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.