Aviation

Flight Training

Documenting my journey through flight training towards my Private Pilot License.

Criss Cross Country

Posted on May 16, 2016.

We did our first cross country today to Rockford International (RFD).  Did the usual dead reckoning flight plan and learned a few things about what does and does not make a good checkpoint.  RFD has TRSA, which means talking with an approach controller.  Fumbled that a bit, but did OK.  Winds were gusty and so I struggled with the cross wind a little bit, but it was fine on that huge runway.  It was pretty cool slinking around the airport among those huge jets.  Flew back to PWK using radio navigation, which was pretty straight forward.

Landed on runway 24 at PWK for the first time.  I cut it too close when turning into the downwind and then forgot about the displaced threshold.  Got too slow on the final approach, as my timing was thrown off due to the threshold.  Just a matter of not adapting the procedure to the circumstances.  The landing itself was fine.

Overall, it was a challenging experience and I learned a great deal.  It felt good to fly away from the airport for a change of pace.

Too Rusty and Gusty

Posted on May 09, 2016.

Went back up into the pattern for the past few flights after taking about a month off.  Felt pretty rusty and nervous and the gusty winds haven't helped matters.  I still feel like I am trying to figure out crosswind landings, but have started working on short and soft field takeoffs in the meantime.

Things started coming together a bit more by the 3rd or 4th flight in these conditions, which have persisted these past few weeks.  After today's flight, my instructor said "your landings are safe, just not good." Gotta start somewhere! Basically, he was saying that I am getting close to my first solo.  However because of the FAA rule change regarding medical certificates, I am still waiting for my student pilot license.

When we finally got a less gusty day, my landings were good enough that we started practicing short and soft field precision landings.  Felt pretty good about this morning's flight and so we are going to move on to cross country flights while I wait for my license to arrive.

Around and Around We Go

Posted on March 31, 2016.

Been doing pattern work around KPWK for the past three lessons.  Definitely hit a wall with the landings, but I guess that's pretty normal.  For me, it's mostly about staying calm during the final approach so that I keep flying the plane during the flare.  The more landings that I got behind me, the calmer I became and the better my touchdowns were.  He threw some cross wind landings in there too, but they were pretty light crosswinds.

That came to an end on today's flight when we flew in gusty conditions.  Being thrown around by the wind in the pattern definitely got me riled up and brought back some bad habits (like drifting to the right).  Things got better towards the end as I calmed down and was able to think and fly it to the ground.

Next time he wants to add short field and soft field takeoffs.  I guess that means that my takeoffs are decent enough.

Erase All Memory

Posted on March 18, 2016.

Did pattern work at K3CK today, which is an uncontrolled airport.  My pattern work and radio calls got better as the lesson went on, but all of the landings were terrible.  I generally over-controlled it and flared too fast.  Some not-so-great approaches just made it worse.

For some reason, my cameras only captured about 15 seconds of footage, so all I have is the intercom audio.  It's frustrating that I can't learn anything more from that flight, but a part of me is almost relieved that I don't have to relive it.

Starting To See a Pattern

Posted on March 11, 2016.

This flight started-off a little hectic.  After getting all started-up, I made the call to ground for taxi clearance and got no response.  It also sounded wrong over the headset when the button was pressed.  After fiddling around with the radio and intercom, it seemed that we were not transmitting.  The school had a spare radio, so after a swap-out we tried to get underway again.  But again, ground did not respond when I called for clearance.  After waiting a bit, they finally did respond, saying that the fire department was in the tower because of a gas leak.  Apparently, the morning wasn't just hectic for me.

I had prepared for the lesson expecting to head back over to the practice area and perform S turns and turns around a point again, since I had no wind to deal with last time.  Then if we had time, we'd take a shot around the pattern overflying the runway.  As we headed over there, there were some clouds above the spot we had used.  So we found another spot and after a couple of turns around a point (skipped the S turns), we headed straight over to K3CK for some practice in the pattern.  I had prepared to some extent and we talked it over before we took off, but had not memorized flow checks or anything.  We spent quite a bit of time over there, doing 4 circuits to a full stop.  It was quite overwhelming and I felt like I hadn't prepared as well as I could have.  It seems like he really wanted to expose me to this, since I had commented previously that my landings were all a blur to me.  All of my landings were bad, but I was conscious of what I was doing and so had something to think about afterwards.

This is the first flight where I captured two camera angles.  I didn't like having the side angle last time, so I tried mounting the foward-facing camera on the back window and the second camera facing the instruments.  That didn't work well, because the camera didn't get a good view out the front and what view it did get was overexposed from having so much of the cabin in the shot.  I'm going to install a self adhesive GoPro mount overhead so that it can see out the front better.  The instrument camera worked OK, but not great, as it couldn't really see the altimeter from that angle.