Archive for March, 2007
Saturday, March 31st, 2007
Hours - 33.6
The conditions were confirmed for me at the end of the lesson when Yigal told me to tie down the airplane with all three ropes. Breezy? Maybe.
This lesson was scheduled for 3 hours. I was supposed to go up for a cross country with Yigal for two hours and then practice solo for the last one. Well, let’s just say that plan didn’t work out.
I called the “Oh so accurate” weather briefers. Ummm, 8 knots of wind at 3,000ft. Good! Great day for a cross country to East Stroudsburg, PA. It was only 49.4 nautical miles away, but we would fly more than 50.
On the way to the runway, while taxiing, we waved to another guy and took a picture of his plane.
We started talking on the radio and agreed to fly in formation with him after takeoff for a few good shots. Most were blurry, but one came out good.
It was good to get some nice shots. It was important for me to get some pictures during this lesson because I have virtually no photo archive of anything that I am doing.
I had everything set up fine…the VOR, the frequencies…everything except the GPS. I wanted to fly by only VOR this time, just for practice. The GPS is very helpful, but there may be too much of a reliance on it. Well, I made it to the VOR station and changed course, just like I was supposed to.
I continue on past Port Jervis and kept with the Delaware River and passed by some beautiful land. I never knew it was this nice in Pennsylvania. I always just dismissed the state. I have no idea why.
Anyway, Yigal started asking me when I would know when I was at the airport. I told him I was aware of where I was because of the river features. There was a zig zag in the river and I was looking at it on the map as well as out the window. Also, I would see the airport. A lot of them are visible from 20 miles away. Well, as it turns out, the river feature I was looking at turned out to be the wrong one. Also, the airport was like someone’s driveway, surrounded by houses. I had no idea that it was that small. I flew right over it. Yigal kept trying to give me hints, like, “Oh, look at that big break in the mountian where the river runs through it” and “Check out that bridge.” I kept wondering what the heck he was talking about because the airport was nowhere in sight.
I was lost.
There were a few options. I could use ATC for radar vectoring, which is embarassing, especially when you are flying right over the airport or you could use your navigation equipment. I decided to use the two VOR instruments to locate where I was. I did find an airport and thought it was the one, but it had big “X’s” on the runway. Also, the runway direction was off. Finally, I found the little, tiny runway, hidden down in the woods. I could almost see Stewart from where I was, 50 miles away, but couldn’t see the airport I was right on top of. I decided to descend for a landing on the 30ft wide runway.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, the weather briefing was wrong. The wind and turbulence up there were horrible. A few times, I thought the plane was going to go vertical. My altitude was going from 4,500 to 4,900 to 3,900 in a matter of minutes. It was crazy. The turbulence over the airport was bad too.
We flew the pattern to come in for a landing. I was on final approach and doing ok. The trees were right under me, but that wasn’t a big concern. I came in for my landing and the wind took me all over the place. Yigal had to take over and land. That pretty much sucked. He wanted me to land at this airport, so I took off again for another one. This time, there was just no way…we were running out of runway. We made a go-around for another try. Success…I finally did it. If I was alone, I would’ve just flown back to Orange County without landing.
With that done, We took off to head back home. I did my stuff after a little tif with the Allentown ATC guy. I asked him to repeat something and he told me to listen up next time. If I ever meet him in person, I would like to have a short chat. From about 20 miles away, I saw MGJ and flew toward it, getting bounced around the whole time.
I came in for an easy landing on runway 3 at Orange County. Oh so smooth, until at the last second an unexpected gust took me to the right. Yigal landed the plane. I taxied back and felt like crap.
I have to say that I am getting very tired. I mean literally. I think the pollen in the air is making me sleepy. I need a few weeks off just to get motivated again.
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Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
I have been keeping this inside for way too long. The people who love me have noticed a change in my personality. It all boils down to this: “At the end of the day.”
Is that understandable? I know I have my quirks and would be the first one to admit that I get frustrated easily, but please, please, I beg you…please stop saying, “At the end of the day!”
At the end of the day, I think we should circle back around and touch base to get on the same page. I mean, where the heck did anyone learn this stuff? I hear it all the time on NPR when they are interviewing someone who works for the government. They say things like, “Well, we really need to push this towards the end zone and get it through the goal posts.” Pleeeeeeeease.
The reason I am writing this is because I just received an email where someone told me to “Please advise.” Yeah, I’ll advise all right.
Lastly, if you are over the age of 17 and live in the suburbs, please don’t say 24/7. For you, it’s 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I hear newscasters say 24/7 all the time.
Ok, I’m done…almost.
One more thing, and this is really annoying. The most common misspelled word out there is “Lose.” When writing, “I tend to lose things quite often,” please don’t fall into the trap of writing, “I tend to loose things quite often.” Also, the “t” in often is silent. We are not in England.
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Monday, March 26th, 2007
Hours - 31.5
This was another good lesson, although unexpected. I was scheduled to practice solo at the airport on Sunday, but Donna called with an opening with Dan for Saturday afternoon. Apparently, all his morning lessons cancelled.
I took advantage of the situation for a nice cross country up to Great Barrington (GBR). Everything was pretty straightforward. I did just fine on all my radio communications (now that I have some tips) as well as the VOR navigation. It was a good time. We flew right over the Berkshires and past Catamount ski area to land at the airport for a very short touch and go…the runway is only 2,500ft long. Also, there was some turbulence while going over the mountains.
On the way back, I flew at 6,500ft, my highest so far. The mountains were pretty high, so I wanted to be sure I was high enough. We made it back to Orange County without anything unexpected, besides of course Dan pulling the throttle on me for an emergency landing. That went smoothly for my third cross country!
I think I will fly to Stewart by myself soon and then start my solo cross countries.
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Friday, March 23rd, 2007
Hours - 29.8
You may have noticed that I took out the “Lesson Number” in the title of this post. I mean really, who cares what number lesson it is anyway? Also, it was making the title too long.
I had a “practice” scheduled for 4:30 today, but the weather was marginal, so I took a long lunch to get some time in. It turned out well, so this may become a habit.
This was the first time I drove over, did my pre-flight, taxied and took off with no help from anyone. I liked it. My previous solos were always warmed up for with an instructor. Not for any particular reason, that’s just the way it happened. I feel like a have a bit more freedom now. I’m not sure if Montgomery, NY is comfortable with me flying over them all by myself.
I made a total of five takeoffs and landings today. The air was like flying on butter. Smooooth. All good takeoffs and all good landings…besides that little bounce, but if no one else saw the bounce, did it really happen? I don’t think so.
On a side note…I feel myself losing motivation. It may be the cloudy winter blues. I notice that right after I fly, I am really pumped up, but if there is a few days in between, I fizzle. I think perhaps the warm spring sunshine will get me back into shape. I know I want to do this, I just need to make some friends with other students and to start flying around with people. I am thinking of making some website schedule or something like that. Actually, I am going to push Donna to do this.
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Thursday, March 15th, 2007
Hours - 28.5
This was a great lesson. I wanted to get in there to ease my concerns about a few things. Remember what happened during my last lesson? Well, this time I wanted to get in some landings, go-arounds and some no flap landings.
Yigal was already booked up, so I went up for an hour with Dan. He is good at chilling out and letting me do my thing. He probably thinks I am crazy because he really doesn’t need to correct anything during the whole lesson.
I made my first landing and he looked at me. He said, “So, what’s the problem?” I told him that I was probably going to be fine since I have been thinking about my problems for about a week. He understood. I did a few landings and then, during one, he told me to go around. I was happy to and it was pretty simple. Also, he pulled the throttle for an emergency engine-out landing. I did that one fine so he made me go around before touching down.
Dan then asked if I have ever done a no flap landing. I told hime that I hadn’t, so we did one. It is generally the same as a regular landing, but you have to come in slightly faster and lower. That was pretty cool coming in that fast.
Well, I have to say that it was a great lesson. No screw ups…awesome weather and no wind. What more can you ask for?
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Monday, March 5th, 2007
If you are like me, you tend to forget things. Probably at the most inopportune times.
Remember way back, when you were going to elementary school, your teacher would use examples to help you remember things? Here is a good one to remember the planet names:
My: Mercury
Very: Venus
Educated: Earth
Mother: Mars
Just: Jupiter
Served: Saturn
Us: Uranus
Nine: Neptune
Pizza pies: Pluto
Well, I think there needs to be a few for Private Pilots when flying. After bumbling through radio communications for a while, I started to make up tricks to help me remember what needs to be done with flying in general. Below is a list…I am going to add more as I think of them…and please feel free to add your own.
- Airports on aeronautical charts - blue for towered and magenta for non-towered - just think of a guy in a blue uniform sitting in the tower.
- Magnetic deviation on a compass - on a northerly heading, making a turn will make the compass lag. Just think of north as your kids…always lagging behind.
- Radio communications - this is a big one - just remember when initiating a radio call, you need to say four things…distance, altitude, where you are going and what you want. From, height, where and what.
After initiating contact in class D airspace, you would say, “I am 2 miles north of the field, 2,500 feet, heading in for a landing with information sierra.”
Another example would be for entering class E airspace. “I am 5 miles west of Stewart, 4,500 feet, heading towards Columbia County via the Kingston VOR and am requesting flight following.”
When entering class G airspace to land at a non-towered airport, you say, “I am 5 miles east of the field, 3,500 feet, will be entering the pattern on a 45 for a landing on runway 21.”
Sometimes your communication doesn’t fall exactly in the proper order, but just remember that you need to say four things.
When repeating information back to ATC, just remember the facts. They will tell you what seems like 20 things. Just repeat back what matters. Say, “Four Delta Sierra, right hand pattern, runway 29 with the option.” You don’t need to put this statement into a wonderfully written sentance.
- Taxiing - When taxiing, drive like you are in England…the other side of the road.
Please feel free to add to this list as a comment. I will place your tip in the post.
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Saturday, March 3rd, 2007
Hours - 27.6
I was sick last weekend, so I had to cancel my lesson. Yigal was sick today, so he only stayed in the airplane for a short while. Interesting lesson, I should say.
The plan was to get me up there to get my head going again. I felt so guilty about missing last week. It was the first time I actually called in to cancel (as opposed to weather, etc…). To make a long story short, we were going to do a few laps around the pattern for a few takeoffs/landings and then I would practice solo.
We flew the pattern once at MGJ, landed and then headed towards SWF. I botched the call when entering their airspace. No big deal…just fix it and move on. We wanted to practice a few touch-and-goes over there. The first landing was ok…the second was ok…the third was behind JetBlue. There were no delays today. I know all about wingtip vorteces and turbulence. I was told by ATC to expect turbulence and I knew to land beyond the touchdown point of the jet. Well, I didn’t get a chance to see the touchdown point of the jet because I had to extend my downwind leg almost over the Hudson River. I was over Newburgh when I stared turning base and then final. It was good experience for learning how to creatively use your flaps and airspeed. I came in pretty nice (I am finally getting used to how long their runway is) and started to flare for my touchdown. I figured I was in good shape because it had been a few minutes since the jet had landed. They were already off the runway. Just as I started to flare, I guess the turbulence from the jet drifted across the runway from the right and totally gusted me up. I couldn’t get the plane down. I was sideways and slanted. Yigal grabbed the controls and gave it some throttle. He handed it back to me to re-land. Man, what a chore…it was a mess. A good word of advice is to really wait a few minutes more than you think you should when landing behind a jet.
Now, that was enough for me. No practice in two weeks and then that, I was ready to head back to MGJ. We flew towards the field and Yigal pulled the throttle for some engine out landing practice. I did quite well. Came in nice and smooth for a nice landing. We did one more lap for a nice touchdown and he hopped out. Since I now have my endorsement to practice solo, I went up for a few touch-and-goes.
I really wasn’t nervous because I was pretty warmed up. The sweat was almost dry from all the fun at SWF. Well, I came in for my first solo landing and touched the nose wheel down first. Boing, boing, boing…I was like a little porpoise. I guess I have more experience than I thought because I immediately punched it for a go-around. Honestly, a student pilot really never thinks he has to use these techniques. Anyway, I successfully climbed and removed my flaps one by one for another try around the pattern. I was a little freaked out because I think I needed a breather, but you can’t do that while you are in the sky. I took a breath and came in for another landing. I corrected my mistake and made a good, smooth landing. I told myself that it was important to do it once more, just to shake any hesitation on my part. I did so and everything went great.
Well, since daylight savings is almost here, I am planning to practice twice a week, especially since an airplane is available much more than both an airplane and an instructor. Practice makes perfect.
PS - I found a great resource on all sorts of flying stuff here. It’s from Australia, but still relavent.
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