Looking for other PA-28 pilots to follow on social media

Alpha Kilo Warrior said:
I hope you all enjoyed the eclipse this past Monday! Below is an unlisted video from this past Sunday. I have been trying to schedule this flight for a few weeks now. The airport is KDXR in Danbury, CT. I went through my logbook and have an approach here when I was a student pilot from 2003. I was with a CFI at the time, and I vaguely remember this approach into Runway 35. 21 years later I attempted it again solo and had too much energy. Looking back from Sunday, I remember focusing too much on the runway and not monitoring my airspeed. There were no approach aids either. I made the mistake of not adding full flaps (2 of 3 were configured). I also was getting site tracked by the terrain and did not feel comfortable. I thought about going around before the numbers. I was strapped for time as I only had the plane for 2 hours and trying again would have put me delayed on the return. It was a sloppy approach and go around. Yesterday, I texted my CFI and have requested additional short-field training at an actual airport with a short field. Pretending I'm doing short field landings on a larger airport is way different. Only flying to class D airports with large Runways for the past 2 months are nice and forgiving and have made my skills lax. I'm open to constructive criticism. :idea:

I'm trying again this Sunday at KDXR, the winds look to be out of the west so they may be using Runway 26. Here is a link to the AFD: https://aeronav.faa.gov/afd/21mar2024/ne_34_21MAR2024.pdf

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I'm surprised you couldn't stick that landing, flaps or not. You might have carried a tad much airspeed but that was a long field.
 
In case useful, tips for DXR:
- consider noise abatement (for example on right downwind 35, avoid flying over Lake Waubeeka/community) ... and it appears you did avoid it.
- On final 35, it can be disconcerting descending through the valley as the terrain rises abv your altitude, on both sides.
(and pucker factor departing 17, more so) :)
- when Summer arrives, in warm/hot weather (sunny day), the pond on short final 35; expect momentary impact on descent path, right before runway threshold
- if/when considering a first night-flight into DXR, bring instructor (terrain, towers- often notam'd with lights out of service, etc.)

Thanks for making 'unlisted' video available for input/comment on POA.
Appears could have made the landing safely, but ... if you had any doubt about landing/rollout, appropriate decision to go around.
Nice demonstration for your learning experience!
 
MikeNY said:
In case useful, tips for DXR:
- consider noise abatement (for example on right downwind 35, avoid flying over Lake Waubeeka/community) ... and it appears you did avoid it.
- On final 35, it can be disconcerting descending through the valley as the terrain rises abv your altitude, on both sides.
(and pucker factor departing 17, more so) :)
- when Summer arrives, in warm/hot weather (sunny day), the pond on short final 35; expect momentary impact on descent path, right before runway threshold
- if/when considering a first night-flight into DXR, bring instructor (terrain, towers- often notam'd with lights out of service, etc.)

Thanks for making 'unlisted' video available for input/comment on POA.
Appears could have made the landing safely, but ... if you had any doubt about landing/rollout, appropriate decision to go around.
Nice demonstration for your learning experience!
Click to expand...
Thanks for the tips Mike, I watched my approach around 8 times so far, and I think 5 of the 8 times I say to myself "I could have made it." But there was doubt and I would rather be safe than sorry.
 
Not a CFI, and maybe I'll get heat for this...but if you're posting things on the Internet you're already going to get worse advice than I could possibly give.

If you want to learn how to do short field, my recommendation is to first learn how to do power off 180's with your instructor. Don't worry about how close you get to your aiming point. It's all about airspeed management and approach with idle power. Not close to idle, all the way to the stop. In my opinion, being able to consistently land the aircraft from downwind at idle gives you the skill and confidence to make better landings.

Typical PAPI is 3 degrees. A typical PA-28 at best glide, clean, is something like 9 or 10 to 1 glide, or about 6 degrees, if my memory and math are right. At idle power at 1.3Vs0 and just 25 degrees flaps, you're going to be even steeper than that. That's OK. The plane is absolutely happy doing that, and you should be, too.

My advice for the power off 180's is plan on landing about 1/3 down the runway, immediately pitch for best glide, and stay at that speed until you're on final and have the runway made. It will come up fast if you're not used to it. Then slow the plane down and add flaps to steepen your approach as required. Once you do a few, you'll realize that even without power, you have a great ability to control your approach, and that slower is steeper. That may be counter-intuitive at first.

The controversial statement is that approach aids aren't, to either a beginning pilot or to a PA-28 in VFR. If you're coming in at the correct speed and power setting, they're always going to say too high, IMO. If you fly the lights down, in a PA-28, you're too flat, and have too much power. I come in just a tiny bit above idle, at a little less than Vx on final. Pull the power back, and crossing the threshold I'm at the idle stop. Some people will say you can't smoothly land a hershey bar PA-28 at idle power, and they're incorrect. BUT...you probably can't do it by flying a 737 approach at 1.5 Vs0 and chopping the power over the numbers, either.

Or to flip it around, if you're floating a PA-28 halfway down the runway, you're too fast and probably too flat. (Reading the above, it's long winded, sorry, and yeah, I do fly a Cherokee a bit like a Cub. I'm good with that.)
 
Albany Tom said:
If you want to learn how to do short field, my recommendation is to first learn how to do power off 180's with your instructor.
Click to expand...
I had my CFI review my landing attempt video and asked him for some help with short field yesterday (at a real short field). We are headed to 42B this Sunday. I will bring this up to him, I think this is a great idea Albany Tom. Thanks for the internet advice. Note: I am old enough to remember getting things in the regular mail where you use a telephone to dial the internet and hear "You've Got Mail"!

I appreciate the help.

https://www.facebook.com/Goodspeed42B/
 
We took advantage of the calm early morning conditions in CT to fly over to 42B, Goodspeed, in East Haddam, CT. It was a 10-minute flight from my Homebase of KHFD. Although I currently hold a PPL and have 150 hours, I asked my CFI instructor to refresh my short field landing techniques. The airplane is a PA-28-161. It has been over 14 years since I landed at this airport. The vide is 18 minutes long and is in real time once we arrived at 42B. I perform 3 full stop landings and takeoffs here. Overall, I was happy with my landings. I need to keep working on these techniques and not forget them. I think it's a good idea for me to go to an uncontrolled short field airport once a month as opposed to once a year.

 
I took the warrior up this past Friday morning to do some sight seeing about 3.5 miles Southeast of Hartford-Brainard to a town called Glastonbury, CT. It was in the class Delta, so I had permission to orbit at 1,500'. Its not the "most exciting" video but it was a calm relaxing flight. I invite you to spend a few minutes of your time checking it out. Trying out a new editing feature - I switch between the camera views, each time I spoke on Mic I cut to the internal camera view. Otherwise, the wing camera is shown.

:) This video has chapters to jump to key moments.

Have a great day!
 
The following two videos go with the one above this post.

Landing practice on Runway 2 at KHFD right hand traffic in Class D airspace. Wind calm with (3) three aircraft in the pattern.
Landing 2 of 3

Landing 3 of 3
In this #short I played with some post editing skills for added humor toward the end of the video. Have a great weekend.
 
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