Just My Luck

I'm all ready to solo, butterflies in my stomach, excited and nervous. Then the flight school calls two hours before my flight. It turns out that Zodiac 130AW, the plane I was training in, had an accident on landing at the hands of a renter.

The plane was landed hard in a crosswind without proper crosswind correction. This caused the nose gear to fold about ninety degrees, which in turn caused the nose to lower enough for the propeller to strike the runway. This is a Bad Thing, because it destroyed the prop, and the prop is directly connected to the crankshaft of the Teledyne Continental Motors (TCM) 0-200 engine. That means the engine must be removed from the plane, torn down completely, and inspected for damage. It could be fine, or it could be time for a costly major overhaul of all the internals.

What does this mean for me? Sigh...it means I will not be flying the Zodiac for several weeks, at least. There are no other nearby flight schools offering Sport Pilot training. Peachtree-Dekalb airport (PDK) has it, but it's farther away (about an hour's drive or more) and it's is one of the most busy class delta airports in the nation. I don't think I want that kind of pressure during training.

I could take a couple of weeks and go to an accelerated sport pilot training course and finish up quickly, but that's at the whim of the weather, and I've already taken something like 50 hours off work for flight training already, so I'm not thrilled about burning up the rest of my leave.

For now I think I'll just wait and see what happens with N130AW. If it will only be down a few weeks, I can tough it out. If it will be 6, 8, 10+ weeks, I'll have to reevaluate what to do to get this thing finished. In the meantime I'm studying so I can get my written test out of the way.

Sigh...

Pre-Solo Passed & Emergency Procedures

I passed my pre-solo test today with flying colors, so Eric told me to expect to solo either Sunday or Monday...gulp! I think I'm ready, but there is a natural amount or apprehension and nerves that go with getting in an airplane and flying it around with no safety net in the form of an experienced in the right seat.

This morning we practiced engine out emergencies in the Zodiac. First a simulated off field landing from 3500 feet. This is not hard, you just pick a landing spot you can glide to and pitch the airplane for best glide speed (65 knots in the Zodiac). One thing Eric mentioned and I definitely found is that a field that looks great at 3500 feet might look questionable down low. The field I picked looked great up high, but once we got lower it looked a little small and had tall trees on the side I was approaching from. Clearly another case of something in aviation you need to be very conservative about.

We then went to WDR and did some simulated engine outs in the pattern and power off landings. This is an area where a Zodiac is not like a Cessna; once you pull the power to idle in the Zodiac it starts to come down like a meteor. At the 65 knot approach speed we were seeing sink rates up to 1200fpm. Our firt try at this in a normal pattern made it clear we could not make the runway from abeam the numbers. On the second try as soon as I cut the throttle abeam the runway numbers I started a moderate 180 degree turn. This time we made it very well. I gave the plane a little throttle just before the flair to soften the landing, but we would have made it easily even with no power. It just would have been a hard impact landing.

The Zodiac is a great plane, and a lot of fun. A Glider it aint.

Pre-Solo Test Tomorrow

Has it really been almost a month?!? Oh well. In that month, I had seven flight lessons scheduled. Five of seven were canceled due to weather. Highly annoying. I had a lesson two weeks ago, and it was bad; my head just was not in the game. I made five landings -- one of them was really good, two were just okay, and two severely sucked. Nothing dangerous, just pretty marginal technique on my part.

Then yesterday I had another lesson. That one went very well. No major mistakes, though I did miss one ATC radio call. Eric made the reply and didn't say anything, so I guess it's not a biggie. My landings were much better, but I am still having a some problems holding off the nosewheel enough on touchdown...I'll have to play with my stick technique after the main gear touches down and see if I can figure that out.

Tomorrow I have another lesson, and it's going to be some ground school and the FAA mandated pre-solo test. Once that and some logbook endorsements are out of the way, eric will be able to spring my first solo on me whenever he chooses. That's pretty scary, but one learns by doing, right? Wish me luck!

Another Scrubbed Flight and a New Headset

Argh, I was unable to fly Saturday as planned, due to weather. 700ft ceilings and rain are not conducive to student VFR flight. Ah well...I am on the schedule to fly both next Saturday and Sunday, so hopefully two flights close together will make up for the fact I will not have been able to fly in two weeks. It's frustrating to get close to solo and then have to wait so long, hoping my skills don't atrophy to uselessness and end up requiring more hours to get back up to speed.

Equally frustrating is that I just got a new headset to wear in the cockpit, and I have not been able to try it out! I had to return my previous headset from Quiet Technologies; though I loved how light and comfortable it is, it turns out that that lightness also makes it susceptible to radio interference, and I was getting a horrendous squeal from the radio. So I got one of these:

My new set is a fancy Active Noise Reduction (ANR) headset, the Lightspeed Zulu. ANR uses electronics to actively cancel outside noise by using a "mirror image" soundwave to remove outside noise. The Zulu and the Bose Aviation Headset X are considered the two top ANR headsets currently -- I chose the Zulu because it is $150 less than the Bose, and has more audio features. For example, the Zulu has Bluetooth so you can connect wirelessly to a mobile phone, and also has a 1/8" audio-in jack for connecting to an MP3 player or other audio source in flight. The Bose has neither feature, and the audio for both headsets is rated comparably, so it was a no-brainer for me.

Why would you want to talk on a mobile phone in flight? Well, besides the obvious social calls, and telling folks when you are arriving at the airport, you can also use it to contact a Flight Service Station (FSS) to get weather updates while in the air. You can also do this using the radio, but it's good to have options! I think it will be a while if ever before I'd be comfortable enough to try to fly and chat on the phone, but I want a headset that will grow with me!

The "S" Word

I've wrapped up my week of flight training; I have flown seven of the last eight days. I now have over 30 landings under my belt in the Zodiac, and they are no longer the mildly terrifying events they were the first few times. Now they are fun, and each one is a challenge to make the best approach and touchdown I can. I've gotten much better at them, and I can usually hold off on touchdown until I make it nice and gentle. The only issue I still have is that I occasionally still "plop" the nosewheel down after touchdown, but I'm getting better.

In the last couple of lessons we've also added radio communications with air traffic control (ATC) and other aircraft into the mix. Previously Eric had handled all the radio calls while I flew. I had spent a lot of time preparing for this, reading books and articles on proper communications requirements and etiquette. I was really nervous about talking on the radio, but after doing it for a couple of flights, I find to my surprise I actually enjoy the radio work. I'm not sure why, but it's kind of fun to talk to people when you're flying and let them know what you're up to.

So now Eric is using the "S" word: SOLO. That means making three circuits around the pattern, including three takeoffs and landings...by myself. This propect is both exciting and mildly terrifying. I'm pretty sure I can get the plane on the ground okay, but if I forget something or something goes wrong, there is nobody there to save my bacon. Once the wheels lift off, the plane will not get back on the ground safely unless I get it there.

The plan seems to be for me to solo during the next lesson where the weather permits and Eric sees me make at least three good landings with him first. Wish me luck!

Lesson 6: Slips, Emergency Procedures, Crosswind Landings

This was a really packed lesson. We first did a few turns to get warmed up, then I learned how to slip. A slip is when you use a (usually strong) rudder deflection, coupled with opposite aileron. It is usually used to stay centered on the runway during a crosswind landing, or to lose altitude quickly by inducing a strong sink rate. There's nothing difficult about it, though I have not used one on landing (we usually use a different method, "crabbing" with the Zodiac, due to the Zodiac already having a pretty strong tendency to sink on approach).

We then did a simulated engine out descent to an off field landing. Not much different than a standard descent, pitch for best glide (65 knots), then look for a flat spot to set her down on. In an actual emergency you want to set the plane down as slowly as possible to avoid damaging people (primarily) or the plane (severely secondary).

The winds picked up after that, so we flew to Winder (KWDR) for some crosswind landings. It's hard enough for me to land at this point, but add a wind blowing directly across the runway and it gets really hairy. We did three of those at KWDR and then another one back at at Gwinnett (KLZU). That last one was really tough, and I almost had to abort and do a "go around" for another try, but salvaged it in the last few hundred feet.

Eric said I am really improving, so that's good enough for me!

Lessons 4 & 5: I Landed an Airplane!

My last two lessons have included some review and basic flight maneuvers, but have been mainly concerned with...gulp...landings. I did not think I'd be trying to land the airplane so quickly, but so far I've managed to get it on the ground six times and have not bent or broken anything. A few of those landings could not exactly be termed "gentle," but as I said, nothing broken.

Maintaining airspeed, pitch, and sink rate (vertical speed) in the Zodiac is turning out to be a little on the difficult side. I don't think I'm pitching up enough when I add the full flaps, and that lets the speed build up quickly, which is no good. And if you get too slow the Zodiac starts to sink like a stone. It's a balancing act to keep everything just right, and I'm slowly learning how to best juggle everything. I'm getting more willing to make control movements without waiting for Eric to tell me, which is good, but I still miss a lot.

I'm also drifting off the centerline of the runway a lot, leading to some gross corrections. Eric mentioned that he wants me to make smaller corrections earlier, but honestly I think I'm having trouble keeping everything going at the same time. More practice is clearly the remedy here.

I'm scheduled for four hours of training tomorrow, so if I'm not a total basket case by the end of that, I should learn a lot and get in lots of practice, if the weather cooperates. I noticed today I'm getting more comfortable in the plane overall, and not being so ginger on the controls. The result seems to be more positive aircraft control and smoother maneuvers.