Category: Flying Journals

So tonight I am a happy man. All my landings were OK, that is four in a row, not perfect, but definitely OK. So what the hell happened? On Monday I was despondent about ever managing to land an airplane. Well hopefully I’ve found and fixed my block, thankfully it was a simple one. JUST USE BOTH HANDS TO LAND THE PLANE. Yes, up to now, through all the frustrating pattern work at RHV over the last few lessons, I have had my left hand on the yoke and my right hand on the throttle. This was mostly in line with what Yoed said about always keeping a hand on the throttle, and it is a good place to have it on landing. You may need to react quickly with power to go around or recover from a bounced landing. Still, my problem was controlling the flare, it was either too fast, too slow, too early or too late. All this is basically fine motor control of the arm pulling back on the yoke. Well as I’m right handed, I guess I just don’t have that good a control of my left arm. As I was writing last night, I realized that all my best landings had been “simulated” emergency landings, where you pretend that the engine is dead. Hence, there is no point keeping a hand on the throttle, the whole point is getting down safely with it on idle. So I used both hands on the yoke and the landings were OK. I talked with Grainne about this before we started and she said it was no great sin to take your hand off the throttle as long as you were “over the numbers” and assured of your landing, and you were ready to react quickly with power if needed.
Today was clear and sunny as usual, ATIS had winds at 300 12 knots and 28C. I took the afternoon off again and I arrived about 20 minutes early. Grainne showed up on time and were went over the plan for today’s flight. South County still has flight restrictions, I assume from the remaining clean up of the Croy Fire so we decided to go to Livermore. Basically, slow flight, power on and power off stalls and some pattern work at LVK. About 2:15pm I went to get the key book and we discovered that N5766J was not back yet. It didn’t turn up until 2:30pm and we were surprised to find it been pushed back into the maintenance hanger. I don’t know if there was anything wrong, but after Grainne had some words with the Mechanic he gave us the plane and we pushed it back out onto the apron. Had a mostly normal preflight, taxi, run-up and take off on 31R, with a right 45 departure.

We climbed up to 4000’ feet and I took a little time to try and pick out my house on the way, couldn’t find it today. It was a little turbulent especially as we passed through 3000’ which happened to be when I wanted to look out of the plane. Anyway, we leveled off over Calaveras Reservoir and I completed the maneuvering checklist, some clearing turns and then some slow flight. Today, we found that stall horn was set at 41 knots. Every time you fly you find the stalling speed is a little different, it’s sensitive to the weather conditions and the exact state of the plane. We spent some time tooling along at 45 knots doing some turns and even a climb which is pretty anemic going so slowly with so much drag. Then we did a series of straight ahead power off stalls. This time I was real quick getting the nose down and the stall recoveries went pretty well. A couple more clearing turns and then we did three power-on stalls. These went fairly well, got the stick forward quickly, though I was maybe a little fast starting the recovery so I heard the stall horn briefly when I started to pull up. Didn’t mind in the least how the nose dropped in the power-on stall and I think I really lost my fear of this maneuver. In general, no problems and I didn’t forget to do anything critical. I need to be a little smoother on the controls, but that just practice.

We were at 3500’ over the Sunol Golf Course, so I got the LVK ATIS, winds variable at 5 knots, temp 28C, so pretty easy weather. Called LVK tower and got cleared to enter their class D airspace for a 45 entry to left traffic for runway 25L. I took a sort of big S turn to loose some altitude before I got into the pattern entry. Called into LVK tower 2 miles on the 45 entry and was told to make a wide downwind because there was another plane just ahead of me in the downwind leg. I followed him and the continued my downwind as he turned base. I waited for him to turn final before making my own turn onto base. So that is why the pattern entry looks so ugly on the GPS track.

LVK has two parallel runways (25L & 25R). The left runway is 2699’ and the right is 5253’. So the threshold of 25L is a long way in from the threshold of 25R. When you are used to the equal length parallel runways in RHV the difference makes judgment of the turn to base harder. Still, the final was good if a little longer than usual and as I came up on the numbers I transferred my right hand to the yoke. The landing was great, as good as anything I had done to date. YES, I thought it was the hands thing. We did the touch and go and had an uneventful circuit through the pattern though ATC changed the radio frequency along the way. A much better turn onto base this time and a fine final approach, again both hands on the yoke over the numbers and again an OK landing with just one small float before we touched down. THANK GOD, I thought the first one wasn’t just a fluke, it really is the hands. Power up for the touch and go and off we went. I checked the time and Grainne said we had time for one more, I was rearing to go to make it three in a row. A third landing just like the first two, beautiful. For the first time I have actually really felt in control of the flare. It wasn’t that hard to do the fine control with both hands, the plane just did what I wanted and landed on the centerline. We did the touch and go again and Grainne asked the Tower for a crosswind departure back to RHV.

As we climbed away I said “I’d like a nice relaxing flight back to RHV”, because I figured Grainne would throw in an emergency landing on the way otherwise. I didn’t want anything to stress me out on what was turning out to be the best flight in a long time. Over Calaveras again I got the RHV ATIS, wind 320 12 knots and temp still 28C. And then got the Tower. They initially must have assumed I was coming from the South because he told me to make straight in for 31L. I said roger, but was thinking that can‘t be right. So I called him back and repeated I was over Calaveras, then he gave me the usual 45 downwind entry for 31R. I should have been a little quicker to correct him the first time, but at least I questioned the direction and got it cleared up. Started a descent from 3000’ and made the entry over Lake Cunningham. I was cleared to land on 31R. As usual no problems on the pattern and the approach was fine, right on glide slope as I came around onto final. Last time was a charm, both hands on the yoke and a fine landing on the centerline, easily exited the runway at taxiway delta.

So are my landing woes behind me, I sure hope so. Grainne seemed happy, she gave me the pre-solo written exam to take home and we decided that we would schedule the stage one checkride for some afternoon next week. It’s a four hour block, 2 hours oral exam and then a 2 hour flight with one of the Senior CFI‘s. I’ll fly with Yoed on Saturday morning and practice my landings some more. Then fly with Grainne on Sunday, practice the emergency landings she said she had put off today due to my “relaxing ride home” comment and maybe a little more pattern work. Flying is fun again.

I took the afternoon off to go flying. With the evenings getting too dark and Grainne working on some on the weekends it seemed like the best way to keep the 2~3 lessons per week schedule. After the last lesson I felt like I was getting close to “finding” the landing flare so I was keen to fly again to see if I could finally nail it. I am frustrated! Today’s lesson was almost as bad as last Wednesday and I felt once again that I was going backwards. I just cannot seem to time the flare correctly or flare too much or too little. I think out of all the landings we did today only one was even acceptable and I felt that that was just luck – try it enough times and one is bound to be OK just by chance rather than by skill. This is definitely one of those learning plateau’s you read about. The fact that these are common and that flares and landings are the most common problem area doesn’t make me feel any better. However, one day I will look back at this and wonder what it was I found so hard and all the bad feelings will be forgotten. The very difficulty of what I’m trying to do, will make attaining the eventual goal all the sweeter. It brings to mind a quote from Kennedy about going to the moon, he said,
“We choose to go to the moon! We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”.

Learning to fly is a personal version of the very same challenge. It is hard, if it were easy everyone would be a pilot. The very fact that its hard is what makes it worth doing, that, and the enormous reward of being able to fly!

While I’m indulging in a written therapy session I might as well put down my other nagging frustration. Everyone with a good self image tends to think themselves good at what they do. Be it driving a car, being an engineer or being a student pilot. For me, learning new things has always come easily. My job depends on my ability to turn-over my skill set every couple of years as new technologies obsolete most of what I knew before. Starting off, I hoped I would be a star student, quick to learn, a joy to teach, nailing every challenge along the way. I knew that many students solo at about 20 hrs. You read some stories where guys do their first solo at a little over 10 hrs. I know its not a race, I know its not important how many hours I’ve got when I eventually solo, but at almost 25 hrs and knowing I’m not nearly ready its just compounds the frustration. I will solo, and I’ll do it when I’m really ready and when my CFI knows I‘m ready, be it 30 hrs or 50 hrs. But still, I had that 20 hr figure in my head when I started and failing this personal goal bugs me. However, now I can look forward to how good that first solo will feel, because I had to work so hard to get it.

So what was the actual lesson like. Well, it was windy, ATIS said the wind was only 7 at 320, but it was really gusting in unexpected directions. This meant that I spent a lot of energy just keeping the plane steady. It was an extra chore flying the pattern with the wind fighting the plane the whole way around. After a normal taxi, run-up and take-off we entered left traffic. There weren’t many other planes around and we mostly had runway 31L to ourselves. Starting off ATC was a pain, the first three times around I had to remind him I was turning onto base to get a landing clearance, this is just one more thing to have to think of at a busy time. As before the pattern work and approaches were mainly OK. I need to watch my airspeed on those dangerous turns onto final, I got a bit slow on one of them (60knots). I had one approach where I was way too high, I’m not sure why. But I elected to go around once it became clear I wasn’t going to get down in the first half of the runway. Another go-around happened unexpectedly. My glide slope was good coming over Eastridge Mall, but just before Tully Road (just off the runway fence) a sudden sink pushed me down, I recovered well by adding enough power to counter it and was fine rounding out over the numbers with the throttle back on idle. Then just as I started the flare, we suddenly found ourselves almost 50’ back up in the air. I know my airspeed was right on 65 knots as I started the round out so I don’t think excessive speed was the cause. It must have just been a gust that caught us just at the wrong time and gave us way too much lift. Either way I found myself with the stall horn going off, 50’ above the ground. Grainne called the go around while I was still wondering what just happened. Got full power in and got the nose down, but not quite enough – its takes a little courage to point the nose anywhere down so close to the ground, we briefly heard the stall horn again and then I got the nose low enough and did a slow slightly scary crawl along at about the same altitude as we gained speed and then finally started upwards at something approaching normal.

There were two other low points of the lesson. On the second last landing we did a full stop, I usually elect to do this when I know I’m getting tired, the taxi time gives me a chance to catch my breath. I was waiting for my take off clearance when ATC asked me did I want to “remain in right traffic”. I said I did and he cleared me for take-off on 31R. Now I had spent the whole afternoon flying left traffic and using 31L. I heard “remain in …”, so I happily proceeded to taxi to 31L instead of 31R to take off on the wrong runway. Thankfully, Grainne caught what I was doing before I got too far and we made an ungraceful turn back onto 31R and took-off. Yet one more reminder that I’m not ready to be in this plane on my own. Then, I managed to forget to put more than 10 degrees of flaps in on the last approach and we reached the numbers doing about 75 knots, without me realizing something was wrong. Grainne basically landed the plane, after a very long float down most of the runway. It was a poor end to a bad day. I know I was stressed and tired on that last loop around right traffic. It is so true that fatigue and stress make you stupid.

So, what is next. I’m flying again next Thursday afternoon. Grainne suggested, and I was happy to agree, that we would do something else instead of more pattern work. She said it would stop me getting rusty on the other skills I’ll need for the stage one checkride, so we‘ll do some slow flight and stalls and maybe a landing or two and see how they turn out. But, it will also be a break from the frustration. As Grainne is working her other job on Saturday, I’ve booked a lesson with Yoed. I like his style and he brings a different perspective to the lessons. I believe, when you hit a plateau like this you just keep changing the variables until you find the one causing the problem. A fresh pair of eyes seeing what I’m doing wrong might help and it can’t hurt.

The weather today was different, a weak area of low pressure was passing from the North. There was a lot of broken cloud and the wind was quite strong. I checked the ATIS at RHV a few times during the afternoon. At 2pm the wind was 10 knots at 220 degrees, at 3pm it had changed to 270 and at 4pm it had changed to 10 knots at 090, by 5pm it was 12 knots at 120. So what does this mean? Well, the runways at RHV are 31/13, that is to say they approximately line up on a heading of 310/130 degrees or roughly in a NW/SE direction. The “usual” wind in the evening time is from about 300 (or from the NW) so it blows pretty much straight down runway 31. A wind at 220 is 90 degrees off the runway heading so it is blowing directly across the runways. A 10 knot crosswind is no fun to land in (the maximum for the Cessna is a 15 knot wind and only if your a real expert), I have done very little crosswind landings because the winds are so kind to us at RHV, so a 10 knot crosswind would likely keep me on the ground for today. The big swings in wind during the afternoon probably indicate that the front was passing at that time, you normally see a big wind change as a front goes by. The wind went from the West (270), to Southwest (220), to East (090) and gradually back to Southeast (120) where happily it lined up nicely with runway 13 and I could fly without too much worry. But for the first time I would be using runway 13 and everything would be reversed from the usual pattern., that is, the pattern would now be flying in the opposite direction. I also spent a bit of time over lunch reviewing taxi procedures for crosswinds, its a surprise how many accidents are caused by a crosswind blowing planes over while they taxi, especially high wing planes like the Cessna 172.
It was a Friday so I left a little early and stopped by the Airport Shoppe to get a Pilots Operating Handbook for the C172N, which is the model I usually fly. The POH in the ground school kit was for the C172R, which is the new shiny version and had some different specs for performance. The POH is needed to answer some of the questions in the test papers Grainne gave me on Wednesday. When I arrived at Tradewinds Grainne was still flying with another student, so I went out and watched planes land on 13 and waited till she arrived about 6:15pm. Then I did the pre-flight on 5766J while she was finishing up. She looked pretty stressed out when she finally came out. She said they had been flying over at Palo Alto and there was a lot of planes in the pattern, plus they had the transition across class C airspace to get home. No problems with pre-flight, a very short taxi to the run-up area from where we were parked, some fancy foot work to fit in next to another plane for the run-up and then a good take-off along 13L.

We did 7 circuits of the pattern, with 4 landings and 3 go-arounds. Today, I was much more focused, I talked a lot less and tried as best I could to pretend that Grainne wasn’t there. For the most part things went well. The last couple of landings were reasonable and I think I am finally getting the flare worked out in my head, its just a process of making my reactions faster to the subtle clues just before you land. I did all the radio work, Grainne only spoke once on the radio, so I’m pretty comfortable with that part of the flying. My approaches were fine today, mostly on or a little above glide slope. One was rather high, but I just picked a spot a little further down the runway and we made it just fine. The take-offs, especially from the touch and go’s were a little different. Runway 31 is pretty unobstructed on departure, however, runway 13 has trees and buildings very close. We did a couple of takeoffs at Vx (best angle of climb) rather than at Vy (best rate of climb). I got the impression that Grainne felt I should have been a little more concerned about skimming above the top of the trees, and probably I should have. On the first or second landing, I initiated a go around when we ballooned quite high on the flare. Probably I could have recovered the landing, but it just felt nasty and the approach had been a little shaky as well so I hit the power when we lifted up. Grainne was actually pretty happy about this, I guess taking responsibility means making all the decisions and I know I have been relying too much on having her in the right seat to tell me what to do on landing. Either way that kind of set the tone for the day and it was nice flying. On one circuit through the pattern the Tower told us to extend our downwind for a Senaca that was coming straight in. For runway 13L, if you extend downwind you will be flying along class c airspace on your left. So you can’t just make a left turn onto base with the extended downwind or you will be in San Jose International’s airspace. The tower gave me two options, I actually didn’t hear the first one and the second was a right 270 turn and reenter the pattern on base. This made sense to me and it worked fine, including starting the descent early enough and in a non standard place (at the start of the extended base leg). Today, I also got my first taste of some easy crosswind landings, there was just a 3 or 4 knot wind blowing from the right. This was enough to have to crab into the wind and work the rudders in a positive manner to get straight on the center line.

All in all today’s flight really helped after the unpleasant experience of Wednesday. I still don’t have the flares right, but at least now I have a much better idea of why and what I have to do. I also “discovered” I was doing something really dumb right as we landed without even realizing it. Just as we touch down I was taking my feet of the rudder peddles. I’m not sure why I was doing this and I’m amazed I didn’t realize it before. Anyway it explains why I have been “heading for the grass” on any of the landings that bounce or balloon. I’ll pay close attention to this on the next flight and it should definitely help with control on the landings.

Tonight’s flight just sucked. I arrived without much time to spare, I was a little tired and generally not in top form. Grainne was waiting for me and we spent a little time talking about the night before. By the time we got through pre-flight it was already dusk. The weather was identical to the night before, hot with a light wind blowing down the runway.
The problems got going in earnest when I tried to call Ground Control. Once again the radio’s in 4754D gave me trouble. They transmitted a carrier but no audio. The previous night the same thing happened the very first time I tried calling the tower. I tried a second time and it seemed to work. We had a normal taxi and run-up and the radio worked calling the Tower for take-off clearance. We got it and took-off on 31L to enter left traffic.

The pattern was really busy, with 8 planes circling the airport, the Tower was doing a great job of keeping up, but he was really pushed. I hadn’t got a landing clearance by the time I was abeam the numbers and I extended downwind a little waiting for it. I decided to call the Tower and let him know I was turning onto base, in this case he will usually give you a clearance or he may tell you to go-around. I made two calls and got no response. Then he called that he was receiving a carrier with no audio, and so Grainne tried and got the same result. At this point I was on final and starting to do a go-around, but the Tower figured out it was us and gave me a clearance to land, with instructions that he was too busy to deal with a plane with no radio so we should land to a full stop, get off the runway at taxiway Charlie or Delta and work it out on the ground. He told us to reply with two clicks of the mic-switch if we heard him, Grainne did the clicking. We actually landing quite well, but then I had some problems breaking the plane smoothly to get off at taxiway Delta, it was messy, swerving and poorly controlled. This is basic stuff and I guess I was a bit rattled by losing the radio and the change from a go-around back to a landing while on final. Grainne called Ground Control, and sure enough the radio worked perfectly!. We taxied back to our parking spot and Grainne tried a few more calls on the radio which all worked. So we decided to continue with Grainne doing the radio work. So we had spent a bunch of unproductive time taxiing around playing with the f*&%ing radio.

I took-off on 31R and entered right traffic, by this time the pattern was less busy. We did three touch and go’s and one full stop landing. Of the four I messed up the approach on at least two, turning late onto base and being below glide slope on final. Its always better to be too high rather than too low on final, altitude gives you more options. The landings were uniformly bad, worse than last night and really a step backwards. I still cannot correctly judge the flare. The last landing was the worst of all, three bounces which took us almost onto the grass off the right of the runway. Just a real lack of positive control of the plane as we touched down. It was a relief to taxi back to parking and shutdown the plane. I was unhappy, I could tell Grainne was unhappy, all in all a bad day.

So what went wrong? Mostly the problem was me. As I said I was tired, I had had a great flight the night before, and this had me a bit hyped up when I went home, consequently I didn’t sleep very well, this caught up with me today. I think, in future I will not schedule back to back evening flights, just to give myself time to be on a more even keel. So I’ll leave at least one night off between flights. The radio problems had a dual effect. First, it threw me when it happened and this just made a bad day worse. Second, with Grainne flying the radio, I may have felt a little less in control of the plane, a little more like my CFI is with me so she can fly the plane. There is a temptation to laziness, sometimes you don’t concentrate as hard as you should because subconsciously you know the CFI will step in if you do something stupid. From now on I am just going to pretend she’s not there (soon she really won’t be) or that she’s just talking to me on the radio. I may also ask her to keep her hands off the yoke when we land, its hard for me to distinguish what control inputs are mine and what are hers, I don’t know if she’ll agree, but we’ll see.

Lastly, what the f&*ks up with the radios in 4754D? I have flown this plane 4 times. The first time I didn’t use the radio. The second time the radio didn’t work for me and then we had the electrical fire after landing which killed both radios. The third time (8/15) I was supposed to fly in this plane but the radios didn’t work at all and we had to use 5766J (now my favorite plane). The forth time was yesterday and they worked almost fine. Tonight’s debacle was the fifth time in this plane. So of 4 attempts to use the radios in the plane, three have resulted in major problems. This does not seem to be a random occurrence. As I can’t believe the plane actually hates me, the only conclusion I can think of is that my headset causes a bad interaction with the audio panel. You have to go through a pretty twisted trail of logic to see how this could happen, but is the only explanation that makes even a little sense. If I have to fly this plane again, I’ll borrow one of the clubs headsets and we can see if this is the root of the problem. Still I’m not in a hurry to book the plane again.

The weather was sunny but hazy, only 3 miles visibility. It was warm at 25C but not too bad. I arrived just on time and Grainne was waiting for me. We decided that we would go do pattern work at South County as planned and I headed out to pre-flight the plane. No issues with the pre-flight, the airport was back to normal today after yesterday’s Open Day. Normal taxi, run-up and take-off with a downwind departure. Although we took off on 31R, the tower asked us to turn left traffic for the downwind departure. This is a little unusual, but he may have had another plane coming in to right traffic at the same time. I made no mistakes and I remembered all the checklists.

I climbed up to 3000’ and we had a smooth cruise down to Anderson Reservoir, through there was some traffic coming against us. I got South Country in sight and we listened to the CTAF (Common Traffic Advisory Frequency). As South Country is an uncontrolled airport, all the panes announce their position and intentions on this frequency. We heard one guy saying he was turning onto right base for runway 32 which told us what runway and traffic pattern was in use. As I still needed to lose some altitude I flew a little left of the field to give myself a longer approach to the downwind leg. In the event I got on the 45 right at pattern altitude and announced I was there.

I did six landings at South County, four touch and go’s and two to a full stop. In general, they were much improved over yesterday. The very first one was a little hard, but the others were fine. I really can see an improvement over yesterday and previous flights. One of the landings was with a simulated engine failure and it was probably the best. I really tried to keep focused on the end of the runway during the round-out and flare and it seems to be paying off. Another big help is that today I was ahead of the plane the whole time. I got the checklists done and I never forgot to switch on my transponder or operate carb heat correctly (my usual sins). This gave me more time to focus on getting the approach setup. Grainne pretty much left me alone most of the time letting me make my own decisions so I really felt like I was flying and landing the plane myself. Today was a definite confidence boaster. After the last touch and go I said I’d take us to 2500’ and head for UTC to go home, I was getting tired and a little hot.

I was just setting up to get the RHV ATIS when Grainne pulled the throttle out for another simulated engine failure. We were too far from either South County or RHV to I picked a nice field just below us. My mistake was picking a field with a crosswind and then failing to just fly the plane so I could get a good approach to land. Just like yesterday, I spent too much time on the emergency checklists and not enough just flying the plane. Its much harder to plan out the approach to a field than an airport. To some extent your are spoiled for choice, there were just so many nice fields we could have landed in. There is a big temptation to keep changing your choice. Once you’ve got best glide speed, you really need to plan out the whole approach, my mistake is to try and do this in stages. It doesn’t work, and you end up too low and in a bad spot. Next time we’ll see, I have a feeling I’m going to be dreaming about landing in fields for a few nights until I get one of these right.

The only interesting issues with the trip back to RHV was that were first were told (by ATIS) to use a different Tower frequency (I guess they had two controllers on duty) and second was were told to change our transponder to squawk 5300 (the first time I’ve ever had to change this). There was another Cessna on our left and a little ahead so we were told to follow him in. He was told to squawk the same code, so then we were told to IDENT. There is a button on the transponder called IDENT, when you press it causes your plane to flash on the controllers radar screen, this allows him to make sure he knows which plane is which. The approach went well and we were just coming over East Ridge Mall when I spotted another plane right under us. He seemed to be almost scraping the trees in the mall parking lot. Grainne didn’t seem too concerned and said that he was probably heading for 31R, which sure enough he was. Either way is really overshot his final and was very low. My landing went just fine, not hard and on only two wheels (one less than my usual count). Other than the second emergency landing today was a nice flight.

Open day at RHV airport. I arrived early to find no parking and cops and people everywhere. I finally found a parking space and headed for Tradewinds. Grainne hadn’t shown up yet so I went for a look around. The whole transient parking area was cordoned off along with a chunk of taxiway Zulu. There was a bunch of cool planes most of which I couldn’t identify, a bunch of bi-planes, some Skyhawks and Skylanes and a couple of what I think were YAKs one had Russian words painted on its side and the other had Chinese. The San Jose PD helicopter was there along with a life-flight helicopter. There was also plane rides for 10cents/lb. It was pretty hot walking around so I hung out in Tradewinds. Grainne showed up a little late. We spent some time going over what I had done with Yoed and decided that RHV would be too crazy for much so we would fly to LVK and do some pattern work there. As I walked out to the plane It was cool to walk past all the people just there to see the planes, and then walk through the police tape and out onto the apron, six weeks ago I’d have been stuck behind the tape as well.

Did a normal pre-flight inspection, through the fuel truck arrived half way through to top up the tanks. Just after engine start the life-flight helicopter flew in front of us really close and shook the plane a lot. The guy in ground control was just completely flustered with everything. With his main taxi way was closed and only one taxi way leading from the runways was open there were planes going every which way. Some guy was trying to get help having some planes moved so he could get to his tie-down spot. Ground control seemed to keep forgetting where people where and kept asking them to tell him. In general it was chaotic and I was glad to take-off. We made a right 45 departure which like the last time pretty much takes us right over my house. Took the time to note the emergency landing spots ahead of the runway, I knew they were there, but at least now I know where to find them.

This time I remembered all the checklists for climb and cruise and we had a nice flight at 3000’ over Calaveras Reservoir. The sky was really clear and we could see the skyline of San Francisco in the distance. We listened to Livermore ATIS and then called Livermore Tower over Sunol Golf Course. When we called on the frequency from the sectional (118.1) we were told to stay clear of class delta and call Livermore Tower on a different frequency. Don’t know why, but the Tower answered us on the new frequency and gave us clearance “for the option” (to land or do a touch and go). I did a reasonable job of getting us into left pattern for 25L though we entered a little low (only 600’ AGL – ok a lot low). We did four landings, two of which were touch and goes. The first approach was a bit low and we arrived on all three wheels again. I don’t specifically recall the next three it was a blur of getting through the checklists and the final approaches. While none of the landings were terrible, none of them were very good either. But at least we never had to do a go-around. On one touch and go I was following another plane on the departure leg and was just starting to believe he was not entering the pattern when the Tower told me to make my left turn onto crosswind. I probably should have called the Tower myself sooner to check what he was doing.

We made a crosswind departure and headed for home. Climbing up out of Livermore the Tower warned us about another aircraft crossing our path from the South, we couldn’t see him anywhere until Grainne told me to lift up the right wing and hey-presto there he was right above us. A valuable lesson in why you lift the wings to check for traffic. At 2500’ and back above Sunol, Grainne pulled the throttle back to idle and told me I had an engine failure. This time I knew I didn’t have an airport close by, but there was a lovely plowed field just below the golf course. I did a fine job of getting the right airspeed, and doing the cockpit checks through I forgot to actually take out the checklist and make sure I had not forgotten anything. I remembered to make the mayday call and to go through the emergency landing items (again without the checklist). It was a great pity therefore, that I would have a very difficult time actually making the landing in the spot I had picked out. As the field was below us I started a 360 degree turn to get lower. However, what I didn’t notice was a hill between me and the field topped with power lines. By the time I got around the turn I was really to low to get over the hill and lined up for the field. I forgot the first rule of emergencies to just FLY THE PLANE and really didn’t think through clearly exactly how I was going to get myself in the right place to land on the one good spot around. That makes two emergency landings in a row that I’ve messed up.

We powered up and headed for home. I leveled off at 2500’ above Calaveras Reservoir and got the RHV ATIS. At this point Grainne covered up the Airspeed, Altitude and Vertical Speed Indicators with post-its. So now we would do the landing at RHV with a simulated static port failure. I did a good job of judging when to start my descent and got into the right downwind leg at about the right altitude and I got the final approach nailed (with no distractions from those pesky instruments). The actual touch down was not so clean. Again I had some problems with the round-out and flare and were flew along a lot of runway before touching down. Still, the actual touch down was OK when it finally happened. I know that the problems I’m having with landings are common for most student pilots, but it is still frustrating to keep making the same mistakes. We will do more landings tomorrow probably at South County Airport, there just isn’t any substitute for practice.

My second flight with Yoed. The weather was once again hot and clear, just like yesterday. Again the longer pre-flight briefing and we decided to repeat the same stuff as yesterday along with an emergency engine-out landing. Nothing significant about the pre-flight checks, taxi, run-up and take-off and a normal downwind departure.

After the standard maneuvering checklist we did a couple of steep turns. I had some problems getting my speed up to 95knots. 5766J always seems a little underpowered, at about 2200 RPM in level flight she just wants to trot along at 85knots. It took full power to get the speed up to 95knots and about 2500 RPM to keep it there.

Then some more slow flight and power-off stalls. These went fine, I still need to practice putting the nose in the right place to recover from the stall. But today’s were better than yesterday’s. We did one power-on stall which went about the same. Yoed could sense that I was reluctant to let the nose fall too much forward and that this was keeping me from pushing the nose down in a stall as quickly or as far as I should. So he asked me if I wanted to see what it felt for the nose to point right down. I was nervous, but I agreed. He the proceed to stall the plane with full flaps and then when we were stalled retracted the flaps and let the nose fall forward. We ended up facing almost straight down in a dive. He let it go for a couple of seconds and then gently pulled out to level flight. It was actually fun, it reminded me of all the fighter flight simulations I had played with where you throw the plane all over the sky in a dog fight. But mainly it showed me that its not so scary to have the nose point all the way down as long as the ground is far below.

We did a couple more clearing turns and were facing into the hills when he pulled the engine back to idle. I did a good job of getting the best glide speed and got pointed away from the hills. This time I remembered about Frazier Lake and we headed in its direction. I crossed over the center of the runway and checked the wind sock to choose which way to land on the runway. I also did a credible job of the emergency checklist. I made a left turn to enter the pattern on a downwind 45. However, I was at about 1500’ AGL when I got abeam the numbers so I was too high. Yoed even told me that I should adjust my speed to make sure I got down, but I wasn’t really listening (or hearing). I turned base and final (I was a little too close to the runway on the downwind). I was lined up on final but still way too high. In the end I think we would have overshot the runway, but Yoed thought we would have just landed on the very end (I think he was just being kind). We did a go around and headed for home. I had also forgotten to do the emergency landing checklist and make any radio calls to let people know I had an emergency.

Again it was dark when we got to UTC. This time we ended up as the first of four planes coming in to land from UTC. The glide down was good, though at one point a “Long EZ” shot past us on the right. I was just a little slow to start the flare and we landed on three wheels and bounced, the second touch down was fine. Again, this is failing to judge the round-out correctly. Its a little more difficult at night because there is just a lot less visual inputs to help you.

We were just about to push the plane back into its parking space when Yoed said “Is that the rocket launch you told me about”. I had warned him that Vandenberg AFB was scheduled to do a test launch of a Minuteman III missile out into the Pacific and it could happen anytime between 1800 and midnight. In the event they kindly waited for us to get on the ground and for darkness and it was spectacular. The missile climbed out and to the West into a clear dark sky leaving a glowing trail behind it. We saw the second and third stage separations. The photo shown was taken from Southern California, but it looked pretty much the same from the apron at RHV.

My first flight in 3 weeks. I was a bit apprehensive that I would totally suck when I got back into the plane. The weather was typical, but it was hot, not a cloud to be seen. I had booked a new CFI for this flight, Grainne had recommended him and let him know I would by flying while she was on vacation. He turned out to be a fairly young, short little guy called Yoed Shani, and a great instructor. I was early and he was there when I arrived so we started right away. He did a much longer pre-flight briefing compared to Grainne. We went over what I had done and planned a flight to brush up on the basics, slow flight, stalls and some steep turns. I went out to do a pre-flight on 5766J. Everything looked good other than a bald spot on the nose-wheel tire. I did a normal taxi, run-up, take-off and downwind departure. handled almost all the radio work. To my great relief I didn’t appear to have lost too much during the break.

We flew down to Anderson Reservoir and did the standard maneuvering checklist and clearing turns and then some slow flight. This was where the rust started to show. I had to walk through the whole procedure in my head, because I really wasn’t sure exactly what I had to do. I guess, this is a big part of the learning process, but when the CFI says “OK, lets do slow flight” or some other maneuver I find it really difficult to remember exactly what I should do, I know I need to throttle back the engine, but how much ?, pitch for what speed ? put in how much flaps? and so on. Still, we got through it and the slow flight was fine. We did a couple of power-off stalls without much problem. As usual I just need to remember to level the plane quickly when the stall breaks. On one stall I was slow to bring the engine back to full power so we lost more height than we should have. Then some more clearing turns and Yoed showed me a power-on stall. The contrast with when Grainne had done this was huge. Grainne’s first power-on stall was a bit like a roller-coaster while Yoed’s was really gentle. I am much more used to what the plane does in a stall by now, so that may be part of the explanation why Yoed’s was so much less frightening. I mentioned the problems I had had with keeping coordinated in a stall on N9552A (the almost new Skyhawk I flew back in August). So he showed me something neat. He stalled the plane with power off and then just kept it in the stall while he had me work the rudder. It was no big thing. We were totally stalled and it was easy to just keep the plane straight using the rudder. Other than we were dropping out of the sky at about 1000 FPM (and the buffeting and the stall horn) you would believe you were in straight and level flight. A good technique to take away any fear about keeping coordinated in a stall. Another thing he did just after the power-on stalls was to prove to me that the trim setting doesn’t matter and you can always compensate for it with the elevator. I had been avoiding trimming the plane as I slowed down to setup for the power-on stall. I didn’t want a lot of nose-up trim when I hit full power (it will make the nose jump up even faster). This is kind of dumb because you want the nose to come up to get into the stall anyway. He had me just fly straight and level and then keep that attitude no matter what. He then turned the trim wheel as far forward and as far back as it would go. You can feel the pressure on the elevator first forward and then back, but you can always keep the plane level. A very nice trick to remove any fear about where the trim is set. I think worrying about trim is a bit like a new car driver asking what way the wheels are pointing before they start the engine.

Another key thing Yoed told me that lead to one of those “ah ha” moments, was “Whenever you change the flight attitude or configuration, LOOK OUT OF THE PLANE”. I realized that whenever I did anything I was always looking at the control or the instrument as I was changing it. For example, glancing at the attitude indicator when starting a turn. As soon as I stopped doing this, my turns got better. Another example, is learning to judge the engine RPM by sound rather than looking at the tachometer. So when you want to slow down or descend, just set the power where you think it should be make sure the plane does what its supposed to do and then give a quick glance to make sure the RPM is about what you want.

We did a couple of steep turns, one left and one right. This was only the second time I had done these. They are fun and I think Yoed uses them as a kind of reward to good behavior. They want well and again focusing outside the plane the whole time and using the horizon to get the right bank angle made them a whole lot better.

The Sun had set as we turned to fly back to RHV. It was full dark by the time we got over the buildings at UTC where we normally contact the Tower. No problem picking out the airport, there is a flashing beacon and the VASI lights were easy to see. There were three planes ahead of us approaching the field. I guess this is coming home time for a lot of folks and the Tower was really busy. He was making some folks go around so we slowed down a little early to let the traffic stay ahead of us. The landing approach went just fine, and the landing looked great until we hit the tarmac with all three wheels. I think I was looking too close to the plane and misjudged the height slightly. I dropped the nose just a bit when I should have just continued the flare and we set down on three wheels. A little rough, but it was all mine and my first true night landing. I had my GPS setup wrong so I didn’t get a GPS track of the flight.

Today was hot and hazy, 34C degrees on ATIS, but as usual the wind was light just 8 knots blowing right down the runway at 310. I always leave work bang on 5pm if I’m flying, its about a 40 minute drive in traffic, but anything can happen and I don’t want to arrive hot, bothered and late for flying because of a jam on the freeway. Today the traffic gods smiled upon me and I arrived about 20 minutes early. Grainne arrived about 10 minutes later and sent me out to preflight the plane. Good old 66J again, I really like this plane. No issues with preflight, Grainne arrived and we got through the taxi and run-up checks. I made a fine take-off from 31R and a downwind departure. Everything was smooth and for once I forgot nothing (not even the transponder or the climb checklist). Today I would finally get to practice stalls again, slow flight, some more instrument work and some slips. Of course as we decided that we wouldn’t do any pattern work the airport was almost deserted with nothing in the traffic pattern. We climbed to 4000’ and leveled off over the North end of Anderson Reservoir. I was just making my first clearing turn when we spotted a yellow bi-plane doing aerobatics right in front of us, at the same time another plane was under him at about 1000’ and we had passed two other planes while climbing. I guess, its just Murphy’s aviation law that there will always be planes around when you’d rather have the sky to yourself. We decided to head further South to get some clear space for maneuvers.

A little North of Frazier Lake after some clearing turns we started with the slow flight. This was fun, it appeared that N5766J is almost unstallable. I slowed to 40 knots and still had to really pull back to force the plane into a stall, we didn’t even get a stall warning at 40 knots. Grainne also had me try to stall the plane by turning at 45 knots without adding any power. No luck, but I may have kept the nose a little down to keep the airspeed at 45 knots as we turned. Its amazing how tight a turn you can make at the slow speed. Generally this was a really well behaved plane at these slow speeds. All the power-off stalls went fine, I think I did three or four. Then it was time to try power-on stalls. I hated these the last time, I couldn’t seem to keep the plane coordinated, which got us into an incipient spin on one attempt. This time things went better. Pull the power back to 1500 RPM, pitch the nose for 55 knots which is rotation speed. When you reach that speed apply full power and just keep pulling back on the elevator until the stall breaks. Then forward on the elevator, recover from the stall and level off. This time the plane stayed coordinated, I kept my heading well, actually any deviation was because I didn’t put in enough left rudder while I was slowing to 55 knots. My only problem was being too timid to push the elevator forward when the stall breaks. You see, after the break the nose is pointing straight down (well downwards anyway) so the natural reaction is to try to pull it up which is the wrong thing to do. You need to let it go and gain airspeed then level off. So while my headings stayed good, I lost too much altitude on most of the attempts. After three or four goes I decided I had enough stalls for one day and we started heading back towards RHV.

We had worked our way quite far South so I started following highway 101 North. Alongside South County Grainne decided it was time for hood work. The hood performs the same function as the foggles I had used before, only its better at blocking your view out of the plane. Grainne had me do a constant speed descent at 90 knots and then some turns to headings on the way down. We descended to 2500’ where she had me level off and do some more turns to a heading. The only problems I had was with the rudder. I was keeping “my foot on the ball”, that is applying enough rudder to keep the ball in the turn coordinator centered, however, this kept me drifting left. I could see my heading was changing but I couldn’t seem to get the right amount of rudder to keep it steady. I had just about decided it was the planes fault when Grainne told me to just leave the rudder alone and when I did the plane came into perfectly coordinated flight and kept its heading. We did a few turns left and right and as I was doing this Grainne called the tower, so I guess we were over UTC. I was wondering would she have me keep the hood on until we were on short final to land. I had read about CFI’s doing this because it simulates what it would really be like to emerge from the clouds just short of the runway and then have to land as is common in IFR conditions. In the event, she let me take off the hood about 5 miles out.

As usual I was a little high on the approach, rather then use flaps Grainne told me to do a forward slip. This worked great the last time I tried it so I expected no problems. We were cleared to land on 31L and I had a good line on the approach. Then I tried the slip, I just couldn’t seem to balance the rudder and the ailerons to get into a stable slip. The plane just wanted to go one way or the other. Finally Grainne help get into the slip and then I held the controls, once setup it felt fine. While all this was going on the Tower changed our runway to 31R and I had to slip/drift/move over to line up on the new runway. Coming out of the slip was not very pretty, we were just short of the runway and getting the wings level and the plane pointed down the runway was a little stressful. For the first time I noticed Grainne didn’t have her hands on the controls as were landed – for the first time it would be just me landing the plane. I leveled off at the right time and then as usual flared just a little too fast and the plane floated upwards. Grainne reached for the controls and helped me start over, just level the plane again and try the flare again. This time the wheels touched the tarmac but we floated up again. Third time lucky, we stayed on the ground. So I got three landings for the price of one approach. I let the plane run to the end of the runway, though I had some problems breaking evenly – this is an old problem I thought I had conquered. I stopped on taxiway echo, radio’d Ground Control and was cleared to taxi to parking. Once I parked Grainne told me I had forgotten the after-landing checklist.

Its clear that Grainne is now not telling me what to do. She expects me to remember what to do and when to do it. I actually have to press her to give me directions. I can see that this is all preparation for when she’s no longer sitting in the right seat and I have to fly on my own. While I’m looking forward to the milestone of my first solo its only starting to sink in how much I have to remember on my own and how much more concentration this will require. I have unconsciously been using Grainne as my long term memory expecting her to tell me what I forget when I forget it. And I still forget plenty. For instance, I seem to have a mental block about carb heat. I either forgot to turn it on or off several times today. Next time I’m going write a large red “C” on the back of my right hand so that I see it every time I reach for the throttle.

I’m on vacation this Thursday until the 14th of September, Grainne is leaving on the 12th for her vacation so we won’t fly together again until at least Saturday the 21st, three weeks from now. She has recommended another CFI and suggested I get a couple of flight in before she gets back. I hope I’m not too rusty after the break.