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!