Eblo

Hour 4

Today was a beautiful day to fly. It was a little bumpy around 2,000', but nothing that couldn't be managed. Today my CFI had me do the preflight check of the aircraft on my own. He was actually a little late returning from another lesson, but he had told me that next time I came, I should grab the clipboard for the plane and check it out. I used my spare time waiting for him to watch some traffic come and go. I also sat in the cockpit a bit just ingraining the locations of things into the back of my head. It helps greatly that I was able to find a Piper Warrior II for Flight Simulator 2004 (if I dig it up, I'll put a link here, but I'm pretty sure it was at www.flightsim.com). [Ed. The file is warrior4.zip. Flightsim.com's a cool site, but requires login. I have the file here.] Even on my off days, I'm looking at the panel and remembering what switch or indicator is where.

After he signed off on his other student's log book, we were all set to go. I did the pre-start and engine start checks/routines without any coaching from him, and he just had a few comments during the taxi out to runway 24. As is standard, I stopped short of the runway and went through the run-up checklist. This is where you test things like magnetos, the fuel pump, and the alternator to make sure things are working properly.

One of the last two things on the checklist is "Radio." At an non-towered airport like Campbell, you don't need clearance from the tower to take off (because there is no tower), but you do need to make sure no one is about to land on you and it's also wise to let others know what you are about to do. Usually the intructor handles the radio calls. Today, he handed me the mic and I stammered my way through it, paranoid that I was going to get the aircraft's tail number wrong or something. But I did just fine. This time.

After an uneventful takeoff with a very slight cross wind, I climbed out toward the northwest to our usual practice area just south of Lake Geneva, WI. Once out there, we found my CFI's favorite intersection and worked on two new moves. First we did turns around a point. The winds were good practical experience for this maneuver. The trick is to keep the ground track in a steady circle around the point, despite the fact that the bank angle and pitch are constantly changing as the wind shifts around the plane (from head wind to cross wind to tail wind to cross wind, all the way around). With the head wind, the plane wants to climb to heaven. With the tail wind, you need to bank steeply to make your mark. There's a ton going on, and it's easy for your ice cream (a perfect circle) to turn to shit (a bulging diamond). The GPS plot looks pretty cool from doing these, and it'll nicely show where I did well, and where I fell short.


Next were S-turns over a road. These are similar to the circle around a point, but you keep switching off between semi-circles to the left, then the right, then back again. The trick here is to cross the road at a perpendicular track with the wings level. Again, depending on wind direction, your bank either starts off steep and ends up shallow, or vice-versa. Again, the wind was quite helpful in providing a decent challenge by quartering nicely from the southwest. Both of these ground reference maneuvers are critical for executing proper turns in a traffic pattern, as well as basic cross-country flying. You always have to know where the wind is coming from to know how to use it properly.

After that we headed back and practiced a steep turn in each direction for good measure. I choked on the approach call-out on the radio, but it wasn't anything major. I got as far as "Campbell Traffic, Piper 4 Victor Tango," and forgot the rest. After I shook the cobwebs and re-keyed the mic, I spit out the "3 miles to the southwest inbound to land two four, Campbell" Practice, practice, practice.

I made a decent landing - drifted a little to the right, but otherwise good. Other than a bit of a kick on the rudder and stiffening the yoke so I wouldn't overuse the ailerons, the instructor was pretty much hands-off. I landed. A plane. On the runway.

I picked up a Warrior II manual today so I can look over emergency procedures, etc. So I've got some homework. Next lesson (tomorrow if the weather holds out) is going to be more of the same. After those get smoother, we're heading for emergency procedures and specific takeoff and landing work.

Wow. 4 hours under my belt. On my way.

Posted by oblivion at September 16, 2003 06:03 PM