PPL Lesson 27: Misadventures in Little Planes

At the end of April my instructor and I took an XC flight to Columbia Airport in the Sierra foothills to get some mountain experience.  At a measly 2120' above sea level, it is stretching the term 'mountain', but for our little 152, fully loaded with two adults and fuel, it turned out to be more than enough of a hill.

We flew a straight line from KPAO to K022.  Winds aloft were lighter than forecast and in the middle of the central valley I found myself off course and a little lost.  Having just recently learned how to use the airplanes VOR (thats VHF Omnideractional Range), I dialed in the the Linden and Manteca radials and triangulated my position.  I was about 5 miles north of course, and with that new reference in mind I was able to locate my next waypoint and continue on to Columbia.

We overflew the airport high, avoiding descending until I was certain I had the airport in site.  Columbia is in a bowl, with rising terrain on both ends of the runway, particularly off runway 35.  We had checked the pilots operating handbook for the C152 prior to departure to confirm it's takeoff performance at 2000'.  We had enough performance to safely depart, but we decided that prior to landing we would execute a go-around to make sure we wouldn't get stuck there.

Entering the pattern for 35, I was nervous due to some turbulence, proximity to the hills, and sparse emergency landing options.  At 20' off the runway, we initiated the go-around, full power, mixture full rich, flaps slowly up, best climb at 67 knots.  The climb was meager.  At the end of the runway we were a few hundred feet above the trees (maybe it was more, but it felt low).  As I mentioned, the terrain slopes up off 35, and the sloping terrain seemed to almost match our climb.  This gave the unnerving impression that we weren't climbing at all, though we were.  I was white knuckling the yolk, my instructor told me to relax, keep it right at 67, and that we still had options.

I took a breath as we cleared the terrain, and turned out over the river.  I looked at my instructor and said "so I guess we're not going to land there then...", he "let's land.  We can take off going the other way."

Columbia was nice, quiet and scenic.  We took off on runway 17 which gave us a slight downhill runway, and less terrain to clear.  The wind was basically calms, maybe a 1mph tailwind.  Again, the climb was noticeably weak.  I was really surprised how much difference 2000' could make (Density altitude was 3000).  Again, I was a little uncomfortable on the climb out, but soon we were off and away.

Now, we had figured we had enough gas to get to Columbia and back without refueling.  But at Columbia we checked the tank levels and they were lower than we expected.  Maybe not enough to make it to KPAO with reserve.  We certainly didn't want to add weight to the plane before taking off, so we decided we would divert once we got to the valley and get some gas along the way.  So to Oakdale, O27 it was.  Used the VOR again and headed straight to it.  Circled down, checked the wind and had a nice landing.  It wasn't clear where the fuel station was, but eventually we found it.  What was less clear was how to make it pump gas.  A hand written sign on the pump said "Lower handle to prime.  Slow ok after start."  I get the first part, but still don't know what the second part means.  In the end, we wasted 30-40 minutes trying to fill up.  We were able to pump gas onto the ground, but not into the wing.  Oh, and there was a hornets nest in the gas pump.

Maybe if I stare at it long enough...

We left Oakdale shortly after sunset and now headed to Modesto.  We arrived in the dark, with strong, gusty winds.  Unfamiliar with the airport, we asked the tower for directions to the fuel station.  We were told to taxi via a few different taxiways, and head somewhere back behind the hangers.  The controller mentioned we would see a lighted fuel island on the way, but not to go there because it was just a decoy.  Uh... ok.

15 minutes later after taxing all around the airport in the dark we found the fuel station.  Filled up and hurried out of there.  This wasn't planned to be a night flight, and climbing out in the turbulent pitch dark, I realized I was unprepared for the remainder of the flight.  No flashlight, no flight plan, and unsure where the high terrain around Livermore is without a visual reference.  I told my instructor that if I was alone right now I would head back to Modesto and figure out what to do on the ground.  Instead we decided to cheat and he pulled out his ipad and we flew that nice purple line to assure we stayed over low ground.

Since I wasn't really navigating at this point we decided to get some simulated instrument time in.  I donned the hood and flew back to KPAO under simulated IFR conditions.

I can't remember what time we landed, but it was late.  All in all, a very fun flight.  For me anyway.  I'm not so sure my instructor felt the same.
This is all so new to me, I still find the hornet filled fuel pumps fun.

PPL Lessons 7-25

OK, new plan.  I'm not going to document every lesson, or even most of them...

I'm at about 38 hours total time now.  Lots of stuff has happened.  Here's some highlights-

Simulated instrument failures:
Flew out to Hayward Executive sometime around lesson 10 to do pattern work.  I was worrying a lot about my speed during the pattern and approach, a bit stressed about getting too slow.  Rich reached over and put stickers over pretty much all my instruments.  Airspeed, VSI, Altimeter, all gone.  It was much easier flying like this to my surprise.  No stressing about the airspeed, just fly the plane by it's attitude.

Wake Avoidance:
(the flying kind)
Headed over to San Jose International to do pattern work.  I was surprised and excited to find out that it is totally cool for a little Cessna 152 to use SJC's 11,000' runways.  With two miles of runway were were able to simulate engine failures on takeoff, engine failures in the pattern, and all sorts of weird grown effect stuff.  At one point, to get me used to the reversed coordination needed to slip a plane for a cross wind landing, we came in to runway 30R, and leveled off about 5' off the runway.  We stabilized there and then flew the length of the runway shuffling 150' from one side to the other, back and forth.  Always keeping the nose pointed straight down the runway with rudder, and using aileron slide us left to right.  I wondered what this looked like to the passengers waiting for their United flights in the terminal.

After a few laps in the pattern, the controller moved us from left traffic to right, which put us in the pattern with the heavies.  Was alerted to traffic "757, 3 o'clock", and directed to turn base following the 757, cleared to land #2.  I laughed when I hear the 757 pilot confirm they had us in sight (plodding along crammed into the 152 at 80 knots).  Made sure to stay above the 757's approach path and land beyond his touchdown point to avoid any wake turbulence.  Lot's of fun.  A total blast flying the pattern with the jumbos!

Airports:
Been to lot's of airports now.  KPAO, KSQL, KHAF, KSJC, KLVK, KHWD, KOAK, KRHV, KLHM.

Instrument Work:
On one flight, spent about 1.5 hours 'under the hood', with a visor on which blocks my view outside.  My instructor acts as ATC providing headings, climb and decent directions.  The whole flight is done only by instruments.  The attitude indicator being the main, and glancing briefly at Altitude, Speed, Turn Coordinator, etc as needed.

It is very disorienting and fun.  Your ears and other senses give weird inputs without a visual reference to calibrate to.  At one point I felt like I had to keep turning left to keep the attitude indicator straight.  I even had to ask "Are we really flying straight right now".

Flew all the way back under the hood until I was on my downwind leg.  One aspect that was surprisingly challenging was re-adjusting my senses after taking off the hood.  I was already in the pattern so had to get re-aligned quick.  Suddenly having so much to see after staring at the instruments for an hour was a bit overwhelming.  This was intentional by Rich and meant to simulate what it's like to break out of the clouds on final.

Night Flying:
Did my first night flight about a month ago.  KPAO-KRHV-KLVK-KPAO.  I liked it a lot, but it was harder than I imagined.  In the pattern, everything seemed to happen a little quicker and I struggled not to get behind.  In retrospect, I think it was the extra time it took me to scan the instruments in the dimly lit cockpit.  Normally I can check airspeed, altitude, power, pressure, etc without even thinking about it.  But with the low lighting in the plane I had to stare at each instrument for a second or two before I could register it.  More to come.

Solo Pattern Work:
I had my first two solo flights not long ago.  They came at the end of other lessons, we would do a few landings and Rich would hop out and send me off for 3 more.  Exciting.  A little scary.  Mostly just flying.

XC:
Last week I did my first dual XC, 94 NM each way to Lincoln.  The planning phase was interesting, though a little burdensome.  With all the airspace in the area, I had to plan for several short climbs, followed by a cruise, followed by another climb.  Calculating the estimated time, necessary heading (compensating for indicated airspeed, wind speed/direction, and altitude) was time consuming.  A good lesson on how to do it, but it took my an hour just to plan the flight to Mt Diablo.  From there it got easier, and quicker as I learned how to use the tools.

The flight itself was great.  Not much to say about it really.  Lot's of radio communication and handoffs, but that is typical in the Bay Area and I'm used to it by now.  We flew most of the way out at 5,500', and back at 6,500'.  The latter was about all the little 152 could muster.  It was a struggle to maintain altitude without redlining it.

Solo Flight Away From Airport:
That was today.  First time doing a solo from preflight to tie-down, and first time soloing outside for the traffic pattern.  Got to the airport and checked the weather.  Winds were 10 knots at a 30degree cross.  That put the crosswind component at about 5, which was just under my solo endorsement limit.  Talked to an instructor about it and decided to go ahead and preflight, and then waited 10 minutes for the next weather update.  Conditions hadn't changed so I decided to give it a go.

Started the plane, called the tower and departed runway 31 and headed West.  Flew out over San Gregorio along the coast and did some basic airwork practice.  Steep turns, slow flight, power off stalls.  Easier doing that solo, the plane just performs a bit better.

Coming back to the airport, I check the ATIS again.  The winds had increased a couples mph, and the crosswind angle was down to 20 degrees.  That sounded fine, and still within my limits.  On short final the windsocks told a different story.  The windsock at the far end of the runway was about as expected, but the windsock at the runway threshold was showing 5-8mph at about 90 degrees cross.  I made a quick determination that the conditions were safe for me and proceeded.  It was gusty as expected, and I had a fair amount of right aileron on touchdown, but it was smooth.  One of my best.

Next...:
Still to go I have another daytime dual XC, this time combined with hood work.  A 100 mile night dual XC.  A 150 mile solo XC.  Some other odds and ends, and then my checkride!