flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
Finally!
I've been trying to figure out the best way for me to do the commercial for a long time. My club doesn't have a retractable-gear airplane, and ever since I've been in the club I haven't really been too keen on renting. I'd tossed around the idea of joining a second club that's very similar to mine but has a complex airplane (Piper Arrow II) as their traveling bird rather than the high-performance one that we have. I'd also thought about doing the commercial multi first to get the retract part taken care of so that I could do the commercial single in a fixed-gear club plane. Finally, I'd thought about doing the ride in two airplanes - Landings in the rental Arrow and airwork in a club Archer. I already have more complex time than I need for the rating, so that would have kept rental to a minimum.
I finally gave up on trying to find the "best" way to do it, and decided to bite the bullet and just rent the Arrow IV at Wisconsin Aviation and get it done! I also switched CFI's - I'm trying to use a different instructor for each rating so that I can learn as many good tricks as possible, rather than use one instructor and be a clone of them. Gustav was at Wisconsin Aviation for several years and went on to an airline job, but decided he would rather instruct so he's now back as the chief pilot for the 141 program. His schedule is also a bit more open than some of the other instructors.
After about 45 minutes of ground talking about requirements, expectations, and some of the airwork we went out and preflighted. Aside from the T-tail, this Arrow is very much like N3327M, the old Arrow III which I have about 30 hours in. Same avionics and everything!
We took off and headed up to the northwest practice area. It was a very bumpy day, but that can be a good thing when you're practicing. After a pair of clearing turns, I did 50-degree steep turns in each direction. I've always liked steep turns and they "clicked" for me quite a long time ago, so despite the higher bank angle I was well within PTS standards on the first try.
Next, we did some slow flight and played around with various configurations and set off the automatic gear extension a couple of times so I could see how that worked. (27M, like most Arrows, has had that system removed. 13W has not.)
Next came chandelles. Gustav demonstrated one first, then I did one. Disable the auto-extend, set climb power, roll in 30 degrees of bank, pitch up slowly to reach 15 degrees pitch up at 90 degrees through the turn, then hold 15 degrees pitch up and slowly roll out through the last 90 degrees to level it out at the 180-degree mark. I ended up finishing the rollout about 10 degrees too early, but hey, it was my first try.
The first half of the chandelle seemed fairly easy, but the second half has me a bit confused. The rollout was a bit different than I'd expected - I was thinking that as airspeed reduced, the turn rate would remain higher with less bank which is somewhat true, but the last few degrees are, uh, interesting. I want to roll out fairy evenly, right? But at the end of the turn, that makes the turn rate very slow. That's kind of why I ended up level about 10 degrees too early. Any suggestions? How should the rollout work?
Finally, it was back to the airport for a few trips around the pattern. We kind of made a cloverleaf - Tower had us come straight in to 14, then left traffic to 21, and finally right traffic to 18. The first one wasn't great - The controls are very sticky on this plane, and I actually had to reach up with my right arm momentarily to help the flare. Frankly, none of the landings were as good as I'd like. The stiffness in the roll axis can be attributed to the aileron gap seals (one of our club planes has those too, and it's the same way) but I don't know of any good reason why the controls were sticky in pitch. They even made noise, and I think they're binding a bit where the column goes into the panel. Hopefully they can do something about that.
Overall, I really enjoyed the flight. I was glad to finally get started, and Gustav seems to be an excellent instructor.
I've been trying to figure out the best way for me to do the commercial for a long time. My club doesn't have a retractable-gear airplane, and ever since I've been in the club I haven't really been too keen on renting. I'd tossed around the idea of joining a second club that's very similar to mine but has a complex airplane (Piper Arrow II) as their traveling bird rather than the high-performance one that we have. I'd also thought about doing the commercial multi first to get the retract part taken care of so that I could do the commercial single in a fixed-gear club plane. Finally, I'd thought about doing the ride in two airplanes - Landings in the rental Arrow and airwork in a club Archer. I already have more complex time than I need for the rating, so that would have kept rental to a minimum.
I finally gave up on trying to find the "best" way to do it, and decided to bite the bullet and just rent the Arrow IV at Wisconsin Aviation and get it done! I also switched CFI's - I'm trying to use a different instructor for each rating so that I can learn as many good tricks as possible, rather than use one instructor and be a clone of them. Gustav was at Wisconsin Aviation for several years and went on to an airline job, but decided he would rather instruct so he's now back as the chief pilot for the 141 program. His schedule is also a bit more open than some of the other instructors.
After about 45 minutes of ground talking about requirements, expectations, and some of the airwork we went out and preflighted. Aside from the T-tail, this Arrow is very much like N3327M, the old Arrow III which I have about 30 hours in. Same avionics and everything!
We took off and headed up to the northwest practice area. It was a very bumpy day, but that can be a good thing when you're practicing. After a pair of clearing turns, I did 50-degree steep turns in each direction. I've always liked steep turns and they "clicked" for me quite a long time ago, so despite the higher bank angle I was well within PTS standards on the first try.
Next, we did some slow flight and played around with various configurations and set off the automatic gear extension a couple of times so I could see how that worked. (27M, like most Arrows, has had that system removed. 13W has not.)
Next came chandelles. Gustav demonstrated one first, then I did one. Disable the auto-extend, set climb power, roll in 30 degrees of bank, pitch up slowly to reach 15 degrees pitch up at 90 degrees through the turn, then hold 15 degrees pitch up and slowly roll out through the last 90 degrees to level it out at the 180-degree mark. I ended up finishing the rollout about 10 degrees too early, but hey, it was my first try.
The first half of the chandelle seemed fairly easy, but the second half has me a bit confused. The rollout was a bit different than I'd expected - I was thinking that as airspeed reduced, the turn rate would remain higher with less bank which is somewhat true, but the last few degrees are, uh, interesting. I want to roll out fairy evenly, right? But at the end of the turn, that makes the turn rate very slow. That's kind of why I ended up level about 10 degrees too early. Any suggestions? How should the rollout work?
Finally, it was back to the airport for a few trips around the pattern. We kind of made a cloverleaf - Tower had us come straight in to 14, then left traffic to 21, and finally right traffic to 18. The first one wasn't great - The controls are very sticky on this plane, and I actually had to reach up with my right arm momentarily to help the flare. Frankly, none of the landings were as good as I'd like. The stiffness in the roll axis can be attributed to the aileron gap seals (one of our club planes has those too, and it's the same way) but I don't know of any good reason why the controls were sticky in pitch. They even made noise, and I think they're binding a bit where the column goes into the panel. Hopefully they can do something about that.
Overall, I really enjoyed the flight. I was glad to finally get started, and Gustav seems to be an excellent instructor.
