Flying Lessons

Lesson 5: Turns Along a Road and Turns Around a Point

Wednesday, 12/3/2003
Take off BFI, fly up to Bainbridge island, find a road and do turns along it, find a landmark and do turns around it. Back to BFI for a couple touch and go.
Cessna 150, 1.1 hours, 3 landings

Turns along a road and turns around a point today. Both are maneuvers intended to exercise and, at the check ride, test my ability to control the airplane's elevation, speed, and heading, dividing attention between instruments, landmarks, and other traffic. Things to remember for each of these exercises:

• Clearing turns. Always clearing turns.
• Identify an emergency landing option.
• 600' to 1,000' AGL.
• At airplanes maneuvering speed.
• Enter going downwind.
• Adjust bank and turn rate for wind drift.

Turns along a road involves crossing the road, making an even radius turn, crossing the road perpendicular, another turn the other way, cross again, and so on down the road.

Turns around a point is simply circling a fixed landmark in a nice even radius circle.

I do fairly well on both, though still have to think about almost everything. Airspeed, elevation, bank, position, traffic, and turn coordination only get attention when I consciously think to bring my attention to them. I start the exercise talking myself through each of these to remind myself to bring my attention to it. Bank, attitude, and throttle are becoming somewhat reflexive.

Back at Boeing field we do several touch and go landings. I drop it somewhat hard on one. Deane demonstrates on the next, and on the final landing I do fairly well at brining it down smoothly. Works best for me to think about the final phase of the landing as flying straight and level just above the ground as speed decays. Though Deane seemed mildly frustrated with me today I think I'm going fairly well. Landings require judgment and finesse. But they are also intimidating, which is the enemy of judgment and finesse. I've done 15 and feel my confidence improving with each one.

Lesson 6: Emergency Landings

Monday, 12/8/2003
Take off BFI, fly to Vashon, practice emergency landings, return to BFI for landing practice. Danny came as a passenger. First time flying the Cessna 172.
Cessna 172, 1.2 hours, 4 landings

Deane lays out the procedure as this:

1. Stabilize and Plan.

1. Establish best glide speed. Reduce speed by gaining altitude. This will give you the further range and longest time before arriving at the ground.
2. Identify a landing site. Roads are seldom good sites, they have power lines, trees, and cars. Airports and landing strips are best. Fields or any open ground is reasonable candidate.
3. Fly toward it and never loose sight of it.

2. Try to restart the engine.

There is a short list of things you can adjust from the cockpit which may cause the engine to start running again. The mnemonic FMI will help you remember:

1. Fuel: Change tanks. Make sure the primer is locked.
2. Mixture: Set to full rich. Open carburetor heat.
3. Ignition: Change magnitos, try 1, 2, or both. If the prop has stopped spinning then try starting the engine.

3. Make the best landing you can.

1. Make a mayday call. Use the frequency on which someone is most likely to hear you. That is most often the last frequency you talked on. Failing that use the emergency frequency: 121.50. Be sure to tell them where you are. The call may go "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Cessna 781VJ, over north Vasson island, engine failure, forced landing."
2. Set the transponder to the squawk code 7700, which indicates an emergency.
3. Tell the passengers to do up seatbelts
4. Concentrate on making a good landing. Pick a point near the landing sight at which you plan to be when 1,000ft above the landing site. Place this such that you can then make a standard landing approach (downwind, base, final). Don't fly away from the site. If you have to loose elevation spiral down above it. From the 1,000ft point choose your final approach. Don't get too low, there is no recovering from that. Use flaps, slips, and S turns on final to loose excess elevation.
5. The 172 Pilot Operator Handbook suggested closing the fuel line, setting the engine so it won't start, and unlatching doors prior to landing. Deane was ambivalent on this. Could be that the engine will start for some reason and on some planes the doors provide structural support.

[Another Acronym is ABCD: Airsped, Best landing site, Checklists, Dialog with controllers]

His final advice is that if I have to go into the trees, go between them and let the wings take the impact. The primary goal is for me and my passengers to walk away.

With that background we take off and fly to Vashon. Deane demonstrates once then I practice twice. Each time we are able to identify a grass landing strip as an emergency landing site. There are a lot of these around. This is another skill I'll have to practice frequently.

Lesson 7: Crosswind Landings, Engine Failure in the Pattern.

Wednesday, 12/10/2003
Fly in the pattern at Boeing field practicing landings
Cessna 150, 1.0 hours, 7 landings.

Deane describes how to make cross wind landings (low wing). We also look over a list of things that a student needs to know before first solo and I point out the items I've not done or feel I need more practice in. I take off and we fly the pattern at Boeing field. Even though there is little wind Deane wants to start with cross wind landing practice right off. I suggest that I do a normal landing to get warmed up. I drop the plane a little hard. We spend the rest of the lesson working on the last 20 ft of a regular landing.

I'm having trouble bringing the plane down gently the last 10 ft. It seems that if I pull back to keep the nose up the plane slows and drops to the runway. If I push the nose down then I get the nose wheel too involved. Deane says that if it starts sinking I have to make a very quick forward motion with the control, enough to get a little speed but not so much as to put the nose down first.

[9/22/04 - I still don't believe the above. If you are close (10ft) to the ground and sinking the best thing is a some power from the engine. Poking the nose down will turn the sink into a dive but you'll be at the runway before gaining appreciable speed. A well timed flare will make for a good landing but extra engine power is easier to manage.]

On the last landing Deane shuts off the power on the down wind leg, I turn early and make a power off landing.

Even though we never got to cross wind landing, and I struggled with getting a smooth landing, I feel good about today's session. There are many small things that I did much better and with out prompting from Deane: carb heat, flaps, rate of climb, altitudes, and approaches. I also did much better with the radio work, usually catching transmissions to me and sometimes knowing exactly how to answer.

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