Letter to my wife...

[Tomo]

:thumb_up::thumb_up:

 

 

[GraemeK]

What's more, on the trip home I was driving on a cambered bit of road where you have to hold the wheel against the tendency to drift and I reached for the trim control!

Similar experience on the way home from flying the other day - as the traffic lights turned green and I applied power, I unconsciously applied "right rudder" on the steering wheel! Happened not once, but several times

 

Maybe these things do get "hard wired" in the brain - if that's so, I may yet finally conquer landings!

 

As always, your posts make great reading Gomer!

 

 

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Ummm... Pardon??

 

Sweet,

Fred was up with another student when I got there (half an hour early) and after swatting flies for a few minutes, I went and sat in the car. Better to die slowly from heat exhaustion than be driven mad by the flies! When they arrived back, Fred just said "Just go for a flight. I'll see you when you get back". Fill in the log book, pre-flight the plane, start engine, work out why I can't hear anything (headphones not plugged in!), and then realise that the "short-bloke" blocks aren't fitted to the pedals. Damn. Stop engine and hop out to fix them. Next thing I hear Fred saying "Failed. You've failed! You forgot the blocks" with a big grin on his face. :big_grin: He'd come back out to see what was wrong. Finally, after about 10 minutes of stuffing about, I'm on my way.

 

There were two Cessnas in the circuit - one with a radio that is so crackly that when you hear "shrrkkkbllkkks", you look over to see if it is just turning to base or entering the runway, and the other one that is so soft that when you hear " ...................", you do the same. They fly a wider circuit than the Jab, so when there's more than one up there, you either have to fly slow and wide like them, or head off out of the circuit. The first time around, I misinterpreted "shrrklbsudfsiidusi" as "...for touch and goes" instead of "...for full stop", meaning that when it parked in the middle of the strip before turning off onto the taxi way I chose to go around. On the second circuit I held back a bit and had a clear run and a good clean touchdown. Even as I started to climb, I was already catching the next Cessna again, so I headed out of the circuit and climbed up to 2000' for an engine-out glide approach. The cloud base was at about 2500, but it was hazy as! Visibility was acceptable, there was just no clarity.

 

Anyhow, I pulled the plug and started gliding. I had heaps of height on my side, so instead of tracking further from the strip to use it up (which becomes a problem if you hit a load of sink when you're too far away), I put some side-slipping into play and dropped the height that way. It was really nice to be able to put a new tool into practice. Greased the landing again (two out of two - how long is this going to keep up?), although I did forget to kill the carby head coming across the fence. Another standard circuit, another good landing. Seems like it's my day. Next circuit is aborted because I got too close to the Cessna again (can't remember whether it was "shrrkkkbllkkks" or ".........." :confused: ). The scary part was watching it climb (for want of a better word) from my vantage point above. Fair dinkum, I kept my eye on it because I was certain that it had had an engine failure and was going down. I figured that it couldn't have been just practising EFOTs because surely they would have pulled out before then. But no, the ol' Cessna just climbs that slowly on a warm day. In fact, later on I was following one on the downwind leg and wondering to myself why it was flying so far below circuit height - then I realised that it was still climbing! It actually just reached circuit height as it was turning to base!

 

Back the the never-ending story. I departed cross-wind and climbed to 2000', this time on the live side of the circuit, and pulled the plug again. Another side-slip to lose height, another greaser of a landing (although this time I forgot to turn the fuel pump on. Damn). I was really happy with the landings, but frustrated with myself for letting other things lapse, so I gave myself a little slap around the chops and talked my way through the last couple of circuits. When I talk out loud, I don't forget. All was clean from then on, and I kept up the standard on the landings too. I noticed on a couple that there was a slight tendency to balloon which was very quickly controlled, but I couldn't work out why it was happening. On what was supposed to be my last circuit, the blasted Cessna in front of me decided to take the long way home - went way past the line of the strip on base and had to work its way back on a 45deg final (can't complain - I've done that the odd few times myself ) - so once again I went around. Question was, could I make it a perfect 7 out of 7 landings in one day? I guess it all depends on what you mean by perfect... Compared to some of the horrible things I've done to the little Jab, it was ok, but compared to the rest of the day it was a bit ordinary. Same little tendency to balloon - it's just this time it took a little longer to control so I floated a fair bit further than normal.

 

BUT! It's an ill wind and all that. It dawned on me just why it was kicking up at the last moment. In the Jab, the elevator trim control works directly on the cables between the stick and the elevator. Push the trim lever forward and the stick moves forward a little and vice-versa. The corollary of that is that if you move the stick a long way, then eventually the trim leaver moves in sympathy, and it generally lets go with a bit of a jerk. Now when you are on approach, trim is about neutral or slightly forward, so that when you pull the stick back a long way back to flare, there's a point where the trim lets go and moves back a bit too. That takes a little weight off the stick, so of course it moves back a fraction more because you're pulling on it. Hey presto, now you're climbing. That's why I've been ballooning! Now I'm aware of it, I can compensate when I feel the click of the trim moving. And it's only taken me 6 months to work it out! Almost there now. I can feel it in me bones...

 

Love you!

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Absolutely Buzzing!

 

Hi Beautiful. Another good, good day. Something must be going right. :)

 

It was looking a bit iffy on the trip up, but around the field was the 'Simpsons' sky - you know that a-few-bits-of-blue-sky-poking-through-lots-of-fluffy-white-clouds picture? Fairly strong wind, straight down the strip. The bulk of the clouds were up at 4000ft with others dotted around from 1000ft up, but it was clear enough over the training area to get enough height to look at advanced stalls & tight turns.

 

It's amazing the difference a bit more experience makes. When we did basic stalls earlier on (pre-solo from memory) I was really tentative about what was happening, whereas today everything was much more comfortable. Low speed stalls in the Jab are quite forgiving; it just mushes down and might drop a wing a bit, but nothing too startling. Under power, the wing drop becomes more pronounced, so the recovery reaction has to be quicker too. The greater the power, the faster the snap into the roll. On the first one we did, while I did all the right things (get the nose down to un-stall the wings and apply power), I also succumbed to the 'natural' reaction to roll the plane level with the ailerons. Wrong! Attempting to roll the plane level means increasing the lift on the lower wing, but as the lower wing is already stalled - which is why it dropped - it just stalls worse and you continue to roll the wrong way. Incipient spin, here we come.

 

In this case, I'd also pushed the nose further down than necessary (meaning that I was losing more height than I had to), but that had the advantage that it broke the stall despite my aileron actions. From then on, I handled it all ok with minimal height loss, though of course it's the actions you do when you aren't expecting something that matter most. :) We also did some stalls in turns, but in this case as the outer (high) wing is actually presenting a higher angle of attack than the inner one, it stalls first and the plane just falls out of the turn and back to level. Actually, that's the case if you're in a properly coordinated turn, but if you have the rudder in the wrong place - particularly if you have too much rudder to the inside of the turn - then it snaps into a dive much like the power-on stall.

 

While we were up there, we practised steep turns. It's amazing just how steep 'steep' is. I put it through a few turns, and Fred said that we only got to about 45 deg (which still classifies as steep). I could have sworn that we were just about standing on our wingtips! Fred demonstrated a 60 deg turn, and then I really felt like I was vertical. I think I eventually got it past the 45deg (just sitting in the one spot doing 360 after 360 after 360), but I don't think that I ever got it to 60deg. All good fun, and I probably could have stayed there for a while longer just playing around, but there was work to do. Ah, I forgot. On one of the early steep turns I let the nose drop, and next thing you know we were starting into a spiral dive. Oops. Recovery was easy, though you do lose a fair bit of height because you can't pull out too quickly - well, not if you want the wings to stay attached anyhow! I do not aspire to emulate Icarus!

 

As we were climbing back to height after one of these little adventures, Fred shut the throttle off and said "now, where are you going to land?". We're out over the training area, so there's no handy airstrips floating around. First thing (Aviate, Navigate, Communicate in that order) was to get the plane into best glide trim. Second was to find somewhere that looked like it might be (a) within gliding distance, and (b) able to sustain some form of landing. Of course, you can't take too long to make your mind up, because every second you spend is a second closer to the ground - and a second further away from a perfect spot that may happen to be behind you. I picked a spot fairly quickly, and although it was upwind so the glide distance in that direction is reduced, we still had enough height to get there. A down side was that there were power lines along one edge of the area; an up side was that there was as nice straight (and empty) road through the middle of it.

 

Having got into trim and picked a spot (and a backup spot, and a backup to the backup) all that remained was the communicate part - a mayday call, simulated of course in this instance. The key to a forced landing is that the plane is expendable and you are not, so it's all about energy reduction. Somehow, you have to dissipate as much of the kinetic energy of the plane as possible. The slower you can go, the less energy there is to start with. If you have to hit something (trees, for instance), the idea is to try and make them hit the wings so that the energy is absorbed somewhere other than where you and your passenger are. Want a rule to live by? Try to not hit anything head on, because that way you get to absorb the energy instead of the structure...

 

Having adequately demonstrated that we could have got down, we headed to the other side of the training area to do it again (this time with the expectation of reaching the strip). However, we got chatting and by the time we cut the motor, it was touch and go as to whether we'd make it. On the way down, I picked a couple of backup spots, but it wasn't until we were about a mile from the strip that we hit some sink and we knew the strip was just beyond us. Rather than completing the exercise and heading for one of the backups, we just powered back up and joined the circuit for a couple of touch and goes. The strong wind affects the circuit pattern, as your take off is quicker (ie you still climb at the same rate, but as the wind is pushing you backwards, you cover less ground in the process and thus appear to reach circuit height sooner) and you have to adjust your heading in order to keep the pattern rectangular. The biggest impact, though, is that the approach will be steeper too, so the turn to base has to be earlier so that final is kept short. The really nice thing is that I did that without being told, each of three approaches was spot on and each landing was a greaser. Having a wind to land into is a help, but it was such a good feeling - absolutely everything that I did today went well, and what's more, it was fun!

 

The real surprise, though, was yet to come. Back in the office, Fred said that we'd better "do the paperwork". As if he read my mind (I'm thinking, is he serious? But what about the flight test?), he said we did the flight test today! When I think about it, it makes sense. Those are all the sorts of things that I was expecting to be tested on, and I did notice that when we started each new activity, he didn't give me any instruction beforehand. He just said "whenever you're ready". Thinking back, I'm not even sure that the delay in creating the second 'engine failure' was accidental at all. What better way to check that (a) I wasn't going to try to stretch the glide by pulling back on the stick, and that (b) I had a backup spot prepared. Crafty devil! I probably would have been as nervous as hell and fouled everything up if I'd known beforehand...

 

It wasn't until I was driving home that I suddenly thought "hey, I'm a pilot!". How cool is that! :rilla: Anyhow, enough of that. Back to work.

 

Love you sweet!

And that, kind friends, seems like as good a point as any to finish up this little soap opera. It's been fun sharing it with you. I hope that you found it entertaining (and possibly even a little educational) on the odd occasions.

 

[slartibartfast]

Congratulations Gomer!

 

It's been fun sharing the journey. Your letters home have made great read, and no doubt very helpful for those also starting out. Well done.

 

Does your wife ever write back?

 

See you in the sky.

 

Ross

 

 

[Guest Qwerty]

Congratulations Gomer, well done. Thanks for sharing your experiences. :thumb_up:

 

 

[Tomo]

Congratulations Gomer! That is fantastic...:thumb_up:

 

And thanks for writing all those installments, you'll never regret doing it!

 

X-country here you come hey!?

 

 

[Spin]

Congrats Gomer, been a really good series of posts, detailing the highs and odd low that are part and parcel of learning to fly. A good resource for anyone starting out.

 

 

[GraemeK]

Well done Gomer!

 

And many thanks for sharing your experiences with us - for me, it has both been entertaining and reassuring!

 

Cheers

 

 

[Wangaratta]

Lucky I was wearing my brown trousers today!

haha, thought that was funny!

 

 

[BecM]

Congratulations!!

 

:bounce:CONGRATULATIONS

 

Thanks for the letters Gomer interesting, informative and a great read.

 

Fly safe

 

Bec

 

 

[Guest just Mal]

That was Great.

 

Thank you for sharing, so much of what you said about stuff ups on the rudder, forgetting carby heat, finally getting landings etc.. is all the stuff I wondered whether it was just me or happened to others too.

 

I'm a student flying a jabiru 170 at 20 hours and just about to do my first solo so I was so glad to read about your experience. It has helped me no end ,and thanks.

 

Malhttp://www.recreationalflying.com/forum/images/icons/icon7.png