewhat from the left on runway 20, and seemed (at least to me) to shift direction quite a bit closer to the surface. The strong headwind on approach meant applying more power to maintain our altitude into the wind at a distance. I got the hang of that pretty well and found myself adjusting power on my own several times while flying today without being prompted. But getting down onto the runway was still pretty uncomfortable and as we got closer to the surface the shifting winds threw me off. Now, keep in mind this whole "landing" thing is pretty much greek to me so far, so these added wind components are a real mind-meld.

We ended up doing four landings before heading back, plus one go-around per the tower when we didn't execute a short approach fast enough for the controller. I guess that Lear jet coming in behind us was more important or something, heh.

I became slightly more comfortable with each landing attempt. Slightly is an operative word in that sentence, by the way. Kelly was on the controls with me for all of them and helped keep the plane straight as we touched down - I was just not getting it too well myself. After just those few landings my brain had pretty much turned to oatmeal - I was past my ability to go any further at the time, as far as landings were concerned. So we climbed out from HIO and headed back south, and I located the hangars at Twin Oaks, where the windsock was standing straight out and shifting between a headwind and a left crosswind for runway 20. After a slightly bumpy approach and a little extra power to compensate for the wind, Kelly helped me put the airplane on the ground and we got it parked.

It was a humbling hour. Not that I have a shortage of humility or anything, but I think it was very useful, even though it was complicated and right on the edge of overwhelming. I got to see what it's like in a good wind, which is important. I spent a little time while we completed our log books chatting with Kelly, and he told me I am doing fine and that I'll be okay, it takes time and everyone has to figure out how it feels. No one's an accomplished pilot at five hours, heh.

I need to eat a better meal before I fly. By the time I was done, I was pretty wiped out. I plan to take a PowerBar or something with me, too from now on.

I have a busy week on the calendar. Our next lesson and flight is set for Wednesday, with another on Friday, followed by one more on Saturday. Looking forward to it.

Slow Flight, Stalls, Steep Turns, Patterns and Landings - Woah!

It's been a busy - and slightly overwhelming - couple of days. Two flight lessons, each incorporating an hour of ground and about 1.3 hours of flight, got me up to somewhere just under 5 hours of flight time total. I felt pretty good about my experiences on Tuesday, and on Wednesday things got more difficult and mentally overwhelming (but hey, I still enjoyed myself).

Tuesday Kelly and I did a ground lesson and covered aircraft systems and instruments. Then we were off to the airplane, which I pre-flighted. Found a small amount of water condensation in one wing tank, so that was a good experience - I got to see what it looks like in the real world, and kept sampling until it was gone.

When we took to the air, we climbed out and made our left turn, then headed south and a little to 3,000 feet. We reviewed and executed a few standard and medium turns, and then after a couple "clearing turns" (which allow us to examine the sky above and below for "other aluminum" as my instructor calls it), Kelly showed me how slow flight works in two control configurations: "Fully-configured," meaning in a landing configuration with flaps fully extended and running under high power) as well as "unconfigured" (no flaps, lower power, nose high). The C-150 can fly quite slowly - Down to about 45 miles per hour in the air with full flaps. In that configuration, which is similar to landing configuration, the nose is way up in the air and the plane is really dragging through the air.

Then we moved on to "power-off" stalls. Now, for those not familiar with how airplanes fly, I won't explain it all here. I'd just get it wrong anyhow. You can look it up on wikipedia or at any one of a slew of web sites (howstuffworks.com is a great resource for that sort of info). Let's just say that the basics are this: A wing needs to have air moving over the top and bottom of it, and the air needs to be relatively undisturbed. The way a wing generates lift, for the most part, is by generating lower pressure air on the top of the wing, as compared to the pressure underneath. Mother nature abhors a vacuum, as they say, so the wing is sucked into the lower pressure zone (above the wing) as physics tries to equalize the two pressure areas.

In a stall, the wing is climbing relative to the wind at such an angle that the lifting ability is killed. What actually happens is that the air moving over the top of the wing no longer flow over the surface, and the wing just stops flying. This happens when the air speed is low enough and the angle of attack angle of the wing as compared to the wind its flying into) is very high. So, you pull back on the controls, which pushed the nose of the airplane up into the air at a higher and higher angle until the wings stop flying. You can feel it slip when the lift goes away, and thankfully the C-150 airplane nose tends to drop, which is what you want. As it drops and the airplane starts to fall, wind moves over the wings again and lift is again generated and - voila - you're flying again.

Anyhow, that's a very rough explanation, which I really write only to help myself understand and remember. In actual practice I thought the stalls were a lot of fun, in a similar way to how skydiving has always been fun to me. I suppose I like the way it feels, heh. But, while it's important to learn to stall and recover from stalls in an airplane, that's not controlled flight, so probably not too good to get used to other than to be safe.

I did a few stalls and did well on a couple and got the nose really low on another (you want the nose to drop to gain airspeed, but you don't want to dive straight at the ground).

The idea behind fully-configured stall practice is that if you stall while in the landing configuration, you need to be able to recover pretty quickly. Nothing like being a couple hundred feet off the ground or less and stalling an airplane - not good. It also helps in terms of being able to execute a go-around, which is when you decide not to land for whatever reason and instead circle in the traffic pattern for another approach and attempt.

We finished up Tuesday with some steep turns, which are executed with the wings at 45 degrees to the horizon. You can turn around a spot on the ground pretty well in this configuration, and it was fun. Kelly tells me I am doing well on turns in terms f maintaining my altitude while turning. On my last steep turn I tucked in in pretty tight and could tell it was a nice turn, and then as I exited it got bumpy on the turn out. "You feel that?" Kelly asked me. "You just flew through your own wake, that means you did a great turn." Cool. Nice to do something well.

Anyhow - Tuesday was a lot of fun and I felt pretty good about it.

Between the Tuesday lessons and today's lessons I did some more reading and got a full night's sleep. I also wore myself out a bit on jet skis Tuesday evening, trying to get in some last-of-the-good-weather water time in before it gets all cold and rainy on us. But I was up and ready this morning and headed for the airport.

I pre-flighted our airplane, a different C-150 than we've flown for the past two lessons, and then joined Kelly in the classroom for some ground instruction. He told me that we were going to fly to a different airport this time - Aurora to be specific - so we talked about traffic patterns related approach in general, and for Aurora and our airport (Twin Oaks) specifically. We reviewed the approach/pre-landing procedures for the aircraft type, as well. Kelly is still handling all the radio operations (thank goodness), so I am focused - with his sometimes substantial help - on flying the airplane, maintaining attitude (of the airplane as well as me, heh), and performing the tasks needed for whatever flight maneuvers we're executing at the time.

I should stop for a moment and say something about my instructor. Kelly has a way of knowing what to explain. how to explain it and when to explain it. He doesn't overwhelm but keep the information flowing. So far he's pretty well matched my ability to take in more information and execute on it. I think flying in the distant past helps a lot though, since a good part of what I remember seems to still be ingrained in my little brain. It's the "wrong" stuff that I have to work through. I'm certainly not smarter than the airplane. It seems to fly just fine. If something's wonky, it's almost certainly me that's the cause. If I do something well, he let's me know. "You did that one all by yourself," he'll say. "Looked good." And when I'm all over the place, he's right there to keep us from being crushed in a tin can with wings, and to let me know what I need to do or not do. Thank goodness.

Today we taxied from the ramp (which I felt a little better about today - taxiing this airplane type is a lot like taxiing oatmeal - it's really mushy), and did the engine run up and final checks. Then he let me know we could go and I taxied onto the runway and applied full power. I remembered to keep some right rudder applied, and learned quickly that you have to pull back a bit to get a "wheelie" going. And then we were in the air. The C-150 really wants to fly, it seems. My nose was a bit high and Kelly told me so I lowered it slightly and we got quickly into a good climb at 70 MPH, got about 500 feet off the ground and did out left turn. Kelly had me maintain the climb on a heading that would take us toward Aurora (I had no idea where it was, but he does so that's good). We headed on up to 3,000 feet and I got my air-legs back a bit. Right rudder seems to be a rule. It feels weird but it's starting to make more sense.

Why right rudder? There are a few reasons. Basically it has to do with the tendency for the airplane to try to fly to the left. This is cause is large part by the fact that the engine's drive shaft and propeller rotate in a clockwise direction (as the pilot sees it), so the airframe it's attached to tries to push a bit to the counterclockwise. Also, the wash of the air over the airframe tends to corkscrew (one of the characteristics of a center-mounted propeller twisting the wind), and the wind tends to push on vertical stabilizer's left side, pushing the tail of the plane to the right (and therefore the nose to the left). So, as you can surmise, the more power and wind applied, the more right rudder is likely to be required.

Anyhow, we got to 3,000 feet and did a couple clearing turns to make sure no one was near us. Then we got back into slow-flight mode like yesterday and did some slow flight turns, which required more power to maintain altitude for sure. This aircraft type will fly at really low speeds and is pretty forgiving. It's also pretty gutless as far as power goes (only 100 horsepower). It's a pretty great way to learn.

Next Kelly reviewed the pattern flying information with me briefly and had me turn toward Aurora airport and configure the airplane so we could start losing some altitude. We were at 3,200 feet (3,000 above ground level) and needed to get down to about 1,200 feet (1,000 feet AGL) to enter the pattern at Aurora.

We entered the airport approach pattern at a 45 degree angle, which lets us see the airport and any aircraft in the area pretty well. Then I turned another 45 degrees to enter the pattern on the "downwind" leg, running parallel to the runway. So, the runway was to my left, visually cutting through the midpoint of the win strut, and I was at about 1,200 feet - the pattern altitude. Kelly walked me through the steps: Once we were abeam (90 degrees alongside) the numbers at the end of the runway, I applied carb heat, reduced the throttle from cruise speed to about 1500 RPM, set up 10 degrees of flaps (hold the button and count "thousand-one, thousand two, thousand-three" and let off), and dialed in a bit of nose-up trim to help keep the plane in the right attitude. I checked the plane's instruments (oil pressure and temp, etc.) and looked out behind me. I discovered I was already well beyond the runway and we started out left 90-degree turn to the base leg. While turning I set the flaps to 20 degrees by extending them for three more seconds, straightened out and checked our airspeed, which was pretty good. We had a long final leg back to the runway though since I had ran a little to long on the downwind leg, so I had to apply some more power to keep altitude while flying it in.

Obviously, if I'm flying at a runway I must be flying at a landing. Kelly was on the controls with me, but that's what was about to happen - my first landing. I seemingly forgot about using my feet for the most part once we got over the runway. I reduced power to idle and pulled back but I must have tried to steer with my hands. Kelly jumped in and talked me through the landing and thanks to him we survived. He graciously told me that was a "pretty good landing for the first time, not too bad." Heh. After taxiing off the runway we came to a full stop and "cleaned up" the aircraft (retract flaps, carb heat off, etc). He let me know the very basics of what went wrong and what went right. He's very good at not discouraging the student while still letting you know just why things went the way they did. Next he told me to turn right onto the taxiway and taxi to the end of the runway, where we would take off again and fly around the pattern and land a couple more times.

I could feel myself starting to get a better feel for controlling the airplane while on departure with each take-off. There's a little bit of art to take-offs, but there's a lot more art to a good landing it seems. My next "landing" was a touch and go. Again we flew the pattern and I was quite a bit better on my pattern distances and headings I think. We came in a little high so we throttled back to lose some altitude as we approached. The landing was quite a bit better, and once rolling on the ground with flaps up it was back to full power and back in the air.

The last landing we did was better. I drifted a bit to the left and the concept of lining up on the center line and staying there seems bit out of the realm of reality so far, but I think it will happen for me. The tendency to forget to step on the right rudder and keep my flight coordinated is something I need to concentrate on for sure. Probably appropriate given the name of this weblog, heh. It feels weird to step on the right rudder when the plan is feels like it's drifting right, but I know if I do it and apply the proper aileron controls it will work. I just need to "get it."

After a full stop and a quick review with Kelly we taxied and departed again. This time I felt quite a bit better about the departure roll. It just felt slightly more natural (or perhaps slightly less foreign is a more accurate way to describe it). I was better able to fly straight off the runways and maintain good attitude and heading with a good rate of climb. Nice to end on a positive note.

Kelly asked me to turn left and we headed northwest-ish with a goal of 3,000 feet altitude. One the way out I saw another airplane crossing our path just ahead at about a mile or so and pointed it out. Kelly called him on the radio and we made sure we could see each other, then it was back to flying up to our goal. Once back up at 3,000 feet AGL we did a couple of stalls and Kelly asked me if I wanted to see and try a couple slips. One Tuesday I was excited at the end of the flight lesson and asked if I could do a couple more stalls, but today I felt like I'd just reached the edge of my ability to process new information. Those approaches and landings were a little intimidating, and I told him I thought that was enough for now. He agreed, said he didn't want to over-do it and that's why he was asking me.

We headed for the Twin Oaks Airport, entered the pattern and landed the airplane, which went pretty well. I'm not completely on the controls and it's about the time I cross the runway threshold that I seem to not be light enough on the controls. I'm going to talk with my friend, Dave, who is just about done with his private license and is on his way to becoming a professional commercial pilot. Maybe he can tell me what it was like for him the first few lessons.

Kelly tells me I'm doing well and that I'll get it. I know I will eventually. But when you have to put a flying chunk of metal on the ground, you want to feel safe and get it there in one piece. That'll take some practice. In the meanwhile I'm still having fun!

I'm taking a couple days off from flying and will be back out on Saturday. That'll give me time to let things sink in, plus I'm feeling a little cruddy physically now so probably a good idea to take it easy. Besides, I need to read and study. Wow, there's a lot to know!