95%

Flight 20, N14008, 1.8 hours (30.5 total), landing practice

Today was all about landing practice. We first talked about areas to improve in my landing: getting my speed consistent on downwind, extend sight down the runway when getting close to ground, flare more and keep it longer, and keep the nose gear in the air longer after the main gears touch. Lots of things to improve on :P

We left busy PAO and went to LVK. Again runway 13 was in use when I took off. We did a Leslie Salt departure (what a left crosswind departure from runway 13 is called at PAO), then headed towards the Sunol Golf Course. I called in to LVK tower over the golf course, and was told to make left traffic for runway 25L, and report one mile out at 45 (when I'd be entering the downwind at 45 degrees). The last part was unfamiliar to me and Mark had to remind me of it. The tower also cautioned us that another plane was heading toward us at 12 o'clock. I didn't see that plane until we almost flew over it. It's probably 500 feet below us which was a safe separation, but it looked quite close :P.

I made a slight left turn after flying over the ridges, to better align for my 45 degree entry to the pattern. For the first landing Mark didn't want me to land at all. He wanted me to get into slow flight and fly over the runway, at a couple feet over the ground, to get used to the proper pitch, and the feeling of holding the plane from touching down a bit longer.

I started my descent abeam the runway numbers as normal, turned base, and was getting ready to turn to final when Mark asked me to turn to final with quite some urgency. Huh? I wonder what the rush was. I'd need to make a pretty shallow turn to line up with the runway if I turned then... Half way through the turn I realized why: I was aiming for the wrong runway. LVK has two runways. 25L, which I was supposed to land on, is half the length and half the width of 25R, which I was aiming for :P

I quickly lined up with 25L, and notice something else about it: there's no slope indicator for this runway. That's a first for me. All runways I'd landed before had some sort of slope indicator. Of course, if Byron was to believe, then slope indicators do more harm than good. He attributed my constant power adjustment partly to it. Byron might be right, but I'd still rather have the indicator telling me I'm on the right glide path. Not having the indicator turned out not to be a big deal, though. I must have got the glide path about right because Mark didn't say anything about it as I got closer and closer to the ground. Then I tried to pitch for slow flight, and the plane balooned. The next few seconds became a struggle to get the power settings just right, and I ended up flying over the runway at about 10 feet.

Mark asked me to try it again. This time on downwind, I realized James and Amy's house should be pretty close to my right, but I was too busy and didn't really know where to look for their house. (I later checked gmap and their house is about to the right of midpoint downwind. Next time I fly to LVK I should look for it.). This time I lined up with 25L without a hitch (:P what a low standard). I also controlled my height better during the slow flight over the runway. Now it's time to try to land for real. The next 5 landings I did was OK. Not my best work but quite passable. I still don't do a very good job lining up with the center line, though.

After my last landing we taxied off the runway and back. There's a bit of a wait. I requested to take off and stay in left close traffic. Marked started talking about LVK controllers and how they tended to be less friendly. I don't know if he got a bit pissed off by them somehow, but he called in and changed our request to a left crosswind departure. After watching a biplane landing on 25R we took off and headed back to PAO.

There's a bit of a crosswind at PAO: 210 at 7 kts, which is over my solo crosswind limit, and made for good practice. I had problem lining up even in a headwind, and in the crosswind I was a bit all over the place, but not dangerously so :P I was a bit too eager turning off the runway, though, and the plane started shaking a bit. I should have slowed down more and turn off at the next taxiway.

Overall my landings today were a big improvement over those I did in the check ride (then again, anything short of crashing would be). The biggest improvement was getting used to the pitch required for a good landing. I always tend to land too flat, I hope today has helped to turn that back.

Flight 19, N824LB, 1.7 hours (28.7 total), presolo phase check 1

Well, it wasn't supposed to be presolo phase check one, it was supposed to be presolo phase check, period. It wasn't a test and there's no pass or fail. But I managed to do the impossible: I failed a non-test and I'll have to do another phase check.

It started well enough. I did well in the ground part, missed a couple questions but generally got the answers right. Starting the engine and taxiing out was OK, too. (I primed the engine a bit too long, but it still started without a problem.) The weather was beautiful, they even had runway 31 in use, which was supposedly the easier runway (and I haven't had the luck to use for quite a while because of the weather we'd been having). Departure was uneventful, and so was the climb and enroute to practice area.

The maneuvers started with clearing turns and slow flight, then power off stall, which I did pretty well. My power on stall was OK, too. Byron thought I was pulling too much on the power on stall so he showed me and asked me to do it again. Basically when you slow the plane down to 55kts you're already pulling the nose high enough, so just adding power and keep that pitch and it'll stall. I tried that and it went pretty well. Next was steep turns which I'd always have problem keeping altitude, and I lost 200 feet during the left turn, and 100 during the right turn. Byron remarked that I was paying too much attention to my instruments, and not looking outside enough. That's fine, I wasn't required to do steep turns to private pilot standards yet.

In retrospect, the next move was what threw my off initially and it was just downhill from there. With no warning Byron pulled power to idle and asked "the engine just died. what do you do?". I pitched for 68kts, then picked a flat field to my left about a mile out and turned towards it (mistakes: I had plenty of altitude, should circle around first, run through the engine failure check list, and see if there's a better field to land). While gliding towards my chose field it was obvious I was too high. I did a forward slip to lose altitude (huge mistake. slipping with the engine out is like blowing out air when you are trapped under water. altitude is your most precious asset when engine is out. i should have circled to lose altitude). In my poorly executed slip I didn't lose enough altitude and gained a lot of speed. At this point Byron asked me to circle around, which I did with my speed all over the place, from 68kts to well above 80. Finally he asked me to add power and go around, ending my pathetic emergency landing attempt.

Next he turned off my GPS and asked me to fly back to PAO. I first turned to get a better look at the coastline and determine where I was, then estimated a course of 80 back to PAO, which was probably going to work. After a minute he asked me to fly to a diversion airport. I chose to go to SQL but I got my location off by probably 6 miles. When I came over the ridge line I was a bit confused and couldn't find the airport. I started my descent (mistake: don't descend unless you know where the airport is. staying high makes it easier to see.) towards the San Mateo Bridge, thinking SQL should be in that general direction (it wasn't, and why I didn't check with the chart at this point was beyond me. I think I was already in a semi-panic state.). Byron kept quite but shortly after I passed 280 he took over the controls and made a steep turn back. I was getting dangerously close to SFO's class B airspace and if I had entered without authorization (which of course I didn't ask for, I didn't even know I was going to enter it. I thought I was somewhere down south.), could bring some FAA agents waiting for me at PAO after I land.

I stayed to the other side of 280, finally found SQL and called in. Runway 12 was in use. I overflew midfield and entered left pattern. Just as I was turning final my stall warning horn went on. I peeked at my airspeed and found myself flying at 55kts, 10 kts slower than I was supposed to be! Byron almost interfered but I increase my speed in time. The landing was down right ugly, though. I landed too flat and bounced quite a bit. Byron asked me to taxi off and back and asked me how I would rate that landing out of 10. I sheepishly said "4?". Nah, not even. He'd only give me a 2 for it. Landing on the nose gear is extremely bad form. I guess I didn't get a 1 because we were still able to taxi :P

We departed SQL for PAO. As I was climbing I tried to tune in for PAO's ATIS, but in my confused state turned of SQL tower by mistake, before they told me I could change my frequency. Oh well, that's nothing compared to all the mistakes I had made/would make today.

First landing at PAO I came in too high and decided to go around, and it didn't get much better from there. The traffic was a bit busy so I got extended downwind every time, and that threw me off a bit, too. For my no flaps landing I started fine but ended too fast and had to go around, too. I had to go around during another normal landing because I flared too early and as I was floating down the runway I got blown off by a bit crosswind and didn't correct it in time. All in all we tried 7 landings at PAO, and I didn't do a single good one. Byron asked me to taxi off, open the window and get some air, and told me not to freak myself out. Oh well, none of that worked. We finally ran out of time and had to terminate, and Byron thought I should practice landing some more and ride with him again when I'm ready. So, although this was not meant to be a test, I still failed it and have to re-take it sometime.

Some take away points from today's landings:

* get my approach steady. I was adjusting my power settings all the time and my pitch/speed weren't stable at all.

* be conscious about crosswind correction. I pretty much forgot about it and I was never centered on the runway.

* before starting the flare, look down the runway. I was looking too close down and wasn't judging my altitude correctly.

* flare more. I was too eager to let the nose drop.

So today was definitely an off day for me. But a pilot should be measured by his worst performance, and I guess this just means I'm not quite there yet.

Flight 18, N14008, 1.2 hours (27 total). practice for presolo phase check

I wasn't able to get the phase check done as originally planned and now it's scheduled for the coming Monday, 2 weeks after I last flew. So today again we were practicing for the check ride. We'll have a short flight then some ground time going over charts and stuff.

It was overcast, but visibility was OK and ceiling was high, plus there's almost no wind at all, so still a pretty good day for flying. We made a left 270 departure towards the practice area. The other side of the Santa Cruz Mountains was completely covered by clouds as hight as the ridges themselves, so the practice area was just a white blanket. I made quick work of slow flight and power off/power on stalls. I was pretty happy with my performance today. Good pitch adjustments entering slow flight, and therefore kept altitude pretty well. Mark was pleasantly surprised, too. I didn't do well last time, and after 10 days of no flying he had expected me to be even rustier.

Mark then asked me to fly to SQL without the help of GPS. It's kind of tricky today since I couldn't see the ground and therefore didn't know exactly where I was. I pulled out the chart and put the plane into a shallow turn while I try to guestimated where I was. I could see some coastline so I knew I was somewhere south of HAF. Turned out the course I guessed wasn't off by much. It's kind of cool to see the entire bay area covered by clouds, with peaks like Mount Diablo sticking out. My course was about right towards Mount Diablo. I should remember this for the check ride on Monday.

Lucky for me SQL was clear of clouds. I started descend after crossing the ridge line. At times I had to descend pretty fast (over 1000 fpm) to get down to 1200 before crossing 101. I overflew midfield at 1200 then turned downwind and descend to pattern altitude of 800. At non-towered airports descending into pattern is an absolute no-no, but it's OK at controlled airports. Although I still don't feel comfortable about it and kept trying to look down for any traffic. The first landing was a normal one and I have to say I did quite well. Not my best one but I'd be happy if I could land like this consistently. I remembered to keep the nose higher than I used to when flaring and it worked out beautifully. Mark was again expecting me being rusty and was quite happy with how I performed. The second landing would be a no-flaps landing. We extended downwind a bit for spacing (note to self, tell the tower you want to extend your downwind. Although I thought the tower would have asked me to given the plane I was following wasn't too far ahead.). 101 played a little trick on me there: the runway runs about parallel to 101, but 101 turns slightly so as I extended my downwind I actually flew over 101 on my base, which confused me quite a bit. Other than that the no-flaps landing was pretty good, too. It's just faster than a normal landing, in a more nose-high attitude.

After a touch-and-go we departed downwind towards PAO. PAO tower was the busiest I'd ever seen (or heard, rather). I couldn't get my request in for a while, then when I finally find a break and stated my request, it went unanswered. The same lady who's at the tower during my first solo was on duty again, but this time she sounded like she's practicing tongue twisters. There's just not enough time for me to put in my request. We were almost entering PAO's air space and we still hadn't got anything fro tower, so Mark asked me to turn toward Stanford. He tried again a couple times just saying "14008", and finally tower asked us to state our request. She must be happy to hear that we were coming in for full stop (sounded like at least 2-3 others were doing pattern work). Downwind got extended just as always when the airport was busy. The landing again was a good one.

After I taxied back and turned off the engine, Mark asked me to push the plane back all by myself. Turned out this might be the hardest part of flying solo, and he had to help me with it in the end :P

Flight 17, N14008, 1.5 hours (25.8 total), practice for pre-solo phase check

This flight was to prepare for my pre-solo check ride. Although Mark has already endorsed me for solo flying, so I'm legal to solo, it's club policy that I still need to have a check ride with the club's chief pilot. It's not a test, so I can't fail and lose my solo endorsement. It's just to have someone else looking at my flying skills and point out places to improve.

The day started bright and sunny, quite a surprise after weeks of almost non-stop raining. I came to the airport for my first surprise. When I was parking I thought something was not quite right but couldn't put my fingers to it. It wasn't until after I got the key and stepped out that I realized what wasn't right: where N14008 was supposed to be was empty, the plane wasn't there. The front desk told me it had been in maintenance the day before and after a short phone call with the shop they told me the plane is ready and they are just cleaning it up. I waited outside for 10 minutes and a guy showed up with my plane. He drove a cart that pushes the plane backwards. Why can't we have one of those at the club so I don't have to hand-push the plane every time?

Marked had showed up by then so my plan of getting pre-flight done before he came to save some time was shot. Today we were going to review all maneuvers I'll be doing in the check ride. As we were taxiing out Mark asked what kind of takeoff I'd like to do. I chose short-field takeoff and he's happy that I didn't choose a normal takeoff, said he'd ask me to choose again if I picked normal takeoff :P. And then came the second surprise of the day. Ground asked me to hold short of the parallel (what they call the taxi way parallel to the runway at PAO). As I was getting there I could see two planes already waiting in front of me. Apparently everyone was trying to get some flying done in this short window of good weather in weeks. The 3 runup spots at the end of the runway were all taken and people had to wait to even get on the parallel. That had never happened to me before: a traffic jam on the taxiway.

Luckily we were the last plane in line, so we could do our runup checks right there without worrying about blowing stuff into planes behind us. This really saved us time when we were finally cleared to continue taxiing, as I didn't need to wait at the runup area again and was able to get in front of a plane that's doing the runup there. Unfortunately by the time I was finally cleared to takeoff (must have been 20 minutes since I started taxiing), I forgot I was doing a short-field takeoff, and instead of holding the plane at the line and going full power before releasing brakes, I just started my takeoff roll as normal. Mark quickly pointed out my error but there's no point stopping then. So I didn't a sort-of short-field takeoff :P Oh well, taking off wasn't the hard part for me anyway. I'm sure I would have done a good job :P

Cloud wasn't that high over the Santa Cruz Mountains so we stayed at this side of the mountain and did our maneuvers there. After clearing turns Mark asked me to do slow flight. It's been a while since we last practiced any of these maneuvers (the focus had been exclusively on landing lately), and it took me a half second to think about what I needed to do to put the plane in slow flight. But I still remembered everything and did it right, though I may not have maintained 100% straight flight. Marked then asked me to pull power to idle and practice emergency landing: trim for best glide speed, then find a landing spot. I did OK with the speed, but the spot I decided on was too close, and I ended up overshooting it by a lot. The area wasn't great to emergency landings: it's all hills. Next were stalls. I had forgotten more about the stalls, though, namely the speeds at which to start the stalls with: power-off stall is to simulate a stall at landing, so the entrance speed should be 65 kts. power-on stall is to simulate a stall at takeoff, so the entrance speed should be 55. Mark had to remind me of that but other than that I did OK. Next we did steep turns. This is where I really should practice more. Again I lost 200 feet during the turns. Marked showed me again how to do it and asked me to focus less on the instruments and more outside, which helped a lot.

Staying on this side of the mountain had a big disadvantage: the wind was coming over the mountain and therefore this side was quite bumpy. I started feeling sick during my own steep turns and it got worse after Mark's demonstration. After doing one more steep turn myself I told Mark I wasn't feeling well and we shouldn't do more steep turns. That was about the last maneuver, though, so not much was lost. Mark asked me to pull out my chart and get us to SQL. I needed to be able to do this in case my GPS failed and PAO was closed. I only had the sectional chart out, though, and its large scales made it hard for me to identify where I was. Me being sick certainly didn't help, either. Finally Mark plotted the course for me on the GPS and called to SQL for me. I was still able to fly the plane but the extra tasks were a bit too much at that point.

SQL was free of traffic as always, and I did 4 landings there, with the last one being a no flaps landing. There was a 15 knts wind down the runway and I wasn't correcting for it on my crosswind and base, so my pattern was blown out of square. Mark said Byron (the chief pilot I'd be flying with for the check ride) would probably make some comments about that. But the landings themselves were OK. Mark later remarked that I alway seemed to land better at SQL than at PAO. I think it was because SQL's runway is longer and wider so I was more comfortable holding the flare longer for a softer touch down. He thought my theory was good, but mocked me for saying SQL's runway was longer. "what is it, 2 feet longer?" Well, it's 200 feet longer, but he's right. On top of 2400 that's probably not a lot :) So I just need to take a mental note to hold the flare longer at PAO. Truth is I always stopped by the middle of the runway so there's a lot of room for me to hold the flare longer.

Leaving SQL we got cleared for a straight in landing at PAO, but was asked to do a 360 for spacing with another plane. On the long final (sth that I always manage to mess up a bit), Marked asked to pull power to idle and try to glide in. It turned out to be impossible with the headwind and I ended up adding power back for a normal landing. I did remember to hold the flare longer so the landing wasn't too rough.

I'm glad we got some flying done because the rain came in that afternoon and had been non-stop since (it was Tuesday and it's Saturday now as I'm writing this). Even on that morning I could see it raining in Daly City from the air.

Flight 16, N14008, 1.6 hours (24.3 total), short field takeoff, soft field takeoff, normal landings

Another week went by without any flying, and this weekend looked like it'd be wet, too. But for this lesson we'd be staying in the pattern so as long as visibility and ceiling are OK we'd be able to fly. The first thing I did after getting up this morning was to check the weather and it's at 20 miles/4000 feet, not bad at all. Flying is on!

It looked quite different from what's on paper, though. The sky was all grey and it was drizzling. I had never taken off in the rain before, although I didn't think it'd be much of a problem. While I was doing my pre-flight Mark brought over another guy to check out the airplane. This guy was a pilot from Germany and was attending a conference here. Poor guy, good luck getting any sight-seeing in this weather. There is a plus side to the rain, though. During my pre-flight I only see one plane taking off.

Before we taxied off Marked talked to me about short-field takeoff. It's fairly simple: you start with 10 degrees of flaps, line up with the runway, then put full power in while holding the brakes (kind of like launching a car in a drag race), then release the brakes and start the takeoff roll, rotate at normal speed then pitch for Vx (62 kts), which gives a much steeper angle of climb than a normal takeoff, then after clearing 50 feet, push down for Vy and climb away as normal, take up the flaps when safe. It sounded quite simple, and I was just a little bit concerned about going full-power right off the line. In my very early lessons I tended to swirl a little on the runway with abrupt full-power. That concern turned out to be a completely non-issue, though. Apparently I'd got better at directional control during takeoff.

There was a pretty strong headwind today. It was 10 kts on the ground, but as soon as we were airborne it was over 20kts. Downwind went by fast with that kind of wind, and I had to use much more power than normal during final. At some point the headwind was at 28kts and it almost felt like I wasn't moving :P. The touchdown was a bit rough, but not too bad. We did a touch-and-go and tried another landing. The 2nd was OK but not great, either. I guess that's the current state of my landing: one or two small bounces. I did have one big bounce today during which Marked asked me to do a go-around. Other than that one I was consistently mediocre :P

We tried another short-field takeoff then Mark demonstrated a soft-field takeoff. Now this was more fun. The idea is that you are taking off from a soft field, like grass, or a field covered with snow or mud. You want to keep your landing gears from getting stuck to the ground and the key is to pull the elevator all the way back during taxiing, to keep weight off the nose gear, and not stop and try not to use brakes. Make a sweeping turn onto the runway and line up, then add full power, holding elevator all the way back the whole time. The nose gear leaves the ground soon so elevator pressure needs to be relieved gradually. The plane would takeoff on ground effect before reaching normal rotate speed, then you need to pitch down to keep the plan from climbing up, and keep building up speed. After the speed is up you can then pitch back and climb away. This is also done with 10 degrees of flap.

After I made the next landing it's my turn to try it. Before I turned off the runway we noticed a goose on the runway and decided to chase it away, so it's not an issue for my takeoff. There's no other planes flying or waiting so it's fine for us to fool around. We chased the goose away and began to turn off at the next taxiway, then it came back to the runway, so we had to chase it away a second time and turn off the runway at the end.

Soft-field takeoff was definitely more involved than the short-field one. But it was easier than I thought. Keeping the nose gear in the air wasn't hard at all and steering with the rudder only was quite effective once speed was up. Taking off in ground effect was fun. It happened at around 48 kts and I just flew down the runway at very low altitude while the speed built up, then pitched up and climbed away. Not bad at all!

While we were taxiing back to the runway to try anotherone, Mark said "Let's try it differently this time", and completely dimmed my display so it's black. I thought he wanted me to fly by the backup instruments, but then he blocked those with my check list, too. "Fly just by visual and let's see how you do". ah'oh... Taking off turned out OK, since the plane took off in ground effect by itself, it's just a matter of holding it close to the ground long enough to gain speed, then climb away. But I was way off judging my altitude. As I was turning crosswind, thinking I was at 500 feet, Mark peeked at the backup altimeter and told me I was at 1000. ouch! The rest of the pattern proved to be equally difficult, too. I wasn't confident in how fast I was flying (if I could misjudge my altitude by 100%, I could do so for speed, too), and wasn't sure when I should lower flaps as a result. The landing turned out to be OK, though. That was certainly an interesting experience.

I tried a couple more soft-field takeoff then did a couple normal ones just to practice my landing. The rain stopped briefly but then during the last one it came back harder so we decided to call it a day. The main problem with my landing is not flaring enough, which is evident in my first solo video, too. I did make some adjustment for my last landing and it was a lot nicer. I did a total of 11 landings today, most I'd done in any lesson :)

Flight 15, N14008, 1.3 hours (22.7 total), landings, first solo

Depending on how the weather was, today could be the day of my first solo. The first thing I did after getting up was checking the weather. PAO had few clouds at 12,000 feet, visibility of 20 miles, and wind variable at 3. Certainly looked like a great day for flying. My only concern was with the wind direction. Nearby HWD showed wind direction at 130, which meant PAO would probably be using runway 13 instead the more familiar 31. But that's OK. I'd made plenty of landings at runway 13. The plus side is that I'd be making left pattern. Left turns always seem a bit easier than right turns.

I came to the airport and indeed runway 13 was in use. Mark came just as I finished pre-flight. He filled in the endorsement section in my logbook for soloing, leaving the signature part out. So if he thought I was good to go after a couple of landings we wouldn't waste any time in the plane. He just needed to sign it in the plane and I'd be good to go. Of course it'd still depend on how well I perform today, we'd know soon.

We quickly taxied out. It was the earliest ever, since there's not much to talk about in today's plan. In my first landing I came in too high, and Mark asked me to do a go-around. Not that the landing couldn't be saved, but he'd like me to do a go-around before soloing, just in case I needed to do it when soloing. The second landing was fine. Marked made some comments about using the rudders more to line up better before touching down. There was a bit of crosswind going. There was a helicopter in the pattern. The pilot was apparently a student, too, and was quite slow in his work. During a couple of landings I was behind him and had to extend my downwind a bit to make room for him. And in one landing behind him the tower called me to go-around because he didn't move out of the way fast enough. Anyway, one student pilot can certainly forgive another for being slow :) My pattern work wasn't as good as I would like today. I was probably nervous/excited about the coming solo. I wasn't maintaining altitude very well on downwind, and once turned to downwind at 900 feet: 100 feet higher than I should be. That'd be enough to fail my check ride if this was it :P My turns were also a bit too steep: usually at 30 degrees than the more comfortable 20. None of those was a security hazard, though :P In my last couple landing Marked focused on me using the rudder to line up with the runway before touching down, as there's a slight crosswind from the left. Then after the 5th landing he asked me to taxi to the end of the runway and said "I'm ready to cut you loose.". Yay!

I dropped Mark off at taxiway J. He just took his handheld radio and video camera, and left his headset in the plane "as a vote of confidence" :D. Ha, I could feel the lady at the control tower becoming nicer instantly :) She was speaking slowly to me, and cleared me to take off before another plane that was in the run up area. The takeoff roll was smooth and uneventful. I had a huge grin on my face as I accelerated down the runway. As I pulled on the yoke to rotate I peeked at the clock: 10:14:15. I was airborne! Flying as pilot in command for the first time! I have to say I was quite calm :) I was even looking out of the window and thinking if my engine quit then, which patch of the bog I'd have to land in :) I flew a better pattern than any of the practice rounds and soon came to final, and found myself a bit high. Well, it's always better to be higher than lower :P Soon I passed the runway threshold and still a tad high, but I was confident I could land it. Flare came a bit late and the plane bounced. go-around? No, I was pretty sure I could save it. I pulled back a little bit, the plane bounced a second time then touched down. All right, I was safe on the ground. My first landing as pilot in command :). I told tower I'm taxing back to do it again. As I passed Mark who was standing by the taxi way, he made some hand gestures to me, which I just couldn't get. He finally got on the radio (the shared frequency that the tower and all pilots use), and said "Jianing, flaps up". Oops, I forgot to put the flaps up after landing, guess I was too excited to have made it down safely :P "Thanks Mark".

For my second takeoff I think I made a mistake. The plane before me aborted his takeoff because of birds. There was a goose on the runway as I took it and I just accelerated past it. It would probably have been better judgement if I aborted the takeoff just as the previous guy did. But the goose didn't cause any real trouble. My second landing was better than the first one. There was still one slight bounce but I think the timing was improving. This time I did remember to raise the flaps after landing :)

Before my 3rd takeoff tower asked me to wait while they sent a truck going up and down the runway to drive away the birds. My 3rd landing was the best of the day. Flaring was just at the right time and the plane floated over the runway for a bit then gently touched down, no bouncing at all :)

I told tower I was terminating, then contacted ground and picked up Mark. He said he only got a good shot of my first landing (the worst one!). Oh well, it'd be good learning material I suppose. :)

I taxied off the runway at 10:32, so the total time I spent alone in the plane was probably about 20 minutes. Short flight, but I'm sure there's many many more to come :)

update: Mark sent me this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VArmcN9CWTc. So the first landing was 3 bounces rather than 2 :P the 2nd one doesn't look too bad actually. It sure felt worse in the plane than it looks from the ground. Too bad the 3rd one isn't in there, it must be a beauty to watch :P. Another interesting thing: I wasn't even listening to the lady at tower for the wind information while flying (and even if I was, I wouldn't have the presence of mind to do the math anyway), but from the video, the wind was from 60 at 8 kts. For runway 13 that's a cross wind of slightly stronger than 5 kts, which is higher than the cross wind limit I was endorsed for :P Well, the overage was only after the decimal point so it didn't count I guess :)

Flight 14, N14008, 1.1 hours (21.4 total). landings

Hadn't been able to fly during the week for various reasons: Tuesday's schedule got cancelled because of low ceilings, had to get up super early on Wednesday, runway closed between 10-2 on Thursday and Mark was booked in the afternoon. runway was closed between 10-2 on Friday, too, so the only time I could fly this week was Friday afternoon and I just had to take what I could have.

Today's plan was simple: practice landing in preparation for my first solo, so we just stayed in the pattern the entire time and did 8 landings. I wouldn't say this was my best day doing landings. For one thing we weren't able to fly a consistent pattern. PAO being as busy as always, each pattern got modified a little. We got extended downwind several times, and was usually No. 3 or 4 to land on our downwind. As I often do I had problem judging height and distance with a longer final and came in higher a couple times. But regardless, I made the landing each time. They were not my best landings, some bounced a little, some slipped a little, but if you agree with the saying "every landing that you can walk away from is a good landing" then they were all good landings :) Doing landings is tiring, though. After 8 landings I'd shown some sign of fatigue and the wind was picking up so we wrapped it up.

Overall no landings I did today was super good. Some were not perfectly lined up with the runway, flaring timing was too early or late in some. But also no landings was particularly bad, either, which is probably more important for soloing :)

Flight 13, N14008, 1.7 hours (20.3 total), normal/no flaps/180 power off landings

The past week was a bit frustrating in flying, in that I didn't fly at all. The forecast called for rain almost all week, so I didn't schedule any class during the week. Then as it turned out, everyday was good enough for flying, and the rain was coming in on the weekend. Fortunately this morning was still nice for flying. Rain won't come until tonight.

Today's plan was simple, fly out to Hayward Airport (HWD) and practice landings. We talked about the plan in the airplane and was airborne earlier than ever. The departure was a right 45 degree departure, aiming at mid-span of the San Mateo Bridge. HWD has a long and wide runway 28L, but it's close to the Oakland Airport (OAK) and its pattern lies right beneath OAK's final approach path. As a result the pattern altitude is only 650 feet, lower than any airport I've flown to.

The first two landings were normal ones. On the first one I flared a bit two early, but I soon realized it and kept the plane floating a bit longer. So the touchdown point was a bit far down the runway, but the landing was still smooth. The second one went better. I think I can pretty consistently make OK landings in good weather. There's little wind today which helped a lot. Another thing about HWD is that the end of runway 28L almost touches OAK's airspace, which means we had to turn crosswind before we reach the end of the runway to avoid entering OAK's airspace. That's usually at or below 300 feet, which was a bit unusual, too. I also overshot the pattern altitude most of the time. 650 feet doesn't take long to reach, and the tower always gives me clearance when I was just about to level off, then by the time I finished talking to them I was already above 650.

Next we were going to to more no-flaps landings. There was a Leer Jet ready to takeoff as I was turning going downwind, and he just sat there, motionless, even as I was turning final. I wasn't sure what to do. The jet finally took off and I found myself too high, too fast. After an attempt to slow the plane down and lose altitude, I was already past the runway threshold and still maybe 50 feet in the air. Time for a go-around. The 2nd time we extended the downwind to give me more time to slowdown and lose altitude, but I still came in too high. This time I did a forward slip, and the plane lost altitude nicely. Leveled out and flared. The plane floated down the runway further than normal because of the extra speed, but touched down nicely. Probablynot within 400 feet of the runway number as we had wanted, though. The next time I started slowing down as I was turning base, and slowed down to 70kts shortly after turning final. This time I was able to touch down closer to the numbers.

Last to practice was power off 180 degree landing. In order to do so we needed to ask the tower for a short approach. It may not always be approved at a busy airport, but HWD had very little traffic and we got approved every time. I pulled engine back to idle on downwind past midfield, and trimmed for best glide. I was about to glide forward when Mark asked me to turn base. We were not even abeam the runway threshold yet. But it was instantly obvious why he asked me to turn. In fact we already didn't have enough altitude to make the runway. I got pretty low soon and I wasn't even lined up with the runway yet. Time for go-around number 2 of the day. The 2nd time I kept the downwind closer to the runway, so my base didn't need to be long. In fact, there's barely any base to speak of. I pretty much just turned a 180 from downwind to final. It's very different from normal landings. I felt like I was about to touch down and there's still 30 degrees of turn to make to line up with the runway. The actual touchdown wasn't bad, though, and I did another one afterwards.

We then took off again for a crosswind departure back to PAO. We got cleared for another short approach at PAO. It felt easier at PAO, though, because of the higher pattern altitude, giving me more glide distance. It's hard to judge when to make your turns when gliding, though. I was about to turn base soon after I pulled engine to idle, but Mark asked me to hold longer. As I was turning final my airspeed was a bit low at about 60kts, and my altitude was a bit low, too. We would probably still have made the runway if I proceeded. But there's no need for unnecessary danger in practice :) I added some power and landing normally. Mark said we'd have been OK if we turned based when I wanted to. I think his timing was right, if I were able to maintain best glide speed of 68kts. PAO is busy as always. As we turn off active runway, another plane was making its landing and another one was behind him on a half mile final.

My landing is definitely getting better. I feel pretty confident to land on a calm day like today. Still need to work on emergency situations like no power or no flaps, though.

Flight 12, N824LB, 1.5 hours (18.6 total) takeoff and landing, no flaps landing.

Today's lesson was scheduled for 9-12, but I had to move it to 3pm because parents' flight yesterday was cancelled and I had to send them to SFO again this morning.

I went to the airport early to get pre-flight done before Mark is back from his previous flight. Turned out the plane wasn't refueled after its last flight (that's what pre-flight is for :) ), and I got to call the fuel truck by myself. Fortunately I got a little brochure I took from the pilot's store next door that had the fuel truck's frequency on it. The guy was a bit slow to come over but Mark wasn't back yet so it didn't delay me.

Today's goal was to do more landings. I was hopping to stay in close traffic at PAO so I could get more landings in, and that's what we told ground when we started taxiing. But PAO was pretty busy and Mark thought it'd only get busier as the day came towards an end and people started coming back to land. We changed our departure request to left Dumbarton departure for Half Moon Bay Airport (HAF). We didn't spend any time for extra maneuvers and flew directly to HAF. HAF is an uncontrolled airport and there were a couple planes in the pattern when we got there. We flew along the ridges, then turned and descended to pattern altitude to enter downwind at 45 degrees. A lady was turning crosswind at about the same time and later made a remark that we had cut her off. Mark thought she could have extended her upwind since we had been announcing our intentions since we were along the ridges, but we didn't say anything back. First landing I came in high and flared high, and bounced quite a bit but still landed. The following ones got a lot better. Especially the 3rd one, which Mark thought was my best ever. I was very please with that one, too. Good timing for the flare, held the flare long enough for the plane to slow down, and very gentle touch down. After 4 normal landings we did a no-flaps landing. The approach speed is 5 kts higher. Since no flaps were used, I had to slow down by holding a higher than normal pitch. It actually didn't feel much different than a normal landing, the extra pitch didn't seem to bother me much. We turned off the runway after this landing (previous ones were touch-and-gos) then taxied back for a downwind departure back to PAO. It's worth mentioning that I handled radio communication around HAF quite well. Last time I tried this was at Wasonville and it was more than I could handle while flying the plane. After that flight I practiced radio calls at uncontrolled airports by myself (while driving) and the effort showed this time :) My calls came naturally and I could also picture where other planes were in the pattern. There weren't many other planes in the pattern, though. The grumpy lady left after our second landing, and another plane that was there turned off the runway and parked. So we had the space for ourselves almost the entire time.

PAO was indeed busy as Mark had anticipated. tower actually sent us over to SLAC to wait out. After a minute or two we were called in to make left traffic. On downwind tower told us we were number 4 after someone turning right base. We didn't see that traffic so we kept flying downwind until what felt like half a minute later when we saw the plane flying right base. It was a lot farther out than normal base legs, and we extended our downwind a bit more for spacing. The airport was indeed busy today. Since we had extended downwind by so much, we kept patter altitude through base and well into final, making it felt like a straight-in landing. My landing at PAO wasn't bad, either. came in a bit slow but still not too bad. The tower was apparently eager to get more traffic going and rushed us off the runway. "4LB, you are holding traffic" was what they told me when I didn't make the first taxi way :P

All in all another good flight. I wish I were able to get more landings in. We were planning to get a power off landing but the busy traffic didn't allow it. I'm getting a pretty good feel for landing now. Just need to work on my consistency.

Flight 12, N2407N, 1.5 hours (17.1 total), slow flight, stalls, forward slips, steep turns, landings

The weather wasn't as beautiful as yesterday, but when I got up to check the ceiling was pretty high and visibility was good. I came in early and by the time Mark arrived I've already finished pre-flight. We were heading to the coast area to practice some maneuvers, then I'd get us to San Carlos Airport (SQL, funny name) and practice landing there. SQL is very close to PAO and will be my backup landing airport when I solo and PAO is to be closed for any reason.

Runway 13 was in use today so we did a left 270 departure towards the coast. Sometime during flight Mark noticed my strobe light was off. Oops, missed it during my run-up checklist. In the coast area the clouds were tiered: few at 3400 then scattered at 11000. We initially flew at 4500. For the slow flight I pulled back power real quick, and we were at 55 kts in no time. Marks comments were "that's the fastest I've seen it done". But of course there were more than a couple bones to pick: I lost 200 feet of altitude in the process (should have pulled back more and faster, and probably add power back in earlier), I didn't put in full flap until my speed was already down to 60 kts (could have done it much earlier). In my second try I did it slowly and maintained altitude better. I then tried two forward slips. The last time I did it (which was also my first time) was quite ugly: the plane didn't turn enough, I wasn't losing much altitude and got drifted off course quite a bit. This time we were doing it at altitude and that took away the stress factor. I did much better this time. Seemed like I tend to bank too much so I still drifted, but I remembered to push down. At altitude pushing down during a slip isn't scary at all. Next we did a power off and a power on stall. I got more comfortable with stalls, and again was reminded of how hard it actually is to get into a stall, especially a power on stall. Next I did a left 360 steep turn followed by a right 360. The left one went better. I maintained altitude and flew back into my wake to get that little bump. I lost 200 feet in the right one, though. It's a bit odd because people usually gain altitude in a right steep turn, as the plane appears to be going down even when it's in level flight. I should have started pulling back earlier, just as I got into the turn. I was late on it and the plane was already descending when I tried to correct it.

I found SQL on the GPS and set a direct course to it. On our way there we chose to go under the low clouds. It got a lot bumpier this way, but still not bad enough to make me feel sick. SQL tower required me to read back the runway number for each request, which is different than PAO tower. e.g., they: "Cessna 2407N, cleared for landing at runway 12", me: 'cleared for landing, runway 12, 07N". I forgot a couple of times and they reminded me to always repeat the runway number. I wonder why they are different. We crossed midfield at 1200 the descended to pattern altitude at 800 and turned downwind. On final there's an obvious crosswind, and I got a crash course on cross wind landing. I also came in high so my freshly practiced slipping skills got a chance on the center stage, which worked out relatively well: I lost enough altitude without increasing airspeed and didn't drift off the centerline. crosswind landing felt like a handful, though. I had trouble finding the correct crab angle, so I kept adjusting till the last moment. Then when I straightened the plan I had trouble finding the right banking. All this extra work threw off my flare timing and I landed a bit hard and bounced a bit. We taxied back to try again. Something funny happened this time: my headset got loose during the takeoff roll and fell off just as I was lifting off. I continued flying till Mark took over and I could adjust my headset. The 2nd landing got better. We came in with only 20 degrees of flap and that felt easier in the crosswind. We tried one more time then took off for a straight departure for PAO. The two airports are really close to each other. We just climbed to 1000 feet and stayed there. It felt like less than a minute before we were cleared for a straight in final. It turned out to be one of my best landings. I controlled speed pretty well during final, and held the flare long enough, then just pulled a bit more to ease the plane down. It was a gentle touch down and Mark was very happy with it. I just need to do it a dozen more times then I'd be quite confident in my landing :)

Flight 11, N14008, 1.3 hours (15.6 total). emergency landing procedure. light drizzle

It had rained non-stop for a week and my Monday flight got cancelled. Going into the weekend it still didn't look good. I fell asleep last night listening to rain drop on the roof, and praying for a clear morning. Well it didn't quite clear up but when I checked weather in the morning the ceiling was at 4500 feet at PAO, and visibility was surprisingly good, so it was still VFR and I could fly. I was worried that it might get bumpy with the rainy weather, but after being grounded for a week (and looking at possibility another week of rain), I was willing to brave it.

Wind was right down runway 13 and constant. Taking off on the wet runway didn't feel much different than any usual take off. In fact it was one of my better take offs. We did a "left Leslie Salt" departure. PAO tower uses all these local landmarks to designate the departure routes, like left/right Dumbarton departure. Leslie Salt is two big piles of salt across the bay from PAO, quite easy to spot from the air. A Leslie Salt departure is just a crosswind departure towards Leslie Salt.

The cloud was at about 3000 feet over Sunol Pass, so we stayed at 2500 and went for San Antonia Reservoir. Mark asked me to pull the power all the way back over the Reservoir, pitch for best glide speed, then find an emergency landing spot. We were not that high above the ground and the area was hilly. I picked a smooth slope but by the time I got the pitch right for best glide speed there wasn't much altitude left. We went full power and climbed up to 4500 to try again. This time we were over Livermore. BTW the hill tops were all covered with snow, even some of the lower hills. It's certainly been cold lately. The terrain was nice and flat here, and the extra altitude gave me plenty of time to get the pitch right, and select a good landing field. By the time I established everything I was still so high up I had to do a full 360 circle to lose more altitude. Gliding with an idle engine felt surreal, and a bit eerie. It was so quiet (with my noise cancelling headsets), it felt like i was flying with my own wings. Someday I'll have to try a sailplane. On the other hand, gliding to the ground with an idle engine is a bit scary. What if the engine didn't rev back up when I needed it to? After I turned final Marked asked me to put power back in and climb up to 3000, and the engine cooperated nicely :)

On our way back to PAO the rain came back. Flying in the rain is not that different actually, just with reduced visibility. I called in to PAO tower over Leslie Salt, and got cleared for the option. But I had trouble locating the runway. I didn't figure out where it was until over half way over the bay. I came in a bit high but adjusted for the landing. A bit less flaring than ideal but still not a bad landing, and in a light drizzle, none the less :) One thing I need to improve on my landing is the airspeed. I came in a bit slow today. I usually don't have enough attention to spare on the instruments when landing. As I get more comfortable with it I will be able to check my airspeed even close to ground.

Saw flocks of birds today when flying over Sunol Pass, hundreds of feet below my feet :) That's what flying is about :)

Flight 10 N824LB, 1.4 hours (14.3 total). stalls, steep turns, landings

Another beautiful day for flying. The weather is going to turn next week so this may be the last flight in a week. Today's plan was to do steep turns and stalls over Los Gatos, then some landing practices at SJC. I took us to Los Gatos all by myself - well, almost all by myself. On the ground I heard the squawk code wrong and Mark had to correct me :P He also reminded me of radio communications at various points. But I almost felt I was flying by myself :P

Today we are doing 45 degree bank turns. When the turning gets that steep the perspective from the pilot's seat is skewed. Since the pilot's seat in the 172 is on the left as opposed to in the middle, when you turn left you get below the nose of the plane and it looks like the plane is in a climbing attitude when you look at the nose and the horizon. It's the opposite when turning right, when it looks like the plane is headed downward. I had to referred to the instruments several times during the turns to make sure I have the correct attitude. The G force is also quite evident during the turn, while it's almost non-existent during normal turns. This is probably what it feels like to be in a roller coaster :P Another thing to remember in steep turns is to add power in the turn, since quite a fraction of lift is used to make the turn.

I did a full 360 to the left than a full 360 to the right. I actually managed to control altitude relatively well. Steep turns are fun. I felt a bit like a fighter pilot :P The fast turning rate actually made a a little dizzy, well, just a tiny teeny bit :P and I told Mark I wanted to do another one. The 2nd time when I level out from the left 360 turn, I felt a little bump, the tell-tale sign that I just flew into my own wake. Yeah, a perfect cirle! The following right turn didn't do so well, though. I lost about 200 feet after the turn. Proof that the altitude control in the first one was coincidental :P

After the turns we did some power off and power on stalls, and a turning stall. Still took me a long time to get the plane into a stall, while Mark kept telling me "pull back more, some more, some more..." It takes a lot to get the 172 into a stall. Well, that's a good thing :)

For landing practice Mark asked me to fly low over the runway. I entered left base directly for runway 30L, and flew a normal final approach, but in the end instead of reducing power to idle Mark asked me to add some power and fly down over the runway. Flying so close to the ground without touching down is hard. I kept pulling up and Mark kept asking me to push down. We went around and did it again. This time I flew even lower and at one point actually touched the ground. It would have been a very soft landing if I had intended for it :) The 3rd time we were going in for a touch-and-go. But this time there's a jet coming in for landing and ATC asked us to do two right 360 turns for spacing. I kept my altitude very well during the turns, dead on at 1000 feet. During the turns Marked pointed to me where Valley Fair is. I tried to find our house from there but failed. The touch-and-go went well, too. It's certainly nice to have a long, wide runway to practice landing.

We departed left crosswind towards Palo Alto. When SJC tower asked me to contact Moffet tower I put in the Moffett frequency, pressed the switch button and request transit to Palo Alto, to which I got this response "4 Lima Bravo, this is still San Jose Tower, please contact Moffett at 119.55". Oops, damn the sticky switch button :P Moffett handed us to Palo Alto quickly and I got cleared for straight in landing again. Again I came in a bit high, but not too bad and I managed to get the plane down with a little bounce. The perfect final flare still eluded me. But now I am quite relaxed during landing. Couple more lessons and I should be able to land consistently in calm wind.

flight 9 in N2407N, 1.1 hours (12.9 total) take off and landing, go-around and slip

Wind at 31 kts at 3000 feet today, so we didn't go to the practice area as planned, since the turbulence behind the mountains would be quite bad. In fact, there were two pilot reports, one from an A319 reporting moderate chop, another from a Beechcraft B55 reporting severe turbulence. The A319 is a big Jet, even the B55 is twice in weight to my Cessna. If they think it's bad, it'll be a lot worse for me.

So the decision was to stay in close traffic and practice more take off and landing. Even near ground there's a 15 kts wind gusting to 21kts. Mostly headwind, though, so not a big concern for me (the Cessna can only take 15kts crosswind). I'll also get a taste with slips, which I had seen Mark demonstrating, and felt awkward even watching him doing it. We'll see how that goes.

Taking off in the wind wan't a problem at all. Climbing felt normal but the wind was quite evident. When I turned crosswind at my normal altitude I was significantly closer to the runway than I normal was. I also didn't reduce power fast enough and got 100 feet above pattern altitude. I made adjustments and brought the plane down for a landing, then did a go-around at about 10 feet above the ground. The 2nd time Mark asked me to fly in high, and demonstrated another slip: so you give full rudder in one direction, then bank in the opposite direction to compensate, in the meanwhile reduce power to idle while pushing down. Another go-around and now it's my turn. I did pretty much everything wrong my first try: didn't give enough rudder, didn't bank a lot, did reduce much power, and didn't push down enough :P. I didn't feel the plane was slipping and losing altitude much, and I ended up being 10 feed above the ground, and completely off to the right side of the runway, another go-around ensued... :P

Next we practiced normal landings. I did mostly OK, a bit rough but brought the plane down all but once. The wind didn't cause much trouble on final, but did push the plane around a little for the the last 10-20 feet. In the one failed attempt I got too much off center than I liked and was too close to the ground so I decided to go-around. Before my final landing I tried another slip. Not much better than the first one. The biggest problem was that I wasn't pushing down enough. I admit I was a bit scared to do it. It is counter-intuitive to push the plane down when you are already close to ground. Next time I'll have to forget about the fear and trust physics, as I always do :) The final landing was a bit rough, too. I believe I landing on one gear first :P. But hey, I walked away from the landing. Plus I didn't feel any sickness at all today. So another great day of flying for me :)

flight 8 in N2407N, 1.9 hours, take off and landing

Today was more take off and landing practices down at Wastonville (WVI). I came fully prepared this time, with two plastic bags in my pocket, and Mark brought some, too :). We did a left downwind departure and got handed off directly to NoCal Approach. I was able to recognize 280, 85, and Stevens Creek from the air. Next time I should try to find my house :). Air was pretty calm until we got to the coast area, where it got bumpy all of a sudden. Good thing it got calm again after we get close to WVI. Landing in bumpy air would have been a lot more stressful. WVI is an uncontrolled airport, and I found the radio calls a huge distraction to me. Mark ended up handling half (or more) of the calls. It's also hard to have a clear mental picture of where everyone is when there's more than a couple planes in the area. I was getting a bit better at controlling the plane while listening/talking to on the radio, but there were times when I checked the altimeter and found out I was more than 100ft off where I though I was. My landing kept improving. I did 4 in total. The first couple bounced a little but the last one was quite nice. WVI's runway is longer and wider, which helped, too. Extending my sight further down the runway before touching down, and flaring, became more natural. I was also significantly less tense. My last landing was a full stop (all earlier ones being touch-and-go's), we then taxied back and did a 360 at the hold area. That was a first time me. It's to check for planes in the patter before taking the runway at an uncontrolled airport. We then took off and headed back to PAO. There was near 40kt of headwind on the way back and Mark tried to slow the plane down to get zero ground speed. The wind wasn't quite strong enough for that but he got pretty close. We got cleared for a straight in approach. For some reason long final approaches throw me off. Last time we did this I ended up high, and I did so this time, too, and we did a go-around. Again we got an extended downwind to almost Moffet Field, so another long final approach. I had trouble adjusting altitude again. I managed to land with a little bounce, but far less nice than I did in WVI. This is really interesting. A longer final means more time to adjust which intuitively should be a good thing. I don't know why it doesn't work for me that way.

flight tracks from flight 7

Mark plotted the flight track of some of my maneuvers from our last flight on maps. They are interesting to look at, ant quite revealing :P

The rectangle. The red line is the reference rectangle and apparently I wasn't flying as parallel to it as I though I did :P Turns weren't of a fixed radius, either...

The S turn: the entry should have been steeper. Not too bad for the first time, though :P

Turning around a fixed point. This was the worst one. The red dot was supposed to be the center point of the turn and the effect of the wind is obvious. I did get progressively more and more nauseating during this move, though, so that's my excuse... :P

First landing pattern back at PAO. Doesn't look too bad actually. Altitude control on downwind was pretty good and the descent was smooth. Of course as I mentioned in the last post, I flared too early at the last moment and bounced a little bit.

flight 7 (aka vomit comet): ground reference maneuvers and more landing practice, in N824LB, 1.8 hours

Well, today's flight was, umm, interesting...

So the plan was to practice rectangular flight, s turns across a road, and turning around a spot. The point of these practices is to control your ground track in wind, so we needed some wind for them to be meaningful. The wind wasn't strong but strong enough. 25 knots of wind really should be nothing. But when it blows over the ridge you are trying to fly over it creates enough turbulence to throw the plane up and down quite a bit -- bad news for someone who's prone to motion sickness, e.g. me.

We made right Dumbarton departure, then headed towards Sunol Colf Course and San Antonio Reservoir. I had planned this course into the G1000 on the ground so following it in air was quite straight-forward. From there we headed towards Byron Airport (C83) through Livermore Airport(LVK)'s airspace. We could have overflown it but chose to go through it so I got to talk to tower for permission, a little practice on radio communications. We then passed Brush Peak to the flat terrain near C83. There're some rectangular fields on the ground that made good references for ground maneuvers. We descended to 1000 feet and practiced the maneuvers. I did OK tracking the rectangular lines, crabbing about the proper amount. The turns I did less well. The changing wind made it hard to make smooth changes in banking.

As we were getting ready to do some landing practices at C83 my airsickness caught up to me. I was trying to ignore it since we flew over Sunol pass but it's getting worse and I got the feeling that I was going to throw up. I asked Mark if he had any plastic bags with him but he didn't. I gave control to him and fought my urge to throw up for a couple minutes. Finally I couldn't hold it any more and threw up in my mouth, and swallowed it back (yes, yuk), which of course induced a bigger one that I manged to swallow back, too. A couple minutes after that I was well enough to take controls back from Mark. Meanwhile he had climbed the plane to 5000 feet where the air was smoother. We aborted landing practices at C83 and headed back. I recovered quite fast though so we decided to do the landing practices at PAO. The first landing was a bit bumpy. I flared a bit too early. The 2nd one was even more bumpy, and I did a go-around before Mark asked. I think he was going to try to save the landing actually :P but I already went ahead with the go-around. The 3rd one I still flared too early and it felt as bumpy as the first one. I also overshot my turn to final consistently. But I was still quite happy with those landings. I didn't feel tense as before and I remembered to extend my sight forward as I got close to ground. I think that's good progress. Next time need to remember to turn to final earlier and flare just a split second later.

documenting my flying career :)

Flying has been a long-time dream of mine. A life-time dream, you could say, since I've been dreaming about it since I was 8. In retrospect it's surprising that I put it off for so many years. Reasons abound: school, money, time, family, starting a company... But this year I finally decided none of those reasons (excuses?) is significant enough to put it off any more. I took my discovery flight right after new year and started taking regular classes. This blog will be a record of my journey of flying, and a place to reflect on what I learn along the way.

Today I took my 6th flight. Going forward I'll keep more detailed records about each flight, but going back to write about 6 seems like too much work. Here's a brief of each one:

1st flight: discovery flight, 1/3/2011. 1 hour in N796SP. I was surprised to find that I got to fly most of the time during the flight. Radio communication was a real handful, and I really only spoke to ground control before taxiing out :P. Controlling the direction with foot pedals while taxiing was challenging, too. Mark controlled the direction during taking off, of course. Pulling back on the yoke and seeing the plane pulling up from ground is everything I had imagined and more! Took off from runway 31, made left turn after taking off to cross 101, then flew up along 101 to SFO. Got permission to cross SFO mid-field, that was cool (for me at that time at least :P). Headed to Bay Bridge the around SF over the Golden Gate Bridge. 180 degree turn to head to Oakland, and back to PAO from there. Maintaining straight and level flight seemed so hard :) oh and I didn't feel motion sickness at all.

Sometime in-between was a cancelled flight because of weather. Had two hours of ground instead.

2nd flight: 1/14/2011 1 hour in N784SP. The weather was still not great. Overcast so we didn't go out to the practice area. Stayed close to PAO and worked on pattern, take off and landing. I was able to steer the plane while taking off, although didn't do a great job of it. The plane wiggled quite a bit. I don't think I didn't get anywhere near making an unassisted landing, either. Mark had to step in at the last moment of each landing to correct something. It's just impossible to not tense up and over-grip the yoke and making too many adjustments. Seeing the ground coming up at you from the pilot's seat is something that I have to get used to :)

3rd lesson: 1/15/2011 1.4 hours in N784SP. Finally got some good weather and we flew out to the coast. Today's focus was straight and level flight and slow flight.

4th lesson: 1/18/2011 1.5 hours in N784SP Flew out to the coast and did slow flight and imminent stall. Flew over to HAF and flew over the runway a couple times. Got too close at one go that I almost touched down. Right pattern from runway 30 felt quite close to the hills.

5th lesson: 1/22/2011 1.4 hours in N796SP Bright sunny day, and the air was the bumpiest so far! I was able to steer the plane in quite straight a line on take off. Flew to SJC for some landing practice. I was still tense at the controls and the bumpy air didn't help. On final the plane felt like it could drop 20 feet at any moment. My first attempt was quite bad: hardly did any flare and the plane touched down on all three gears and bounced right back up. Mark had to step in to save the landing. 2nd attempt was rushed by an approaching jet and wasn't much better than the 1st one. Mark then decided we should go to RHV where there's no jumbo jets to disrupt us. Did better at RHV and finally got an unassisted landing, in fact the entire take off/close pattern/landing was unassisted. The air was calmer at the moment which helped a lot. After that took off and went back to PAO. Got cleared for a straight approach, which I flew too high. Mark took over at the last 50 feet and did a forward slip to bring the plane down. Interesting maneuver, a bit scary to watch as a passenger :)

6th lesson: 1/29/2011 1.8 hours in N14008. This is a G1000 cockpit. Low ceiling in the morning and we planned on an IFR take off then go through the clouds and get some instrument time. Although by the time we took off it had improved enough that IFR is not necessary. There's enough break in the clouds for us to climb over it without having to go through it. I put on the hood to block my sight out of the window and did some instrument flying. It felt kind of like playing a video game. Although at times I found myself banking to the wrong side. Later I realized it's because i was used to the mechanical attitude indicator, where the horizon stays horizontal and the little airplane tilts. But on the G1000 display the little airplane stays horizontal while the horizon line tilts. I then took the hood off for some full stall practice, and more hood time on our way back to PAO. Did two landings. 1st one Mark still had to help. The 2nd one was better but I flared too late and too fast. I still managed to land on main gears but it was a bit rough.