Finally restarted my flying lessons.

I haven't flown since the Friday after Thanksgiving. It's been a combination of weather, CFI or plane availability, and Tammy's worsening condition. There were two weekends in a row where I canceled both Saturday and Sunday flights because of her difficulty breathing.

Just about two weeks ago, on Jan 4, 2023, Tammy breathed her last. She'd been on supplemental O2 for 3 weeks, starting on her birthday, and her breaths got shallower and shallower. Finally, just before 6 AM, she decided she'd fought long enough and hard enough. I'd told her the day before, and the night before, that I loved her, and was praying for a miracle, but if she was ready to go home to God, her mother and I would be fine, and I would take care of her mother.

It turns out that a lot of people decide to die this time of year, so both the Church and the Cemetary weren't available until the first week of February. There wasn't enough time to get things organized in a few days, but so far, it looks like we have way too much time.

Tammy always supported my aviation addiction. She gave me several flying lessons, and the one she went with us, I flew the whole time. I took off, did some air work, and came back and landed, with barely any CFI time on the controls. On landing, the stall horn chirped just before the wheels chirped on the runway. There's even (or at least was) a back seat video of that landing.

Besides flying lessons, she gave me a then big monitor, some flight simulation software, some flight sim hardware including a Honeycomb Alpha Yoke and a Track-IR Pro. I told my CFI about how supportive she was for my aviation addiction, and he told me to hang on to her. I did for absolutely as long as I could.

As far as I'm concerned, she's already gotten her (Angel) wings.

My next flights are scheduled for the second weekend of February.

In closing, to quote a Bible verse. "She fought the good fight, she finished the course, she kept the faith." We had the parish priest come over to give her Last Rites New Years Day. She had her eyes closed the whole time, except at the end when she opened an eye to see what was going on.

It's hard to believe she's not coming back. The house is decorated so well that my sister who is a real-estate agent, said she wouldn't change a thing before putting it on the market.

A big difference between us was I'm easily satisfied with the status quo, but she always thought she could improve the world, including me. And my siblings all say, with respect to me, she succeeded.
 
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Wow

Sorry to hear about Tammy passing. She sounded like an incredible woman.
 
I'm so sorry for your loss and that you had to endure a difficult, highly rare illness with Tammy.

Wishing you and your family peace as you move-forward.
 
Tears are dripping onto my keyboard.

I am so so sorry. She fought so very hard and for so very long, as did you. Looks like she got her wings before you did.

Prayers for you, as always, and CAVU for Tammy.
 
Crashnburn said:
I haven't flown since the Friday after Thanksgiving. It's been a combination of weather, CFI or plane availability, and Tammy's worsening condition. There were two weekends in a row where I canceled both Saturday and Sunday flights because of her difficulty breathing.

Just about two weeks ago, on Jan 4, 2023, Tammy breathed her last. She's been on supplemental O2 for 3 weeks, starting on her birthday, and her breaths got shallower and shallower. Finally, just before 6 AM, she decided she'd fought long enough and hard enough. I'd told her the day before, and the night before, that I loved her, and was praying for a miracle, but if she was ready to go home to God, her mother and I would be fine, and I would take care of her mother.

It turns out that a lot of people decide to die this time of year, so both the Church and the Cemetary weren't available until the first week of February. There wasn't enough time to get things organized in a few days, but so far, it looks like we have way too much time.

Tammy always supported my aviation addiction. She gave me several flying lessons, and the one she went with us, I flew the whole time. I took off, did some air work, and came back and landed, with barely any CFI time on the controls. On landing, the stall horn chirped just before the wheels chirped on the runway. There's even (or at least was) a back seat video of that landing.

Besides flying lessons, she gave me a then big monitor, some flight simulation software, some flight sim hardware including a Honeycomb Alpha Yoke and a Track-IR Pro. I told my CFI about how supportive she was for my aviation addiction, and he told me to hang on to her. I did for absolutely as long as I could.

As far as I'm concerned, she's already gotten her (Angel) wings.

My next flights are scheduled for the second weekend of February.
Click to expand...

:( I'm so sorry.
 
CrashNBurn I'm so very sorry to read this. You supported her and helped her fight an amazing fight.

Her struggle has ended but her memory and love continue to support you.

God speed Tammy.
 
Thank you, all. There are a lot of things I regret not doing for/with Tammy while we were together. I tried to fight for her the best I could at least as much for me as for her so if she passed, I wouldn't have any regrets about leaving any stone unturned. As it turns out, I did as much for her as I could, and I couldn't do anything less. Too bad it wasn't enough.
 
Half Fast said:
How long were you two married?
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total of 17-1/2 years. She was sick for at least the last 18 months. We were about 3X more active than the usual couple, so in our years, about 51 :).
We got married later in life, and the baby window closed while I was still looking for a job. :(

Edited to add this link:https://www.spanglermortuary.com/obituary/tammy-pottorff

As far as I'm concerned, when I lost my angel, Heaven gained one.
 
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I restarted my lessons two weekends ago. I had a lesson on Saturday, and again on Sunday. The first lesson was the San Francisco Bay tour. We took off from KRHV and flew by Oakland International, and SFO. We flew over San Francisco, around Alcatraz, over the Golden Gate bridge and by Golden Gate park. From there we flew down the coast, by Half Moon Bay, all the way to Santa Cruz. Then we turned east and headed back to KRHV. I flew almost all of the flight.

I had issues with dead batteries in my headsets and had to replace them inflight. Luckily, my Lightspeed ANR's also have passive attenuation.

That flight was taking off, flying straight and level, climbing and descending turns.

The second flight we started over with air work, and more air work the third flight. Some takeaways:
Instead of practicing takeoffs and landings on my flight sim, I should be practicing slow flight.

I need to wake up my feet on turns. My ab inito was in a tail dragger - Citabria and I have an introductory flight paid for in one of those. An hour of ground, and an hour of flight instruction is less than what the club would normally charge. I've stayed away from Citabrias because they're so loud, but with my new Lightspeed Headset, and 29 dB musician's earplugs, I should be fine. I've verified that ear plugs help attenuate noise, even when worn with headsets.

When I land using my flight simulator, I lose track of the runway center line during the flare. When Frank flared the plane on my most recent flight, I had no problem keeping track of the center line, as I'm tall enough to see over the nose. I've already figured out how to compensate for parallax, so I'm good.

The only problem is scheduling flights. Everyone and their kid sisters seem to want to learn to fly. And of course, Aerodynamic Aviation is one of the best FBOs out there.
 
I had a great lesson Saturday last week. I realized I had lazy feet on the rudder pedals and needed to wake them up. What better way than to have a flight in a Citabria.

My FBO had a gift certificate specifically for a two hour lesson including 1 hour of flight instruction, so I bought it and used it to rent a Citabria and my favorite Russian CFI.

I told him what I wanted, so we flew over to the practice area and I did a stall recovery series keeping the nose straight. Next were Dutch Rolls in a stall. He said if my feet weren't fast enough we could end up upside down. He also said I should do them until I felt uncomfortable. I wasn't sure what that meant.

Anyway, after some coaching, I got my feet moving fast enough for him to tell me that I did them as badly as he did. He also said "Mission accomplished"

I found out what he meant by "uncomfortable". Several times the plane came close to getting away from me and the wings seemed to make an 80-to-85-degree angle with the horizon. We never went inverted on those maneuvers.

We had about 20 minutes left and my logbook says we practiced recovery from unusual attitudes. I guess spins and rolls are unusual attitudes. I did two spins, one left, one right, and two rolls, one left and one right. He coached me all the way through each. They wen so fast they were blurs. I need to do a lot more of them so time will slow down so I can see what's happening.

Unfortunately, the plane was so loud that my ears are still ringing and while I hope it might just be hyperacusis, it might have also added to my tinnitus. More acro is just not worth losing my hearing. (I had maximum hearing protection, too.) The only thing I could have added would have been a flight helmet with ANR.

Still, I get a big grin on my face every time I think about that lesson.
 
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Crashnburn said:
I restarted my lessons two weekends ago. I had a lesson on Saturday, and again on Sunday. The first lesson was the San Francisco Bay tour. We took off from KRHV and flew by Oakland International, and SFO. We flew over San Francisco, around Alcatraz, over the Golden Gate bridge and by Golden Gate park. From there we flew down the coast, by Half Moon Bay, all the way to Santa Cruz. Then we turned east and headed back to KRHV. I flew almost all of the flight.

I had issues with dead batteries in my headsets and had to replace them inflight. Luckily, my Lightspeed ANR's also have passive attenuation.

That flight was taking off, flying straight and level, climbing and descending turns.

The second flight we started over with air work, and more air work the third flight. Some takeaways:
Instead of practicing takeoffs and landings on my flight sim, I should be practicing slow flight.

I need to wake up my feet on turns. My ab inito was in a tail dragger - Citabria and I have an introductory flight paid for in one of those. An hour of ground, and an hour of flight instruction is less than what the club would normally charge. I've stayed away from Citabrias because they're so loud, but with my new Lightspeed Headset, and 29 dB musician's earplugs, I should be fine. I've verified that ear plugs help attenuate noise, even when worn with headsets.

When I land using my flight simulator, I lose track of the runway center line during the flare. When Frank flared the plane on my most recent flight, I had no problem keeping track of the center line, as I'm tall enough to see over the nose. I've already figured out how to compensate for parallax, so I'm good.

The only problem is scheduling flights. Everyone and their kid sisters seem to want to learn to fly. And of course, Aerodynamic Aviation is one of the best FBOs out there.
Click to expand...

do you think that you are getting value from simulated landings?
 
Randomskylane said:
do you think that you are getting value from simulated landings?
Click to expand...
Yes, I do. But now I need to concentrate on slow flight. When I started my ab. inito. training, we had to have the stall horn blaring for it to qualify as slow flight. The planes all wallowed in the air. Today, 5 - 10 knots above stall, it feels like a piece of cake. I just need to keep my controls coordinated.
 
I had three lessons this past weekend - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I mostly worked on steep turns. I did them better at 3K feet than 7K feet. Maybe because I had time to rest when we descended.

I said I thought I'd be well on my way once I have steep turns mastered, and Frank told me I'd need to fly to ACS standards to pass my Stage 1 check ride. That's fine with me, as I'll need to get there sometime.

I was supposed to fly with a different instructor yesterday, but he called in sick. That's OK, I wrote a long explanation of how I fixed a difficult hardware problem in firmware. (Actually, several of them) and still had time to practice steep turns on my simulator. I figured out I need to lead with rudder, then bank, and finally pull back on the yoke when the nose starts to drop. I also need to watch out for overbanking and feed in opposite aileron to keep the plane from over-banking.

Funny thing. When I got my Honeycomb Alpha Yoke, I felt the springs were too strong. But after doing stalls and steep turns, the spring isn't as strong as the yoke is heavy, Still, it beats the CH Products' Yokes all to heck.

I have three more lessons scheduled for the weekend. One each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Last year, I got tired after an hour, but now I'm going 1.5 to 1.9 hours per lesson. I am tired after the lessons, but not tired during them.

I landed the plane on my own both Friday and Saturday. I had to get my instructor's confirmation that I landed on my own because they were so good. Sunday, the gusts were way outside my skill level so Frank landed the plane.

He says that the FBO pretty much requires you to fly to the ACS to pass the stage one check ride. That's OK with me. You have to get there sometime, so sooner is better.

I'm flying often enough to make having my own plane worthwhile. I've pretty much narrowed it down to a Glasair GlaStar - a 3 seat EAB. I've flown in one already and taxied in another one, so I know I fit. It's convertible between tailwheel and trike in a few hours time, once the fittings are installed, and it can be built with folding wings. At this point, I'll buy a flying version.

Non-Aviation
My mother-in-law are trying to get Tammy's grave marker perfect, as it'll be there a long time, and for Tammy while she was alive, if it wasn't perfect, it wasn't good enough. Anyway, the two of us got a great design working with the cemetery's representative's software, but the vendor seems to want to do his own thing. We keep pushing back.
I did order and pay for a temporary marker, so at least she's not lying there in an unmarked grave.
 
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Crashnburn said:
I figured out I need to lead with rudder, then bank, and finally pull back on the yoke when the nose starts to drop. I also need to watch out for overbanking and feed in opposite aileron to keep the plane from over-banking.
Click to expand...

I would suggest using coordinated rudder and aileron when rolling into the steep turn (not leading with rudder) and begin to add a touch of back pressure when passing 30 degrees of bank. I also add a touch of power, maybe 100 rpm, as I increase the back pressure. Some people like to trim a bit nose up, but it can bite when you roll out of the turn. Instead, I focus on keeping the nose at the same distance from the horizon throughout the maneuver.

The aileron is the one control that you have to physically stop when you get the desired bank angle. I don't think of it as opposite aileron, just the process of stopping when you get it where you want it.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
I would suggest using coordinated rudder and aileron when rolling into the steep turn (not leading with rudder) and begin to add a touch of back pressure when passing 30 degrees of bank. I also add a touch of power, maybe 100 rpm, as I increase the back pressure. Some people like to trim a bit nose up, but it can bite when you roll out of the turn. Instead, I focus on keeping the nose at the same distance from the horizon throughout the maneuver.

The aileron is the one control that you have to physically stop when you get the desired bank angle. I don't think of it as opposite aileron, just the process of stopping when you get it where you want it.
Click to expand...
I didn't see this until after my lesson, but I ended up using coordinated rudder and aileron to enter the turn. I also added power to help keep the nose and speed up.
I practiced steep turns 3 evenings this past week and almost nailed them today on my lesson. The only flaw was I rolled out a little early.

Rod Machado says the ACS for the PPL only requires one steep turn, but my instructor has me doing one left, then one right, which Machado says is for the Commercial. I don't know which is right, but I'd rather fly to commercial standards to start.
 
The Faa flying handbook says this
Steep turns consist of single to multiple 360° and 720° turns, in either or both directions
Click to expand...

I’ve never seen an instructor or examiner that didn’t expect both.
 
Salty said:
The Faa flying handbook says this

I’ve never seen an instructor or examiner that didn’t expect both.
Click to expand...


Agreed. Both my Sport and Private checkrides required one left and one right. Same with the half dozen CFIs I’ve used.
 
Steep turns were one of the first things we did after the diversion call on the cross country. My DPE told me later that one of the best assessments of pilot skill was the ability of a pilot to do steep turns well inside the allowable tolerance.

Yes, we did them in both directions.
 
OK, I guess both directions. Fine with me. I didn't question my CFI. Looks like Machado is wrong. Machado also says 50 degrees for commercial, and Frank says 60. The steeper the bank the more challenging.

Sunday, I ended up needing two hands on the yoke to keep the plane relatively close to the same altitude, but yesterday, one hand on the yoke was sufficient.

I was supposed to have a lesson this AM, but canceled due to weather. The substitute CFI said, before the airport got socked in, that we could do some ground reference maneuvers then shoot some landings. Of course, we did neither. Next lesson is Monday.
 
Crashnburn said:
Machado also says 50 degrees for commercial, and Frank says 60. The steeper the bank the more challenging.
Click to expand...
I recall being told that I could NOT EXCEED 60 degrees. If I did so, (I was emphatically told) that was grounds for a checkride failure. My CFI taught me (for the commercial) to be able to do the steep turn at whatever bank angle he told me within 5 degrees but very specifically to consider 60 degrees a hard ceiling and not exceed 60 degrees at any point by even a single degree.

I know there are multiple ways to do the steep turn. The way I was taught was to use trim while entering the turn to be able to easily hold the yoke with minimal pressure for the duration of the steep turn. The downside as mentioned earlier is of course coming out of the turn, the need to push down hard on the yoke while rolling level and then quickly removing the trim to allow neutral yoke pressure.

So when I did the steep turn, I do not recall but either the DPE told me what angle or I had been prepped and ready to ask what angle he wanted. But I was instructed even if the DPE said 60, to target 55 and still consider 60 a hard ceiling not to be exceeded.

I really do not know if that is a hard and fast thing or not. For all I know, my CFI just did not want me to put him into an accidental 80 degree turn while doing routine training. At the end of the day it made sense to me, it worked and the DPE was entirely fine with what I demonstrated to him.

Similarly, when demonstrating slow flight stall, I was prepped to ask when to recover - if the DPE did not specifically specify what he wanted. I was to ask DPE if he wanted me to recover at first indication of stall (ie - buffet), the stall horn or full stall. I practiced all of it with my CFI so it made no difference what the DPE was going to ask for. I was ready and simply asked the DPE so I could demonstrate whatever it was that he decided he wanted to have demonstrated.
 
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I believe the standards changed from 60 degrees to something between 45 and 60 degrees for the commercial. (I haven't had a commercial student in ages)

Remember, anything more than 60 degrees of bank is considered acrobatic or aerobatic flight and requires a parachute unless it is required for a rating such as CFI.
 
Mongoose Aviator said:
I recall being told that I could NOT EXCEED 60 degrees. If I did so, (I was emphatically told) that was grounds for a checkride failure. My CFI taught me (for the commercial) to be able to do the steep turn at whatever bank angle he told me within 5 degrees but very specifically to consider 60 degrees a hard ceiling and not exceed 60 degrees at any point by even a single degree.

I know there are multiple ways to do the steep turn. The way I was taught was to use trim while entering the turn to be able to easily hold the yoke with minimal pressure for the duration of the steep turn. The downside as mentioned earlier is of course coming out of the turn, the need to push down hard on the yoke while rolling level and then quickly removing the trim to allow neutral yoke pressure.

So when I did the steep turn, I do not recall but either the DPE told me what angle or I had been prepped and ready to ask what angle he wanted. But I was instructed even if the DPE said 60, to target 55 and still consider 60 a hard ceiling not to be exceeded.

I really do not know if that is a hard and fast thing or not. For all I know, my CFI just did not want me to put him into an accidental 80 degree turn while doing routine training. At the end of the day it made sense to me, it worked and the DPE was entirely fine with what I demonstrated to him.

Similarly, when demonstrating slow flight stall, I was prepped to ask when to recover - if the DPE did not specifically specify what he wanted. I was to ask DPE if he wanted me to recover at first indication of stall (ie - buffet), the stall horn or full stall. I practiced all of it with my CFI so it made no difference what the DPE was going to ask for. I was ready and simply asked the DPE so I could demonstrate whatever it was that he decided he wanted to have demonstrated.
Click to expand...
Things have changed. Steep turns for PPL are 45 degrees, +/- 5 degrees. Slow flight is stall plus 5 - 10 knots. Every plane is different, so you stall the plane to find out what speed it stalls at; and add 5 - 10 knots. I have to call out the signs of impending stall, nose come up, controls getting sloppy, buffeting, and stall horn. At the break, recover only using rudder pedals.

My initial training had me flying just over stall speed, and boy was the plane hard to herd in a straight line. At the new speeds, I feel like I'm cheating.
 
I had another lesson today. We reviewed air-work, I did an emergency landing, and started ground reference maneuvers. We also did emergency procedures and I flew a VOR needle a little bit. For the first time, Frank was talking about what it would take to pass a stage check ride, and asked me about my medical status after the flight. I need to make sure I only use the rudder to raise a wing when the plane stalls.

He also wanted to know if I had a student pilot license. I dug mine out of my wallet. It's so old its both a license and a medical certificate, but new enough to qualify me for Basic Med. It's also paper. He's going to ask if I need to reapply to get a plastic card.

I need to practice a lot of procedures on my sim, as well as hit the books really hard.

I think there are a few things helping with my progress. First of all, I've had a lot of time in the cockpit so things, like a high angle of attack no longer scare me. Also, a lot of this is review from a lot of aborted training attempts in the past, and the simulator. And Frank is a really good instructor, probably better than my favorite Russian CFI.

My 69th birthday is at the end of June, about 7 weeks away. It would be awesome to solo then, but I'll have to push everything a lot harder than I have been to even come close to it.
Finally, I guess I have the same feelings most people have when they're getting close to soloing - excited and scared at the same time. Frank wants me to get to the point where he's just sitting there and I'm doing everything. By then, I think I'll be ready.
 
Crashnburn said:
I had another lesson today. We reviewed air-work, I did an emergency landing, and started ground reference maneuvers. We also did emergency procedures and I flew a VOR needle a little bit. For the first time, Frank was talking about what it would take to pass a stage check ride, and asked me about my medical status after the flight. I need to make sure I only use the rudder to raise a wing when the plane stalls.

He also wanted to know if I had a student pilot license. I dug mine out of my wallet. It's so old its both a license and a medical certificate, but new enough to qualify me for Basic Med. It's also paper. He's going to ask if I need to reapply to get a plastic card.

I need to practice a lot of procedures on my sim, as well as hit the books really hard.

I think there are a few things helping with my progress. First of all, I've had a lot of time in the cockpit so things, like a high angle of attack no longer scare me. Also, a lot of this is review from a lot of aborted training attempts in the past, and the simulator. And Frank is a really good instructor, probably better than my favorite Russian CFI.

My 69th birthday is at the end of June, about 7 weeks away. It would be awesome to solo then, but I'll have to push everything a lot harder than I have been to even come close to it.
Finally, I guess I have the same feelings most people have when they're getting close to soloing - excited and scared at the same time. Frank wants me to get to the point where he's just sitting there and I'm doing everything. By then, I think I'll be ready.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking it will happen soon, just stay relaxed.
 
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I remember my solo experience. Trepidation was on me for just a second until the wheels left the ground. Then it was no problem as I had flown that pattern enough and everything was familiar. Biggest difference was how spirited the airplane was with that 245 lbs. of instructor on the ground with a radio ... :)
 
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The FAA did a terrible job of writing the ACS, IMHO. For example,...

Crashnburn said:
Steep turns for PPL are 45 degrees, +/- 5 degrees.
Click to expand...

Not exactly. The ACS requires you to roll into a steep turn "with approximately 45 degree bank." Then it requires that you maintain that bank + 5 degrees.

It doesn't say what "approximately" means, but if (for example) you rolled into a 43 degree bank, you'd then be required to stay between 38 and 48 degrees. The ACS should have simply said to establish and maintain a bank between 40 and 50 degrees.

It's somewhat moot as many artificial horizons don't have a 45 degree mark anyway, so how well you're on the numbers is something of a guess. It's the DPE's guess that matters, so a good one will say something if he thinks you're not quite at 45.


Crashnburn said:
Slow flight is stall plus 5 - 10 knots.
Click to expand...

Again, not exactly. You're required to "establish and maintain" an airspeed such that any increase in AOA or load factor or reduction in speed would result in a stall warning. (How you can know you've reached that point without causing a warning is anybody's guess. And the "any increase" language means you're supposed to be right on the hairy edge of that point.) Then you have to maintain that speed +10 / -0 knots, but of course if you're +5 knots faster you're within limits but no longer "maintaining" an airspeed that's on the verge of a stall warning.

Also, you're supposed to be at a speed such that "any increase" in load factor will cause a stall warning, but you're also supposed to turn while maintaining that speed, and any turn will increase the load factor.

Good DPEs overlook the hocum of standards that are technically impossible, but how much slack they cut you is discretionary.
 
Half Fast said:
The FAA did a terrible job of writing the ACS, IMHO. For example,...



Not exactly. The ACS requires you to roll into a steep turn "with approximately 45 degree bank." Then it requires that you maintain that bank + 5 degrees.

It doesn't say what "approximately" means, but if (for example) you rolled into a 43 degree bank, you'd then be required to stay between 38 and 48 degrees. The ACS should have simply said to establish and maintain a bank between 40 and 50 degrees.

It's somewhat moot as many artificial horizons don't have a 45 degree mark anyway, so how well you're on the numbers is something of a guess. It's the DPE's guess that matters, so a good one will say something if he thinks you're not quite at 45.




Again, not exactly. You're required to "establish and maintain" an airspeed such that any increase in AOA or load factor or reduction in speed would result in a stall warning. (How you can know you've reached that point without causing a warning is anybody's guess. And the "any increase" language means you're supposed to be right on the hairy edge of that point.) Then you have to maintain that speed +10 / -0 knots, but of course if you're +5 knots faster you're within limits but no longer "maintaining" an airspeed that's on the verge of a stall warning.

Also, you're supposed to be at a speed such that "any increase" in load factor will cause a stall warning, but you're also supposed to turn while maintaining that speed, and any turn will increase the load factor.

Good DPEs overlook the hocum of standards that are technically impossible, but how much slack they cut you is discretionary.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I'm just repeating what my instructor has told me. I mentioned the stall horn once, and he said the FAA doesn't want you to get used to flying with the stall horn blaring.
The AH's in the Cessnas I'm flying have 45 degree lines under the horizon so you can use those for 45 degree bank. I'm so used to eyeballing 45 degrees I don't need the lines.

Amazing how much good looking outside the cockpit can do. The lesson before, I was watching my DG to see when to rollout of the turn. Yesterday, I hardly looked at it, just found my landmark and rolled out, perfectly for all six steep turns I did. I found out the hard way things work better if you don't let the plane get anywhere close to the maximum allowable limit.
 
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Once again I slipped the surly bonds of Earth and returned to tell the tale. I tried to do too many errands before leaving for the airport, so when I left I had 45 minutes to make a nominally 30 minute drive, but I'd forgotten about the beginning of early Rush Hour traffic. I thought I'd be late, but got there right at the hour. The plane I'd scheduled was done for the 100 hour inspection so I ended up in a plane where the seat won't go all the way back and the pilot's door is hard to latch.

It needed gas, but it wasn't parked far from the pumps. The gas strainer was missing so Frank had to chase one down. I did the preflight and noticed we had two pre-flight and inflight emergency checklists, but no in-flight checklist. Frank went back to the FBO to get one, and came back empty handed. He told me he wanted to see how well I remembered the various flight phases. I did it again, I tried to start the engine with the master off. I did the same thing on Monday and had a checklist then. At least this time I immediately realized what the problem was.

After we did the runup and were ready to taxi to the hold short line, a guy in a Citabria cut us off. He claimed he had called for takeoff clearance first, but neither us heard him.

I didn't think about how all this friction might affect my attitude until well after I got home. I guess after the stress of Tammy's illness, all this was pretty much small potatoes.

I've been through the checklist several times in the last couple of months, so I remembered most of the items, including the essentials of the pre-flight briefing. About 1/2 way through the lesson Frank said I fly better w/o a checklist, as my head isn't in the cockpit so much.

It took me a while to get the plane trimmed for rectangular course work, and when I put some wind correction angle in on crosswind and base, my track looked better. I did pretty well on turns around a point, at least according to the track on Frank's phone. I wasn't real impressed. However, it wasn't bad for doing them for the first time since November.

We had a 5 knot crosswind component when we landed. I started with a crab into the wind, then went to using crosswind correction. I tried to, and Frank stopped me from, flaring a little early. Other than that, the landing was all mine. It was the smoothest one I've had this year. The mains touched first, and I held the nose off the runway until it came down on its own. As it was a crosswind landing, I was expecting the upwind tire to touch first, but as far as I could tell they touched simultaneously. The biggest improvement for me was I touched down straddling the center line, with the nose pointing straight ahead and it didn't veer to either side. I'm sure all the crosswind landings I shot on my simulator have helped, and I got more comfortable making big control movements at low speeds. Plus, instead of lining up the center line with the middle of the left half of the IP, I'm trying to line it up with my right leg.

After we taxied back and shut down, Frank pulled the checklist out of his pocket, threw it at me, and said I didn't really need it. And that I need to be able to fly the plane in case it somehow gets blown out of the plane.

I showed him a picture of a GlaStar I want to buy after I solo, and he offered to teach me in it. He's going to check if his insurance covers it. He also offered to ferry it from VA to CA. I told him if he ferried it, I would be there, too, and I could literally get some real cross-country time.

Finally, I'm not nearly as exhausted after a flight now, as I was when Tammy was sick. I guess stress was taking more out of me than I realized.

I fly again tomorrow afternoon. Guess I'm the poster child for how fast you can progress if you fly often.

Non-Aviation.
I finally signed off on Tammy's grave marker. It'll take 8 - 12 months to get it.
 
Five knot crosswind is negligible, so that's why you didn't touch down on the upwind tire first.

When you take your checkride, the examiner is required to evaluate your use of a written checklist, so be sure you have one and refer to it during the flight.
 
Who will look at the plane in Virginia for you? Buying a plane and immediately flying it 2500 miles home will certainly give you many stories to tell!

I’ve seen posts recommending flying it locally for a few days before the big cross country.

Bell206 always recommends that your AP inspects the plane because that’s who needs to sign off in the future. You should search for those because they are much more in depth than my one line.

Anyway, good luck
 
Randomskylane said:
Who will look at the plane in Virginia for you? Buying a plane and immediately flying it 2500 miles home will certainly give you many stories to tell!

I’ve seen posts recommending flying it locally for a few days before the big cross country.

Bell206 always recommends that your AP inspects the plane because that’s who needs to sign off in the future. You should search for those because they are much more in depth than my one line.

Anyway, good luck
Click to expand...
Well, it was a nice dream, but someone else got the plane. When I'm ready, the right plane will find me. Sort of like how Tammy and I met. Well, God thought we were ready, neither of us did until we met.

I just finished my third lesson since my last post. I'm starting to get the idea that flying is much more than safely manipulating the controls.
The previous two lessons I was too high for all of my landing attempts, so my CFI landed the plane. This lesson, on the ATC cleared straight in approach, I was around 6K with about 6 miles to go. No problem. Go to idle, pitch for 90" knots, and go to a forward slip. I got it down to Traffic Pattern Altitude in plenty of time.

The wind was 6 knots, at 80 degrees, so definitely a cross wind landing. I crabbed into the wind to make sure I would have the side slip set up right, and flew it down to the runway.
Instead of being too high, I started my round out a little low and dropped it in hard enough to bounce a bit. The good news is that I kept it on the centerline.

A lot of air work today. San Martin (E16) was clouded over. We did VFR on top to Hollister (KVCH). I played with the GNS 430/530 some and did a VOR intercept. A lot of stall work, both power on and power off. You could call them departure and arrival stalls. The first were straight ahead, then I had about 10" of bank when going for a stall. I'm getting better at not using aileron and only rudder to raise the wing when there's a stall break.

I need a lot more practice with the GNS. I have a add-on for my simulator, but need factory support to help use it. It would come up in Prepar3D V4, but not in V5.

I also need to practice my flows, and non-towered communications.

My first CFI, Sergey, seems to be wondering why I haven't soloed yet. I guess in the old days, where you didn't have to learn everything to ACS I would have, but I need to build a solid foundation of air work, ground reference maneuvers, and pattern work before I'm ready for the Stage 1 Check ride.

All that being said, my current CFI, Frank, says they'll be testing me on aviation knowledge soon. (That's also part of the stage check.)
 
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