Woohoo!

Well... after about 15 CFI-assisted touch and goes at Nampa, and many end-of-lesson landings in Boise, I finally did an unassisted landing at the end of the day today--at KBOI. We practiced in Nampa for a while. As you get about 10 feet over the end of the runway, you do a "roundout." The descent is stopped and you fly at that altitude until your airspeed decays and you reach about 1 foot over the runway. At that point you pitch up, stall, and settle to the runway. If you have ever watched the Shuttle land, you get an exaggerated example. I was having a tough time converting from the roundout to the flare. CFI had me practice just flying over the runway at 10 feet...and not landing. It must have helped. After we touched down in Boise, he said "Congratulations, your first unassisted landing!" I felt like a little kid. Called Alex on the way home and he bought me lunch.

The day started cold. The plane under the shelter where it would be relatively frost free was unavailable, so I had to reserve one out on the ramp. We had to put an engine heater on it and deice it prior to flight. They use a hand sprayer with some glycol solution. Then we turned it to the sun and let it sit while we did ground. Evaporating glycol is cold on the hands at 18 degrees. We are about done with the book for a bit, although I have a lot to master, yet. Book picks up again after the solo with navigation and aircraft performance types of issues.

All in all a red letter day.

Improvement

Improvement is a very good thing. We cancelled Friday because of weather and roads and flew Saturday. I did much better...although a way to go. I am flying this morning and again Wednesday. Landing is a very fluid thing with a complicated sight picture. More later. The book work is starting to kick my ass a bit, but it's largely a bit of laziness on my part.

The Fallacy of Mental Imagery

I have always heard the visualizing yourself doing something would help with the actual doing of it. False. We worked on landings Friday--touch and go's (land and take right off again) at the Nampa airport. Prior to leaving he took me through the steps of landing and I could visualize myself doing each step. Well.. not that easy, Bucko. I was all over the sky although I did improve on each of the four we did. But Number 4 was still pitiful. Practice, Practice. I fly again next Friday and Saturday.

Rain, Visibility, and Pilot Weather Stuff

It was raining yesterday. The clouds were fairly low, having dropped significantly in the hour before I got to the hangar. Conditions were still VFR, but marginal, so we did not fly. I am going to try again on Friday morning. With the holiday next week, I am not sure what will happen. I need to keep my marginal skills honed (humor).

I am still surprised by the amount of weather information that I am learning. As discussed before, the PIC (pilot in charge) is responsible for everything. So you can't just watch the TV guy and call it good. For one thing, the goal of the TV guys is to make sure that people don't get surprised by bad weather...so they skew things to the Oh My God!! end of the spectrum. NOAA must provide weather information to the FAA for pilots with the goal being short-term accuracy. They don't care about anything past the next couple of day--but they really want an objective look at that time period. As a pilot it's my job to figure out what they are predicting, look at the data myself, and make a go/no-go call (without whining about the forecast being wrong).

Several Web sources are available for the information, and they are very cool. They are designed for pilot use and have a bunch of information. Also, there is the FAA's Flight Service Station system. In the past, Boise, for example, had a group of FSS guys who pilots could call. They were familiar with local conditions and many were in aviation themselves. You could file flight plans and open and close them. They would also give you a weather briefing, using their data sources and local knowledge. This system has been closed and the whole thing outsourced to Lockheed Martin back east someplace. Now, a phone bank person reads the report that you could look up yourself online. No local input. Most pilots are dead set against the new system. And there have been reports of long waits to close flight plans.. so long that some folks just hang up and leave them open (not a good thing because if you don't close your flight plan within a short time after your ETA they are supposed to start looking for you). Also, the briefers have no specific knowledge of aviation. They just read the text. As a taxpayer, I can see the cost savings. As a pilot, it would be nice to have my own personal briefing. Logically, this looks like the death dance of a system that was great pre-Web, but makes little sense now. The Web sites are great for short-term forecasting.

Anyway, caution is the key. I am not keen on flying cross county in marginal weather. We have too many nice days here. But being able to look at the detailed short-term predictions is pretty cool.

On another note. Cessnas don't have windshield wipes. The rain just blows off and they arent' needed. I need to ask why the big planes have them. Might be just Cessna hype. :) This pilot thing continues to be very cool. I have several chunks of material that I need to just sit and memorize, though. I have a list in my head, but need to actually sit down and do it. I can still recite the list of 40 common prepositions that Sister Willana taught me in the 8th grade. I should be able to handle this.

On a third note, Dick Rutan of Voyager fame had to land his plane on a road yesterday with engine failure http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/rutan_4142___article.html/victorville_dick.html . And what does he fly? One model down from the one I am training in (C150 vs. C172). What a guy...Angelina Jolie flies a very cool turbo prop, Morgan Freeman his own exec jet, and Rutan.. a C150.

On a fourth note. The mythbusters are indeed doing the airplane on a treadmill. See the preview below. This is too complicated to go into here. Talk to me if you want details.

http://dsc.discovery.com/video/?playerId=203711706&categoryId=210013704&lineupId=229524134&titleId=1344511100

Ugh

Had to cancel Tuesday's flight because of issues at work. Caught a cold. Did ground today because the airplane I reserved had a bad battery. I guess it's not my week. Flying twice next week.. should be long ones because of the extra ground today. Weather is the topic these days. Lots I don't know. It's wise to stay out of thunderstorms.

Va

Va is the maximum maneuvering speed. In the Cessna 172 it's about 12o mph. Tonight I flew. We did some S-turns around Swan Falls Road. I think it clicked with me on how those work. We then did some circles around Initial Point. It's the point at which Township and Range start for Idaho. You can hit Wikipedia for the details. On the way back to Boise we hit some turbulence. Severe enough that I couldn't keep the plane on course... let alone on altitude. We cinched up our seatbelts to keep us from bouncing on the ceiling. It wasn't frightening to me, but I knew I was in uncharted territory. CFI took over controls and reported "severe turbulence" to the tower. At the same time we started hearing similar reports from other aircraft in the area. We made our approach to runway 10L and it smoothed out. However, as we approached, we suddenly lost a bunch of airspeed. CFI adjusted and told the ower "experienced some fairly dramatic wind sheer on approach." We landed and heard a couple other aircraft alter their approaches because of the conditions. Landing was fine. Taxied to the parking are and put 870 to bed.

On the way back to the hangar we talked about what happened. In turbulence, it's important to get the aircraft below Va (the maximum speed that you can do dramatic maneuvers without causing structural damage (read, ripping the wings off). I will remember that because of tonight's adventure. Lesson well learned.

No more this week. Flying Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon next week. Still very exciting!

Better!

I flew yesterday morning. Tuesday was an off day. I was sorta wound up and it showed. Yesterday was much better. I worked real hard on relaxing (yes, I see the irony there). As a reward I did much better. We worked on power-off and power-on stalls. It was the first time I had stalled the plane and recovered myself. The other time we tried, the CFI demonstrated it. We also did some ground-reference maneuvers again (tracking around a rectangle on the ground, S-turns around a road, and circles around a point. It's interesting because the heading (the direction the nose is pointing) varies from the course (the track on the ground) because of wind. I did most of the landing (CFI handled the throttle, I did the rest). Not too comfortable with that yet, but landing is a mandatory factor in every flight, so I guess I will get better. I am still hoping to post up some pics. I need to get to the airport on a sunny day and take some. I think I will wear shorts and pretend it's summer for purposes of the pics. Weather is going to continue to be a factor, but my CFI agrees with my assessment that the weather guys are often wrong. In addition, he claims that he tv guys are under great pressure to never miss a storm. So they are overly pessmistic. The ground school focus from here on out is material with which I have limited famiarity, so I anticipate that it will be a little tougher. Nothing else to report. Every time I talk to my mother she quotes Dad as saying, "Yep, flying is lots of fun if nobody is shooting at you." I guess that applies to lots of things.

More Balance

Fly the airplane. Don't overthink the details. But keep an eye on the details. Look outside the cockpit, check inside cockpit. Don't try to drive by the altimeter and airspeed indicator alone, any more than you would drive down the road staring at the speedometer. Calm down. Enjoy the ride. All good advice. I just need to strike a good balance. I guess that's what experience will bring. The book work is going well... CFI says I pick things up quickly. We will see if I remember the things that I pick up quickly. Still having a great time. It is truly like riding a motorcycle, though, in some respects. It's about smooth, and flow, and control.

We flew last night before the snow hit. Did some ground-reference maneuvers (S turns across a road, circles around a point, and flying a rectangular pattern). I did pretty well for my first shot at some of those. The latter comes in handy in the landing pattern. The two former for precision in flight. I knew I was doing ok when I cut through my own wake turbulence on the circle maneuver. At least my altitude was stable, anyway. As for a constant radius...maybe not so much.

Maybe flying in the morning. Will decide tonight after a weather check. The CFI is about as skeptical of the accuracy of the local weather forecasters as I am. One of these days I hope to go out and take a few pictures of the planes and maybe me in my big-boy headsets. Should be fun.

Twice this week

It worked out that I had a week off for the holidays.... CFI schedule conflicts. I fly Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning this week (weather permitting). Working on airspace classifications in the book. And air traffic control facilities. A lot of it is fairly new to me so it's taking some time. The only one I am sure about is Class A (everything from 18,000 feet to 60,000).

Toys

Pilot toys are very cool. A word of warning.

Morning Flight

After a ground school session on Tuesday night, we did a short session on Wednesday morning and then flew. Covered charts.... lots of information on a chart. The legend goes on and on. It's basically a topo map with everything a pilot would need to know. They expire every couple months. It's a folded roadmap kind of thing called a "sectional." We are in the Salt Lake sectional. It would take about 4 to cover the northwest.. each named after the biggest airport in the area. Seattle, Billings, Klamath Falls, and Salt Lake cover us. Next time we intro controlled air space.

Anyway, did preflight and fired it up. He had me talk to ground, the tower, and departure until we got in the air. I had a little experience on the radio in the A.F. years ago, so I did pretty well. We practiced a few steep (45 degree) 360 turns and I was able to maintain altitude.. unlike last week. Then we practiced Engine Failure procedures. CFI cut the engine back to idle, and we went through the procedure. As we came in to approach the chosen emergency landing area, we would apply power and go up to do it again. Did it about 4 times. I won't go all 6 steps other than to say that the first step is to announce (out loud--even if alone) Engine Failure! This sets up a scenario and starts the checklist. If you don't do that, you can piddle around trying to decide what the problem is and waste valuable time. It's a personal heads up! The last step is to radio the tower. No sense wasting time radioing and crash because of it. Better to do what you can to land safely and then call. The intermediate steps have to do with establishing best glide speed, finding a landing spot (he likes fields because roads have power lines along them), some troubleshooting steps, and then preparing for forced landing.

It was a beautiful day. Clear and pretty. I flew most of the approach and he helped with the landing. Once again, a great time. I think we are going to shoot for an afternoon and then the following morning next week, too. Woohoo! I have 3.7 hours logged.

Ground School

The wind was gusty and hard this afternoon at flight time. We did 2 hours of ground school. Fly tomorrow. Sigh.

I did learn that pilots have a fair amount of latitude as far as safe operation of the aircraft is concerned. The PIC is ultimately responsible if something goes awry... so it's up to him/her to make wise decisions. More tomorrow night.

Quick Update.. Landing

The airport was busy when we landed. They held one other Cessna over the prison, but told us we could squeeze into the pattern between two big passenger jets--and Airbus and a 737. We made it into the pattern fine (my CFI did). I then tried to fly part of the approach to the runway. It was very deceptive and I couldn't get quite lined up right. What I saw wasn't what I was getting. CFI said that it would come with practice. He landed us (avoiding the wake turbulence from the previous plane) and scooted the hell off the runway in a hurry at the tower's request so we wouldn't get mowed down by the 737. Landing will be more problematic than I thought it would. I guess that's why they call me a student.

Balance

I had a great lesson today. Started at 3:15 and left at 6:15. 1.1 hours of flight time. We covered some of the aerodynamics stuff in the book. I did well again. Overthinking is my strong point. Turns out that both Newton and Bernouli have a say in keeping the airplane up. Newtons third law (every action has an equal and opposite reaction) begin more prevalent at lower speeds and Bernouli (lower pressure on top of the wing) more prevalent at higher speeds. Whoda thunk it. I also found out that flaps increase lift to aboug 10 degrees of extension, and act as air breaks with more extension. (I am oversimplifying all of this, but I am old. Be patient). Anyway, one more section of aerodynamics and we move to the airport environment and weather. I have never paid a hell of a lot of attention to weather science, so that will be challenging.

We headed south to the practice area. I practiced turns, both shallow and steep. It's hard to maintain a turn and keep a steady altitude. You have to keep a sight picture throughout the turn. For example, in a turn to the right I could keep the cowling in front of me at a particular reference to the horizon. The horizon cut through the cowling at a particular spot. Fair enough. Turn the other way, however, and the whole picture changes. We tried both steep (45 degree and normal turns. I did ok after a bit of practice. It's a constant balance between pitch (up and down), altitude, power, and airspeed. Want to climb? What you willing to sacrifice? How about speed? Or maybe add power? It is pretty amazing what the tradeoffs are. Put in a little instrument time, too. I didn't feel as if I did as well as last time.. but the CFI said he had tightened the parameters a bit.

Coolest thing of the evening. We flew into the sunset over the Owyhees. It was gorgeous. I commented on how pretty it was, and he said "climb to 5,00o and we will watch it again. I did and we did. Wow. Two sunsets, both gorgeous.

I have a tendency to do what I did when I first learned to ride the motorcycle... target fixation and concentrate on one thing to the exclusion of all else.

I continue to like this guy. Great teacher. He has a way of limiting what I have to attend to, but adding complexity and explaining as we go. It's not his first rodeo. No schedule for next time again. His fireman job is hitting extra still because of the guys they sent to California.

More next time. Still very exciting. I did better steering the Rodeo on the way home!

Some Interesting New Things

We flew tonight. No formal ground lesson because of impending darkness. My CFI did a pre-flight briefing on what we would cover. He included stalls (more in a bit) and some flying with vision restrictors on. You got it. I am on the third lesson, and he is introducing instrument flying. As it turns out, 90 percent of VFR pilots (those of us not rated for flying in instrument conditions where there is no visual reference and no quick way to get to one) who inadvertantly end up in IFR (instrument conditions) die. This doesn't count the pilots who fly through a cloud or those who get up into the clouds and then right back down out of them. But those who get into serious weather where they are truly out of touch have a 9 in 10 chance of dying. The moral is it's important to get some instrument time! And learn about weather! And be cautious!

So... we took off and headed west. He had me practice changing and maintaining altitudes at give speeds. It's a constant balance between pitch of the aircraft and power. It's the opposite of what's intuitive. You change altitude by varying power, and you change speed by varying pitch.

We then tried a couple of stalls, one power on and one power off. A word of explanation is in order. A stall has nothing to do with the engine. A stall is when the angle of attack (the angle of the wing into the relative wind) becomes so steep that the air will no longer flow around it nicely and the wing "stalls" or suddenly loses all lift. So.. you pull back on the yoke and the airplane pitches up. You pull back far enough and it stalls. The controls get real sluggish and it starts to fall out of the sky. With power on, you immediately push the nose down to gain speed and re-establish air flow over the wing. With the power off (engine at ide) you put the nose down and hit the power. It's an odd sensation and it happens really quickly. One moment you are nose up and mushing along... the next feel the bottom drop out. The recovery is very quick.. assuming you do the right things right now. The CFI demonstrated the recovery. I have a feeling he won't demo it for long. The airplane we were in liked to stall and start a roll at the same time. So there was some quick rudder work, too. It didn't freak me out at all other than the idea that I need to learn how to recover and how to avoid them to begin with. We also tried some steep banking turns. I liked that a lot.

Following that we flew out over Parma and he handed me view limiters. It's a pair of goggles that blocks you view forward but not down. So you see the instrument panel, but not out the window. He then asked that I establish a particular course and altitude using the instruments alone. I managed that OK, surprisingly. We tried a few turns and I did fine. We flew back to Boise that way. I did very well and was surprised by that. He then had me take off the goggles, find the airport by sight, and turn and line us up with the runway. I did well at that. He then landed while my hands were on the controls so I could get the feel of it.

All in all, I learned a lot. He told me not to analyze too much. Pilots need to do things, not think them through. Good advice.

No schedule yet for next time. We will settle that in a day or two. He is in the Meridian Fire Dept and they sent some guys to California. The ones here are covering extra shifts.

Once more I had a huge amount of fun. The Rodeo doesn't steer worth a damn using my feet.

Part Deux Dos

I had my second lesson. The ground school portion of it went very well. Essentially we go down the key word list at the end of the each section. I explain what I know, he expands it to the next level and we move on. The concepts are not unfamiliar to me, but I can see where someone with no science background would have troubles. This whole "proper study method" and just working at it regularly seems to be working out fine.

The flight was great, again. I did much better at keeping it on the yellow lines without wandering all over. Take-off is a hoot. We went out south of town toward the prison and practiced turns. Also did some exercises with various flap configurations to see how that affected things. I learned to use the trim wheel...it balances out the aircraft at a particular speed so you don't have constant pressure on the controls. He asked me to keep my hands on the controls and he talked through the landing. I am eager to see how that goes. Next lesson... next Wednesday.

First Flight

Well... WOW. I showed up about an hour early because that's the way my schedule worked out. I figured I would study for an hour (and I needed that). Turns out that the student preceding me didn't show. My CFI said that if you are a no-show because you just spaced it, you pay for a 2-hour lesson. He said that if you can't because of work, or you are sick (and call), then it's no problem. But.. if you just forget..then you pay for the lesson. The good news is that if the CFI spaces it.. you get the lesson for free.

Anyway, we started about an hour early and went through a bunch of the book work. I was prepared and it went well. We then went to the airplane and did the preflight. It took a good while because it was all new to me. Eventually we fired that sucker up and off we went. He handled the radio duties. I was busy trying to steer with my feet. He told me to keep my right hand on throttle and my left hand under my leg to keep it off of the yoke. Hard concept. I taxi'd us down the taxiway to the end of the runway. We stopped and did a run=up to check the engine et al. and hit the runway (28L..meaning that we were taking off at a bearing of about 280 degrees (rougly west) on the left runway of two parallel runways. Had we been heading the other direction it would have been 10R... the right hand side of two parallel runways heading roughly east). I digress. We hit the runway and, following his direction, I took off. It was incredible. We headed across the city, climbing to about 4,500 feet. The lights were amazing (it was getting a bit dark). I flew toward the foothills, enjoying the view. My CFI described it as "magic." I think that is a very apt description. The view was incredible and the concept that it was mine to see (and only mine) was amazing. He told me to forget about the instruments and enjoy the ride. I agree. What a great feeling!

My CF"I handled the radio (and I was happy for that). He told me to head toward what I thought was the airport. I did, and was right. We aimed for the airport (descending). As we turned for final approach, he took the controls and landed us. I then taxi'd us to the parking area and we shut it down and pushed it to the parking spot.

What a great evening. I have logged 0.6 hour as a pilot, and that puts me in a very special category. I am very fortunate to be doing this.

And now for the bad news. I lost the damned key to the plane. I locked the door, put the key in my pocket, and haven't seen it since. We walked the ramp. I walked the ramp after my CFIwent home. Oh well. He said to not let spoil a first flight, and I agree with him. I left a note on the office door and will suffer the consequences tomorrow.

Next lesson... Wed at 5:30. I can't wait to get back in the air!

Forgive the typos and other mistakes. I am a bit excited.

Update: Keys found. I dropped them in the headset drawer with a headset I borrowed. Lucky me... I would have had to pay for a new key. And you can't get them for a dollar at Fred Meyer.

The Meeting

I met my CFI today. We got together for about an hour. He went over the plan for training. It's well thought out. At 2 flights per week, the average time would be 6 to 7 months to license. The bulk of the calendar time is pre-solo because that's where all the book time comes in. The three stages are pre-solo (Stage 1), solo (Stage 2), and Stage 3 (solo cross-country or xc). He emphasized that learning to fly is difficult. There is lots to attend to at once and the physical requirements (for example, steering with the feet) are foreign. Luckily I am very coordinated from my extensive physical training over the years (NOT). He said that this will likely be the most challenging thing I will ever do as an adult. Wow. We went over a sample lesson. I was prepared and it went fast. I am studying like they tell you to in college, but I didn't. Review the last chapter, work hard on the new material, and preview the next chapter. I am trying to put in some time each day and it seems to be working out.

My CFI is a fireman in Meridian. He has about 5,000 hours and has taught a lot of folks to fly. Nationally, 70% of those who start don't finish. Here at Ponderosa, it's about 40%. Either they run out of money, don't like it, or don't want to put in the time. He says he has taught a lot of folks to fly, and never gave up on one that was willing to hang in there. He did point out that it gets somewhat harder with age. If only everything got harder with age. Anyway.. he spent time as a corporate jet pilot and has a wealth of experience. Pretty matter-of-fact and business like, which is fine with me. He said that he will be honest in his assessment of my skills..the goal being to turn out a safe pilot. I agree. Young guy..I imagine mid to late 30s.

And the best part is we meet next Monday and Wednesday at 5:30 for the next two lessons and some flying!

In the Club

It's official. I paid my money and joined the club today. Got a briefing on the club rules. Nothing that struck me as weird except I can't land on unpaved strips near mountains until I get a backcountry rating. That involves getting 100 hours of flight time and taking some more instruction. I don't think I am too interested in back country flying...except Garden Valley qualifies, and I think it would be fun to fly there. I also can't fly to Murphy... ever. Apparently that strip eats propellers. It looks paved, but it's not.. just some grey rock.

For every 2 hours of flight time I get an overnight stay. That should work out fine. My instructor, who I have not met, is a Boise fireman in his late 30s. He has flown commercially, but now just is a fireman and CFI--Certified Flight Instructor. Hope to hear from him this weekend. Working on a cool set of headsets on Ebay. David Clark H10-13.4. http://www.davidclark.com/HeadsetPgs/h10-134.htm, Just like the big boys use.

Anyway, I have the combination to the office and ramp, my flight kit (books, logbook, study materials, and a couple of navigation thingies), and a sticker on my Rodeo.

The Outset

Well, it's been quite a week. I had my physical on Wednesday. Passed with no issues. Now I have to wait for FAA approval. The AME (Airman's Medical Examiner) asked for some more information on my eye history. Had to go see the ophthalmologist for a checkup today, got the form filled out, and am ready to go. I can start lessons pending FAA approval of my medical. Just can't solo without the approval. Hopefully the timing will work out ok.

I went to Ponderoas Aero Club yesterday. The manager is a lady about my age who learned to fly in the 70s. I applied and should be in by next week. With luck, I can start flying the week after. They use the Jeppeson curriculum for training, which is good. I like the idea of a set, written curriculum. Need to buy a headset. Thinking of picking up a moderate grade used set from Ebay and then treating myself to a nice set when I get my license. I will then have a decent set for passengers, shouls anyone be crazy enough to fly with me. Headsets range from under $100 to the new Bose for $1,000. (I won't be doing the Bose).

I am alternating between excitement and outright fear. Pretty amazing. Anyway, going to Victoria, BC, tomorrow for 5 days. Will finish the registration process at Ponderosa when I return. Woohoo!