Some solo pattern practice and check-ride prep

After my solo cross-country flight on Wednesday, I arrived at Twin Oaks Airpark Thursday afternoon to get in an hour or two of solo practice in the pattern and at a tower-controlled airport. I wanted to spend some time getting takeoff and landing routines a little more refined, and it had been a while since I'd flown the pattern at tower-controlled Portland-Hillsboro airport. The weather was amazing, so I wanted to take advantage of it.

I got back in the same airplane I'd used for my cross country flight the previous day. It had been checked out to confirm the little issue I had the evening before was in fact carb ice and that there we no other issues. I put the video camera in the luggage area and pointed it forward just like I had on the cross country, then turned it on and forgot about it. I wanted to be able to go back and look at my landings and takeoffs and review the little detail aspects of what I was doing. I find it's a tool that gives me better perspective on what I can do better. It also makes interesting video for posting here. I'll likely add it to this post after I get it processed on the computer. I also plan to add a little video from my cross-country flight the other day. I just don't have time right now to get that done.

Once I set up the camera and turn it on, I just let it run. It's completely out of my way and stationed solidly behind the seats. It either quits on its own (by running out of battery or hard drive space) or I turn it off when I finish flying. I don't worry or think about it when I'm in the air, except to talk through everything on the intercom, which record my voice in the camera's audio track. Come to think of it, I talk to myself on the intercom whether the camera is there or not. It helps me stay focused and organized.

I was happy with my take-offs and landings that day. I was pretty much on the money and things were smooth and properly executed. It was fun to fly to Hillsboro and fly the pattern with other airplanes and talk to the tower. That controller stays plenty busy, I can tell you. Someone told me it's the busiest airport in Oregon, even more so than Portland International in terms of the number of airplanes operating daily. That's crazy. They have a big flight school there, which makes up a lot of the traffic.

On Friday I joined my instructor Kelly again and we did what he termed a "check-ride prep" flight. We flew from Twin Oaks out to the east to a safe practice area and I did all sorts of maneuvers and configurations: Slow flight, power-on and power-off stalls and recoveries, steep turns, flying under the hood and doing turns and level flight, and a couple simulated engine failure drills, one of which I flew until I was 500 feet over an abandoned airport before applying power to go-around. We then returned to Twin Oaks and crossed over the airport at 3,000 feet, where he again "killed" the engine (meaning he put it at idle) and I had to perform a spiraling descent over the end of Runway 2 to an altitude and position that would allow me to enter a downwind leg for landing, and then I landed the plane with no power, right on the money.

Next we did a short field takeoff and landing, followed by a soft-field takeoff and landing before calling it quits for the day. Overall I felt good about my progress and performance, and can see I'm getting closer to being ready to fly with an examiner. There are a number of things I want to practice more to be more proficient, but all in all it's going well.

On Saturday I plan to do about 90 minutes of solo flying time to practice the same things Kelly and I did on our "checkride prep" flight, and then after a brief break he and I are scheduled Saturday evening to complete the night cross-country flight that we need to get out of the way. Unfortunately we won't be able to fly to Boeing Field in Seattle as we have wanted to do, since the weather up there is still not cooperating and shows no real signs of improving. We're planning to fly to Astoria and back, which more than satisfies the training requirements. I'm hoping to get to fly with Kelly to Boeing Field so I can get the Class B airspace experience before I finish training, maybe as part of prep for my checkride since that would provide plenty of time and opportunity to review and test my skills, as well.

Working on the things that need working-on

The afternoon weather on Wednesday allowed me to get into an airplane for an hour, and I used the time to fly around the pattern at Twin Oaks Airpark and practice and work on improving some flying skills, some that I feel a little weak on and others that are relatively new to me. In addition, I needed to practice some maneuvers on my own that I had only performed with my instructor up until now. I'm approaching the end of my private pilot flight training (or so I am told), and now is the time to refine some of these core flying skills.

I've only recently been introduced to short- and soft-field takeoffs and landings, so practicing those was one of my goals. I did a couple of each, and the short-field ops were pretty solid for me. The soft-field takeoffs were a little more challenging, getting into ground effect and staying there before climbing. The plane just wants to get of the ground and I really have to hold it down, and on the Twin Oaks runway, which slopes downhill slightly as you roll down the runway, it's a little extra challenging.

My landings on Wednesday were a lot less spectacular than I wanted. Some days I'm "on," and other days a little less so. On all but one landing I didn't quite get the timing of the flare worked out, and I really need to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I believe it's a combination of flaring slightly too soon and pulling back a little too much (and a lack of patience in letting the airplane run out of airspeed), but really what I need to do is get back out there and just fly a bunch of landings. I am hoping to get a chance to do that on Thursday afternoon.

Another thing I did Wednesday was fly some simulated engine-out landings. In the past I've only done that with my instructor in the airplane, but after my last flight with him, Kelly had directed me to practice those on my own. I did engine-out drills from the pattern as well as one from 2500 feet directly above the field, which required me to fly in a circle over the airport so I could reduce my altitude, then enter the pattern in the downwind leg and fly to an engine-out landing, which went well. All in all, I was happy with my engine failure drills.

A couple of things I didn't get to work on, because the cloud ceiling was a little to low throughout the region for me to get sufficient altitude, are stalls (and stall recovery) and steep turns. So, I hope to get to work some more on those if I'm able to fly on Thursday.

I've been studying for the written knowledge exam (which is actually computer-based), and I need to get that done sometime in the next week or so. I'm balancing that with some consulting-related work, so it's taking a little longer than I'd planned, but I'm getting there.

I shot video of Wednesday's flying but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. If there's anything on there that I decide I want to post (most of the landings were not exactly sources of pride for me, heheh), I'll add it here at a later date.

Simulating Altitude & Soft Field Takeoffs and Landings

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!

Coordinated FlightCast: Short-field audio episode added

I've published a link (and RSS enclosure) to the MP3 file for my second "flight-cast" episode. It covers the lesson I wrote about in the Short-Field Takeoffs and Landings post a couple days ago. You can visit the previous post to download the MP3 file and listen in. Monday's scheduled solo flight session was scrubbed by yours truly due to the weather conditions. For a few hours it was almost good enough -- but almost is never good enough. In order for me to fly solo, the conditions need to be higher than 3,000-feet cloud ceiling, five or more miles visibility, and no more than a 7-knot crosswind component on landings. Everything was good except the cloud deck, which was at about 2,700 feet. I'd rather have quite a bit more than 3,000 for a good safety margin at this point. But hey, that's the way it goes. I'll just fly sometime later, whenever the weather allows.

Cross-Country Scrubbed - Short and Soft Field Landings Instead

Audio from this lesson is available in Episode Two of my flight-cast, click here to download the MP3 file.

My dual cross-country trip to Corvallis that was scheduled today was scrubbed due to a late heavy fog that reached from around Olympia, Washington all the way down the Willamette Valley to the northern border of California. By the time things started to clear up in the afternoon, it was too late to start the trip. Besides, I watched the weather and I don't think it ever really cleared up down in Corvallis.

So, while the fog and clouds were obscuring everything more than a mile away from and about 500 feet over the airport, Kelly and I went over a bunch of ground schooling on the topics of short and soft field takeoffs and landings. There are a bunch of additional and changed steps when you're on a shorter runway or a soft strip of grass or something similar. After we went over the procedures and discussed them, the skies started to clear so I get the paperwork and book for the airplane I had reserved and after Kelly extricated it from the hangar I pre-flighted the airplane, hooked up my audio recorder and got ready to go.

We flew our practice at Twin Oaks. Kelly showed me a couple short field take-off's and landings and then the plane was mine. The sun was right in my eyes on departure so I asked Kelly to help me "see" the indicated speed (meaning read it to me). My landings with full 40 degrees of flaps were a little sloppy in terms of flaring (I was a bit early on the flares), but overall went well. You can really make that airplane get down and stop if you have to, it's quite cool.

He showed me one short field take-off, but the sun in our eyes was getting so bad we decided to turn it into a standard landing, which I flew. But he covered the wind speed indicator, told me it was "dead," and a short time later he covered up the altitude indicator, too. So, I had to fly the pattern and approach based on look and feel: Look outside and get a good sight picture, reference speed over the ground and fly to the runway. I made it there just fine and floated it a bit before landing.

After the lesson, Kelly signed me off to be able to make solo flights to a group of other airports in the general vicinity (within 25 miles). So, on Monday I have some time scheduled and if the weather allows I'll be flying on my own, which will be fun. Not much to record on those flights I imagine, but I'll probably record the audio anyhow - You never know, maybe it will be interesting to listen to.