Happy New Year!

My wings are currently clipped.

Well, today marks the start of a new year. Since my last update, I've managed to accumulate exactly 1.6 more hours aloft by taking a friend with me on a 'discovery' flight for her birthday. With those 1.6 hours, I now have a total of around 15 hours logged, or theoretically 37% of the way to my license. I also spent some time in the plush seats as I flew commercial to go see my girlfriend at the end of July/beginning of August. I look forward to the day when I can bypass the gropefest completely and simply fly myself there.

To help bring that to pass, I intend to start flying again at some point this year. The main reason I stopped flying was a mismanagement of money on my part. Now that I've gotten that identified and somewhat straightened out, I can hopefully be able to return to the skies at a consistent pace and actually finish my training. My written exam is already taken and waiting in my room, but it expires this month. I'll have to retake it and get a physical to get everything going smoothly again.

I hope my skills are not too rusty so I don't have to spend much time money reviewing stuff I already know. Of course, since I likely will not be taking the lessons through Mt. Sac's College Aviation anymore, I expect any new flight instructor to want to spend a couple flights just seeing where my skill level is. Come to think of it, my CFI from Mt. Sac got hired to a regional anyway, so I'd still have to get a new instructor even if I was returning there. But after all those formalities, I hope it doesn't take much more than 3-4 more months total to finish up the certificate.

As usual, I'll be posting updates on the progress. Flying has always been a dream of mine ever since my parents used to take me to the hill south of LAX to watch plane traffic. I'd like to land at LAX for myself one day, so getting the necessary training done is a priority on my to-do list now. Happy new year and safe flying!

Photo by San Diego Air & Space Museum.

more time aloft

went flying again yesterday. steve decided maybe we should try some power-on stalls to get me used to stalling and recovering without having to worry about adding power, turning off carb heat, and decreasing flaps. so recovery from power-ons is a bit easier than power-offs in that regard. however, they are a bit scary. the real point of power-on stalls is to be able to identify and avoid them when they occur unexpectedly--which would usually be on takeoff. so nose is pitched quite high and full power is on. almost feels like a fighter (: after this profile is established, just hold it and wait for plane to slow down and stall. after stall, just push forward and recover. much easier in that regard than the power-offs.
however, we ended up unintentionally doing a couple half spins. a spin comes about from an uncoordinated stall, and is aggravated by using ailerons. directional control in a stall is accomplished using rudder. so naturally, i of course am used to keeping wings level with ailerons, would throw the ailerons over in an attempt to keep wings level. also, wasn't using enough rudder for awhile on entry either. so yea, we spun a couple times. not full spins, but definitely entered them. good thing we were flying around at 4500, so we were about 3500 agl.
it also didn't help yesterday that winds were kinda brisk, kept tossing the plane around at altitude. but they really became evident on turning from downwind to base once the plane was broadside. definitely required a lot more pulling back than normal. but base to final was not bad at all, lining up with the runway pretty accurately. the wind was again slightly broadside, tossing us around on the way down. so steve definitely talked me through the landing again, but it was all flown by me.
was supposed to have another flight today, but it got moved to tomorrow. i'm guessing a couple more power-ons, then power-offs. after that, i'm guessing ground reference maneuvers are the next order of business, but i can't say for sure. we'll see. but what i do know is that my radio is on point. and apparently atc can understand what i'm mumbling. haven't gotten a "say again, please" yet. anyway, bis morgen. auf wiedersehen!

hours are accumulating

sorry i didn't update sooner...had two more flights last week: thursday and friday mornings. thursday, we did some more work on steep turns. it was nice, i showed a definite improvement from tuesday's introduction to the maneuver. i had much better control of the roll in and out, of holding altitude, and of holding bank the entire way around the 360. it also meant i had much improved form in my regular four fundamentals. much better control at holding altitude and speed then making changes to either one without changing the other. also did my first landing. tower cleared us for landing 24r and so i was flying as we entered the pattern downwind, turned base, then final like we had in the past. but then instead of taking the controls like he'd done the previous times, he just kept talking me through it and then i realized we'd landed. the taxi back and tie down was uneventful.
friday's flight was all about slow flight. friday was also quite a beautiful day out, so to say we were joined by others in the sky is not an understatement. we actually got responses when talking on the radio out in the practice area. after doing another steep turn or two, we set out about slow flight. steve demonstrated the technique: pull back, decrease power, add flaps once in the arc. then it was my turn. as friday was quite a bit of a bumpy day, there wasn't the level of cooperation from the plane that might have been optimal. the goal was to maintain altitude while flying along at barely above stall speed. but this was frequently interrupted because we would hit an updraft or downdraft and 4gm just wouldn't climb. anyway, after tooling around about to stall all day long, we headed back. tower gave us 24l this time, and i flew the entire approach to landing under guidance again myself. however, did have a minor snafu at maybe 15 agl. asi was showing a speed that was very close to stall and it seemed (to me, anyway) like we were still a bit high to flare. so, exactly how does one counter a stall? glad you asked! stalls are best avoided by lowering the nose and/or adding power. of course, it looked perfectly fine to steve. he continued to round out to the flare, while i attempted to lower the nose then flare. so we ended up with a combination of both. we definitely got our cardio for the day with that little stunt. i dare say i was distracted by the p-51 mustang and b-24 liberator that were preparing to take off (p-51 was actually holding short pending our landing).
anyway, that's all i have. next flight is supposed to be tuesday morning. menu is calling for some more steep flight then probably power off stalls. (look ma, no lift!) i'll be back with a report.

hours are accumulating

sorry i didn't update sooner...had two more flights last week: thursday and friday mornings. thursday, we did some more work on steep turns. it was nice, i showed a definite improvement from tuesday's introduction to the maneuver. i had much better control of the roll in and out, of holding altitude, and of holding bank the entire way around the 360. it also meant i had much improved form in my regular four fundamentals. much better control at holding altitude and speed then making changes to either one without changing the other. also did my first landing. tower cleared us for landing 24r and so i was flying as we entered the pattern downwind, turned base, then final like we had in the past. but then instead of taking the controls like he'd done the previous times, he just kept talking me through it and then i realized we'd landed. the taxi back and tie down was uneventful.
friday's flight was all about slow flight. friday was also quite a beautiful day out, so to say we were joined by others in the sky is not an understatement. we actually got responses when talking on the radio out in the practice area. after doing another steep turn or two, we set out about slow flight. steve demonstrated the technique: pull back, decrease power, add flaps once in the arc. then it was my turn. as friday was quite a bit of a bumpy day, there wasn't the level of cooperation from the plane that might have been optimal. the goal was to maintain altitude while flying along at barely above stall speed. but this was frequently interrupted because we would hit an updraft or downdraft and 4gm just wouldn't climb.
anyway, after tooling around about to stall all day long, we headed back. tower gave us 24l this time, and i flew the entire approach to landing under guidance again myself. however, did have a minor snafu at maybe 15 agl. asi was showing a speed that was very close to stall and it seemed (to me, anyway) like we were still a bit high to flare. so, exactly how does one counter a stall? glad you asked! stalls are best avoided by lowering the nose and/or adding power. of course, it looked perfectly fine to steve. he continued to round out to the flare, while i attempted to lower the nose then flare. so we ended up with a combination of both. we definitely got our cardio for the day with that little stunt. i blame it all on the p-51 mustang that was holding short waiting for us to land.

flyin' again

had another flight yesterday (well i guess it's now technically thursday, so tuesday)! we apparently spent the longest time aloft yet. it almost got cancelled on account of weather, but by time we finished pre-flighting and got around to taking off, it had cleared up enough to allow us vfr conditions for our area of flying. lesson of the day was steep turns, but on account of it having been a good bit of time since i last flew, we spent a few more minutes on four fundamentals as well. it was a little challenging because although the clouds had cleared in our area, they were not gone completely. consequently, the clouds and the horizon were not very far apart and made establishing straight & level a little more challenging than last time. this was not at all helped by the choppy air that required constant inputs to return the plane to the desired altitude.
once we got that all figured out, we proceeded to the steep turns. main difference between regular and steep turns (at least imo) was how to increase alpha without increasing bank angle. i actually started out doing perfect steeps: holding altitude, holding bank angle. not sure what happened, but that regressed as the lesson progressed. on landing, he had me fly all the way until we were crossing the fence, when he took over for the actual landing part. i feel like i will probably be getting an opportunity to land the plane myself within the next week or so. i'm not sure whether to be excited about that or scared. but in either case, i'll have a clearer picture after the lesson tomorrow. got a meeting scheduled for 0900. more steep turns are on the menu, then we'll see what else he has for me. until then, au revoir!

time: 1.1 hrs
tt: 3.5 hrs
tit: 3.5 hrs

third time's the charm

sorry i didn't update sooner. i need to get better at this. anyway, i had my third flight friday. another fun time flying around. took off from 24r again, then headed over to the santa fe practice area. worked on getting my straight and level flight perfected, but it was liberally interspersed with climbs, descents, and turns. i'm getting the hang of the whole thing now. managing the power for an ascent or descent out of a cruise. also tried a few climbing/descending turns with varying degrees of success. i'm definitely not going to be winning awards for those yet, but they're coming together reasonably well. my cfi also added the element making some of those turns compass turns and noting the corresponding accelerations depending on which direction we turned.
after i'd say a good 45 mins of sky play, went back down. i flew the entire approach until we were very far downwind on final, at which point he took controls and we glided with the stall horn for probably a good 500'. (yes, downwind on final. as it turned out, the variable winds suddenly found direction suspiciously close to 080.) then more time with taxi. doing much better following centerline (taxiway is somewhat sloped and the plane has weak right rudder), and didn't hit the wing on any taxiing crj-700s.
next flight is planned for wednesday. since we didn't do steep turns friday, wednesday will probably be the day. i have my reading already done too. he didn't mention anything else in the plans, but i'm guessing a couple more shots at compass turns as well as climbing/descending (turns). and maybe we'll get into the lower end of the planes operating regime aka slow flight.

second flight

had my second flying lesson this afternoon. this time, a significantly higher amount of time was spent flying as compared to last time. my preflighting must be getting better. after performing the preflight, we went ahead and taxied again. i'm getting better at driving airplanes. only tried to turn it with the yoke once and stayed more on center this time. the run-up was standard as well. also, my radio comm nervousness from last time was greatly diminished this time around. cfi didn't have to interject this time. we received our clearance for departure and took off from 26r.
last time, we only had enough time to do a single lap around the pattern. this time, after taking off, we spent a good 20+ mins going over the four fundamentals of flight and their relation to each other. also spent time establishing the sight picture which is of course very crucial to the vfr/beginning pilot. a couple ascents and them some turns in both directions. i was trying to keep my focus outside and not on the instruments, but i apparently keep overbanking the normal turns, so he mentioned going straight for steep turns next time. of course, definitely doesn't mean i'll just bypass normal turns altogether.
anyway, that's the update for today. maybe one of these days i'll drag along the camera. but quite honestly, i really lack the time to sit around snapping pictures at this phase in the training.

time: 0.8 hrs
total time: 1.4 hrs
tit: 1.4 hrs