Not bad. You're doing fine.
I'll put on my "heck, I've got to teach this stuff anyway for my CFI oral hat" for a moment here and offer some pointers, but in no way was anything you did bad. Communications was effective and everyone understood everyone else, that's key above all. Even phraseology, if needed -- just say what you'd say in a conversation if the controller was sitting right there next to you. Good.
The post-flight critique:
- When checking in, try to have the ATIS copied ahead of time and get into the habit of offering up that you have it. This is, of course, recommended in the AIM. With a flight that short, you'd probably plan to copy it nearly as soon as you exited the departure airport's airspace. Tips for that which will help as you head on toward higher ratings, might as well pre-select the landing airport ATIS in the number two comm (if working with two) as the flip flop right after the departure airport AWOS or whatever you're getting there. (Typically I save Comm one for talking on, CTAF with the next approach or whatever set in the flip flop before even leaving the ground at the departure airport -- the more stuff you can pre-select in a planned pattern, the less cranking of dials and looking inside later on).
- Responses can and will be a little faster as you get better at it, but in that particular airspace and pace, it worked out fine. More on that later.
- Foreflight tip: Always stick the landing airport in the active waypoint and turn on the bottom data bar. There's two very useful things you can customize into that bar as two of the four items that I use on almost every flight:
1. Distance Next - This is awesome for that initial call up as long as your "next" is the airport. This one would have helped you in the confusion about the distance to the airport and the outer ring.
2. Descent to Dest - This one isn't directly related to your flight but I like to point it out as a relatively new option in the info bar in Foreflight. Many people don't know they added it. Another very useful gadget and not turned on by default. Pick something in the bar that you can dump, like GPS Altitude (who cares, VFR?) and replace it. This little bugger can be a good memory jogger if you're feeling overloaded or don't do time-to-descend math well in your head. It'll give you a big hint if this arrival is going to have to be a "slam dunk" to get down from here, and as you do more flying with passengers, they really really like it better if you keep the descent rate something reasonable. Shoot for 500 fpm or less in a unpressurized airplane. If that box says it'll take 1000 fpm, your arrival planning has gone wrong. Think about your ears and your passenger's ears popping on the way in, and maybe ask for a 360 and a descent just to mellow it out a bit.
Pro tip: Remember if it says 500 fpm right now, if you only push the nose down and speed up, the faster geoundspeed will mean the rate of descent will climb to hit the same point on the ground. You'll either have to slow down or you'll have to start down no later than when that box says 400 fpm in most light aircraft, depending on how "slick" they are.
- There's a safety thing that happened, did you catch it? When the controller cleared you for the touch and go on Runway 31, you responded with "Cleared touch and go, Cherokee 80A." With even the big kids in airliners landing on the wrong runway sometimes, what is missing? Ah-ha! We need to always include the runway during readback of clearances! And honestly I think the controller cut you a little break there and even hung himself out a little bit, because he's also required to *hear* you accept that clearance with a runway number. One way to help remember these things is to put yourself in the controller's shoes... what does (s)he need to hear. I'm surprised he didn't say, "Cherokee 80A, confirm Runway 31, cleared touch and go..." with the ambiguous reply.
- I would suggest, even though you're technically legal below 3000' AGL to choose whatever altitude that you like, that your choice of 3000' MSL is a little busted in that it's not a VFR cruising altitude. I only peeked quickly at your local chart, but 3500' would be better. 1500' did look a little low for cruising there, and 2500' while legal, would have probably been best used on the way in westbound, and 3500' eastbound but you'd be legal at 2500' going back home. Legal and smart aren't always the same, so I'll leave the cruising altitude comment as one for you to ponder in your free time. There's no "wrong" answer VFR but there are a lot of "better" answers than an IFR altitude.
- Don't know what instrumentation your panel has, but I like to see folks make the panel primary when possible and the iPad secondary. Your airport doesn't appear to have a VOR/DME centered on the field and I don't know if you have a GPS on board, but if you can get that distance to airport info from certified avionics on the panel your eyeballs and attention are a lot easier to pop back to looking outside VFR if you don't have to look down at your lap and app. But you did a good job diverting your attention between outside and inside and your eyeballs were mostly outside overall, so it's another "technique" thing. Good stuff.
Super job on a couple of things:
- I loved that you wrote down nearly every item the controller assigned. As you get better you can fall into the trap of not writing frequencies, altitudes, and headings -- although sometimes when busy single-pilot, you may have tools you can use like flip-flop radios, bugs on the altimeter, and/or a bug on the DG you can set immediately to whatever they said. It's a question of technique but nobody will ever fault you writing stuff down and it's a very good habit. Good job!
- I also appreciate that you're not rushing to respond on the radio. Some people really go into rapid fire I-have-to-answer-right-this-second mode and haven't thought about exactly what they are going to say before the Mash-To-Mumble button (compared to a Push-To-Talk button) is depressed. Granted at some places you'll want to go a little faster but honestly, I'd rather see a nice consistent pace where your mouth isn't going with brain a mile behind it. Excellent job. What you want to say will come more naturally and faster with practice. And this is the way to start!
- Great video and audio work as well as use of visuals to explain what was going on. You working on your CFI next?
(Not to mention writing and editing! I know how much work that is! Nicely done!)
Critique and lesson over! When do you want to meet up to fly in some really insanely busy airspace?
You're ready for that next challenge maybe with an experienced pilot or CFI hanging out in the right seat enjoying the view and able to help out if things went too fast. A good plan for your next challenge is a flight plan that'll take you through or near a Bravo with VFR advisories. Some things you'll notice are a LOT more calls for other aircraft and you'll start working on that nearly automatic brain filter that learns to (at first) only hear calls for your tail number.
A little more practice after that and you'll learn to hear "stuff near your location" for situational awareness while still filtering out the call to the guy descending out of the flight levels to a waypoint you know where it is, and it's miles and miles away.
You'll know you're getting really good at it when you can be carrying on a conversation with someone on board in cruise and your brain registers a call for someone else and you stop and say, "they're going to descend him right in front of us right to left", and you point and there goes the traffic. (Maybe even beating the controller to their next call, "Cherokee 80A, traffic 2 o'clock descending out of 5000, will cross in front of you."
"Traffic in sight, Cherokee 80A..." oh it feels sooooo good. Mastery of the element and working from "pilot" to "aviator".
Nice job, airman!
