Solo X-Country - Almost

This post is for my instructor, Ed, who complained to me that I haven't been keeping up the blog. He's right - posts have been slow in coming. So too have been the flight hours - unfortunately. I flew 1.9 hours today, and before that it was a week and a half ago when I last logged .9 hours. We had a wedding last weekend which took up all my spare time, not to mention the planes have all been booked pretty solid any other time I've wanted to get out.

In any event, I'm slowly plugging away. My hope is to finish before the end of October. To do that I need 2 solo cross country flights (total 5 hours), 2 (?) more night landings, practice, and a passing grade on my FAA written exam. Oh, and I'll have to schedule and pass the checkride.

I set out this morning to do the first of my solo cross countries. Ed and I reviewed the two possible plans I'd made last night, and I took off intending to head for Port Angeles. The weather was fine in both Seattle and in Port Angeles, but apparently not in-between. I was in the air 15 minutes before I knew I had to turn around. The sky was much clearer to the South, so I headed for Vashon thinking I'd be able to head out towards Elma, which was my backup destination. I cancelled my original flight plan and filed and opened another for Elma. Sadly, I got about 2/3 of the way to Elma when low clouds and rain turned me back again.

Not to be deterred, I've scheduled a 2nd attempt for Wednesday afternoon. I'll have to take off from work, but weather permitting I'll fly to Port Angeles and back no problem.

Also, Wednesday evening Ed and I are going to get some night flight in. Should be fun.

I totalled up the hours in my logbook. Including the 24 hours I had at age 17, I'm up to 50.1 hours. Woot!

Flying Update

Last entry I was on my way to NYC for a week of business travel. I've now been back a week and have been flying 3 times - twice on my own and once with Ed.

The two solo flights in the past week were great! One was last Sunday and the other this morning. Each were about an hour long, and generally went really well. It's exciting to be able to go out to the airport by myself and get into a plane and fly away - sans instructor.

Each time my plan was to head down to Tacoma Narrows, but the weather there hasn't been accomodating. This morning for example it is a beautiful day with a high broken ceiling, but at the Narrows it was low clouds and fog. I could see that from the air and ATIS confirmed, so I deviated to Bremerton.

A couple of things to remember: 1) if you turn the volume down on the radio, that's probably why you wont hear anything when you later dial in the AWOS at Bremerton, and why you won't hear anything when you subsequently dial in the pattern frequency. There were no planes in the pattern when I arrived, but I didn't notice that I had the volume down until the 2nd landing on my first solo flight. Remember to check the volume! 2) pay attention to the taxiway you're intending to use after landing. I easily could have made A4 and the controller assumed I would. But since I didn't break early enough he assigned me A2 - which I then spaced out on and cruised past. Oops. Pay attention!

Lesson 13, 1.4 hrs

Ed and I meet at Boeing Field as usual and decide that we're going to fly North to Whidbey island. I want to head that way for a change of scenery (Bremerton is becoming familar) and Ed really wants to practice some basics and some new topics in preparation for our cross-country flight.

Takeoff is straight forward except that the controller mis-interpreted my intention for a straight out departure to the North, instead assigning us a Mercer departure. Since I didn't jump on the radio to correct this assignment, Ed did and we departed North as planned. Lesson here is correct things like this early as possible - my plan had been to make the call once airborn. Sooner is better.

We fly North to Whidbey and Ed has me put on the foggles. We practice unusual attitudes a couple times and I do well. It's hard not to look up from under the foggles some times!

We spot the tiny airstrip on Whidbey that we identified on the chart during preflight. It's got a narrow surfaced runway, and has trees all around. We do a simulated engine out above the airport and I guide us in for a full-stop landing - pretty darn nice. Back taxi for takeoff.

Ed prescribes a short-field takeoff and I confuse this in my head with soft field. Short field is 1) run the engine up while holding the breaks, 2) release breaks 3) rotate at 60 and 4) climb out at 60. I do this and boy-oh-boy, are those trees at the end of the field ever close - and tall! I'm not sure in my mind that we'll clear them and I look over to Ed, who tells me to maintain 60 - best rate of climb. We clear the trees, but in retrospect I wouldn't care to take off from this field again in this under-powered 150. I'm glad we didn't have full fuel.

On the way back we practice a diversion to another airport. The trick here is identify where you are currently, estimate using the chart the direction to the new destination, turn to that heading. Then using landmarks, adjust the heading as necessary to be as accurate as possible. Then determine distance and en-route time.

I need to schedule a cross country flight for us; plan is to head to Orcas.

no flying this week

I'm rather disappointed. My plan was to get up this morning and go fly (by myself) to Tacoma, then to Bremerton, then back to Boeing field. I woke up at 7:30 and looked out the window, only to see a low ceiling and drizzle. ATIS confirmed - 2300' ceiling with some lower clouds, and 6 miles visibility. It got worse for a while, then around noon started to lift. But I was already in the midst of another project, and had I gone flying then I could only have stayed in the pattern. As it was, it started raining again about an hour later.

Now I have to wait until next Saturday to fly - I'm off to NYC on business this week. Ugh!

SOLO!

Tonight was the big night! I completed the pre-solo written that Ed gave me (Thanks Fareed for talking through some of those questions with me!) and brought it back for us to review together before tonight's lesson. Of the 40 questions I only had one thing wrong, and that was about what elevator in what position for cross-wind taxi. A couple minor points on a few other questions, but nothing incorrect. I feel pretty good about this.

We plan to head to Bremerton, where if we both feel good, Ed will get out of the plane.

I learn somthing important though while we're waiting to be cleared for takeoff. After our run up we're waiting for the vorteces to die down from a heavy that's just taken off. As we're waiting, another large jet (DC-8, maybe?) is pulling in to park a few hundred feet from the run up area where we're at. Ed sees it just in time and has me turn our C150 towards the jet - and good thing too. The jet-wash from his engines buffeted us pretty good - enough that we could have been blown over had we not turned. Lesson is to keep an eye open for these type of things and learn to anticipate and correct for them!

In any event, this post is about my SOLO! We have an uneventful trip out to Bremerton and get into the traffic pattern and do two landings. The second one is a full stop, and true to his word Ed get's out. In all honesty, I'm not all that nervous. I was nervous thinking about it earlier in the day, but not now. I head for the runway, listening to the UNICOM, where I learn another plane in the pattern has just entered downwind. Since I dont have to do a runup, and I'm all set to go, I figure no-time-like-the-present and announce my intention to take runway 19 and depart. Which I do, quite gracefully.

Wow, this plane actually can climb. You just need to limit it to one person!

In no time at all I'm turning crosswind, then downwind, base, and final. Pretty good landing! Carb heat in, flaps up, power, and I'm off again. This time there's more traffic in the pattern, and I'm keeping an eye on all of it, listening to their radio calls and making my own.

For the third time around I'm relatively close behjind a Diamond DA-20 or 40, another student who's with her instructor. I slow my speed so I can lengthen the gap between us. She flys a looong downwind, which forces mine to be long since I dont want to turn base until I cross her on final. It all works out, and I'm turning final just as she's landing.

On this final I note that I'm fast, so I throw in some more flaps and control my speed. As I approach everything is looking good until the very end when I'm slower than I want and a bit short. So I add a little power and fly down the runway a bit before touchdown. Then it's taxi in and find Ed.

Lessons 8, 9, 10 - 1.4, 1.4, 1.8 hrs

Just a quick post to document these lessons. These were all pretty straight forward, not learning too many new skills. The excpetion was Lesson 10 in which we did spin training. The other lessons were about honing all the things I've learned so far: landings, radio skills, slow flight, stalls, traffic patterns, visiting various airports, etc.

Spin training was cool. The 150 is rated for spins, and Ed feels it is a good idea to get training for spin recovery even though the FAA doesn't require it.

To get into the spin we first climb to a safe altitude, about 4000 feet. Do some clearing turns and make sure there isn't any traffic around or below us that will get in the way. Then, power-on stall the plane with hard right bank and full opposite rudder. It happens pretty fast - the right wing drops nose dives and suddenly the ground fills the view, and it's spinning.

Recovery is pretty simple, but non intuitive: Power to idle. Ailerons to neutral. Rudder opposite the spin. Elevator forward (the non-intuitive part - you're diving and might want to "pull up"). The acronym is P.A.R.E.

All this practice and I'm feeling pretty good. Ed's been talking about me soloing for a couple of weeks now, and after lesson 10 he says it's iminent. He gives me a take-home exam titled "pre solo written".

Trissa informs me she doesn't want to hear about solo flying until after it's happened.

3rd Class Medical

Check one more item off the list! Last week I made an appointment for my 3rd Class Medical exam, which I passed yesterday. I was a little worried going in but it all went smoothly.

The first thing I was worried about was a minor surgery I had earlier in the year to remove a cyst from my neck. Ed told me he had another student who was denied a medical for a minor surgery, and this was a surprise to me. When I made the appointment I asked whether I needed to bring any documentation about my operation. The doctor advised that while it sounded minor, the best course of action was to bring a statement from my surgeon about the surgery. I only had a few days until the appointment so I called my surgeon's office to find out he was on vacation or something. But they tracked him down and within hours they had faxed me a statement and surgical notes, which turned out to be exactly what I needed. I was duly impressed!

I showed up early to the appointment, which was in a small office atop a Shell gas station here in West Seattle. I never would have known it was there but for the address and the not so obvious sign over the door "Senior FAA Medical Examiner." The waiting room was covered with photos of the doctor and his hobbies: flying, scuba diving, and climbing. And also with signs warning customers that he only works two weeks out of the month, and that he wont be working the first several months of next year. He must be semi-retired.

Anyhow, the first part of the exam was the vision test. I'd spent 30 frantic minutes in the morning looking for the glasses I never wear, because my vision isn't that bad. I think it's 20/30. The Class 3 certificate requires 20/40 or better, corrected or uncorrected. On the off chance that my eyes were worse than 20/40 uncorrected I wanted to have my glasses. But it turns out I didn't need them.

The rest of the physical was pretty routine: listen to this, listen to that, peak in my ears, etc. Oh, and pee in a cup. It turned out that the doctor had lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I lived for a few years so we gabbed about that most of the time.

One interesting part was that because I'd had a medical 17 years ago, this was in fact a renewal. The doctor was able to find my old medical record by using my social security number - which was nice because I didn't then have to estimate the date of my old medical on the form of my new medical. I didn't realize the FAA was so organized with their record keeping.

In any event, I now have a little yellow card with my vitals printed on it. On the back is my student pilot certificate. Now I have to figure out how to carry this thing - folded in my wallet? laminated in my flight bag? Taped inside my log book? We'll see what Ed says...