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