Restarting the engine

It's been nearly four years since my first solo flight in an airplane. Many things have happened in that four years and I reminisce about why I stopped flying and haven't been back. I realized that I put my books and study materials away and just tried to forget about the whole thing. Actually, that has happened for about everything since four years ago. I shuffled my entire life under the carpet hoping nobody, including myself, would ever see it. But if you stuck a dead marmoset under there, it's going to get noticed sometime.

In the summer of 2004 I decided that it would be a great thing to write and direct a short film. Everything was pretty good and rolled along. I got the script written, wrangled some money, found crew, got the casting done, started shooting, lots of film shot and in the can, trips to Dallas for some coloring, a rough edit made, just needed to get more things done. But, the project was stalling out in early 2005. Then, I saw that movie. One of those that changes your life.

The Aviator.

I came out of that flick deciding I was going to fly airplanes.

The very next week, I had found my flight school at an airport not far from where I grew up. I took a discovery flight and was ready to go and plunked down the cash to get started right away. I was working part-time, I took out a loan to cover the costs of instruction and plane rental and began flying three days a week.

I covered about 28 hours of flying into December of 2005. Working on the movie kept creeping along at a snails pace until...until....I really don't remember. I know that I was trying to get my film completed and it still wasn't finished. Personal and financial complications were running out of control, I was the most stressed out and terrified of my entire life and didn't know what to do about it. Wait, that's not true, I did know what to do about it. Turn everything OFF! And I mean everything. All the dreams I had, all the goals I had set, all the relationships I had built were being burned left and right as fast as I could. I was in over my head and I wanted out.

Somehow, I did manage to get the film completed and show a premiere in December of 2006. Everyone involved with the project was so glad to see it come to life on the big screen. I talked a big game, but couldn't walk it. In 2007 I got the film into two local film festivals and called it a year. (If you must know www.contactee.net)

I was dejected and felt awful about what I had become as a person. I enshrouded myself inside four walls every chance I could get to stop from letting the outside world in. I wouldn't call it depression. I don't get depressed. I get solitude.

So why am I blogging about this nonsense? This year has finally exposed some good introspection about my past couple of years and what went wrong. I won't go into more detail, but I've learned new things that give me a fresh perspective that wasn't there before, and it is exciting. I love to learn about things that interest me. I like expanding my horizons and climbing an unknown hill occasionally. One of the best things I did last year was to buy a motorcycle and learn how to ride it. Pure bliss when riding out on country roads where it's you, two wheels and the blacktop, nothing to get in your way. I always wanted flying to be like that, just get me up in the sky and go wherever my aim leads me.

I hope to be there again soon.

Over and out.

Checkride

I had another checkride today. Lesson 15 was on the agenda and was dealing with navigation. VOR tracking and ADF. What do the acronyms mean? It probably doesn't matter if you don't need the info. But there are these radio stations peppered all around the country, around airports, near small towns, near little airstrips, even the middle of nowhere. These stations send out signals that you can pick up with special equipment that uses the location of the signal for navigating and plotting courses. It's difficult to explain in a small space, but it's pretty cool stuff that has been around since the 1940's.

Sho was to be my flight instructor, and since he knew that I had only flown twice in the last month, he wanted to make sure that I was comfortable moving ahead and that I didn't just need a review flight. I'm good on almost everything except landing, simply because I don't get enough practice. But the flight went well.

We flew straight and level for awhile, using only instruments for reference, what they call "flying under the hood." You wear a view limiting device that only allows you to see the instruments and nothing outside the windows. It's a strange feeling, imagine driving your car and you can only do it by looking at your speedometer and no outside clues.

We reviewed a lot of material also. Recovery from unusual flight attitudes and stalls.

We headed on back to Wiley Post for some landing work. I came in just fine, set up good, everything was nice. Then the last few seconds became a little hectic. Sho was telling me to do something opposite of what I wanted to do, and this caused a little panic. When we touched down, I explained that what you are telling me is opposite of what I understand I should do on the final part of landing, just before touchdown.

There are differing styles of landing, but I really asked a lot of questions and tried to see something that I could use to help my landings. All in all, it was a good flight and I'm off to fly cross-country!

Solo

My flight instruction was scheduled for 12:00 noon. A slight chance of thunderstorms was forecast for Saturday, but I was fortunate they all passed by early. I glanced out the window mid-morning. the clouds were high, the winds were calm. But in the back of my mind, a thought floated around that maybe the weather might get bad enough to cancel the flight. I ignored it and started to get prepared by going over plans I made the night before.

I got to the flight school, Andy and I briefed first thing. Everything was good. He asked for my logbook as he needed to "check something out." Sure, sure.

I head out to the flightline and see the school's four 172s lined up in wait. There was noone else flying that day. It's a holiday weekend and it was quiet, calm and serene. The only sounds were of an occasional jet or another Cessna doing touch and go's. I preflighted 2099D extra throuroughly and slowly, making sure everything was where it needed to be. I had not flown in in this plane for the last 5 or 6 flights and she was in great shape. By the time Andy came out I was ready to go.

We took off into virtually no wind and the airplane floated off the tarmac with barely any coaxing. I noticed a running track I hadn't seen before just southwest of the airport. Upon turning north I comment on the housing addtion we are about to fly over. I think it's strange that people would want to live so close to an airport. We circle around the pattern for two stop and go's on 17R 5,000 ft stretch. After we takeoff from our second landing, Andy instructs me to call tower for a full-stop. Here it comes. But I'm calm, and we land on the main runway.

As we begin to taxi back to Oklahoma Aviation, I think, "this is it, just like the stories I read about. I'm about to fly solo."

We park, Andy produces my log book he acquired earlier and scribbles, I suppose, some very important information in it. He unplugs his headset, opens the door, hops out and wishes me luck with a handshake.

I call ground and head back out for takeoff. I feel good, no nervousness. I know that I can do this. I run through the checklists before takeoff before I hold short of the main runway.

I make the call. "Wiley Post Tower, Cessna two-zero-niner-niner-delta, holding short runway one-seven left, ready for take-off, closed traffic."

I receive clearance and roll onto the runway...doublecheck everything before applying full throttle...off I go.

The next fifteen minutes was beautiful. For three months I had been working towards this moment of being able to fly this $180,000 piece of hardware alone into the sky. A smile crosses my lips as I climb through the air. I stay focused on my work and hit my airspeeds and altitudes while coming around for that first landing. Everything looks good as the runway creeps closer. I drive across the threshold and slowly ease out the throttle, rotate for the flare, float a little bit and drop down a few feet, roll to a stop. That's number one. Two more to go. Okay, what do I check? Flaps up, trim for takeoff, rich mixture, engine instruments looking good.

I make the next two landings without incident and head back to parking. After the engine shuts down, some slight excitement shakes set in. Andy comes out and brings me my certificate and a Oklahoma Aviation shirt as a gift. Andy helps to get the plane parked and locked up. Tom Kilpatrick, the owner of the company, comes out with a big smile and congratulates me. "Welcome to an elite club!" he says. I have the obligitory picture taken with Andy for the flight school photo album.

The sense of accomplishment is huge. I'm on top of the world and feel fantastic. Andy informs me that I'm about a third of the way to private pilot. There is still alot of flying to do.

Ahh, pilot training. Gotta love it.

Emergency procedures

What do you do if your engine fails? What about an engine fire? What if the wings fall off? Questions like these are necessary to answer if you're going to be flying an airplane and want to live through an emergency.

For the the day's breifing, Andy quizzed me on a few things about the main emergencies we need to worry about. The first being, what should you do when your engine quits? Go through the ABC's of course. Not that you are going to recite the alphabet song, but do your checks - (A)irspeed, (B)est field, and (C)ockpit checks. Airspeed is set for best glide (65 KIAS) so you can get plenty of distance to reach your...Best field, an appropriate landing in a field or airport runway that you think is most appropriate. Cockpit checks are to determine the problem that is the cause of the engine failure and if it can be fixed.

We went up in 425ER and headed for the practice area. I had not flown in two weeks and didn't remember a few things, but nothing too serious. I had not flown this particular plane for over two months. It's a 1998 172S and was well used by another flight school before being acquired by Oklahoma Avaiation. The armrests are cracked and the interior has been stressed by many would be private pilots. Cosmetics aside, the plane handled well.

We got set up at 4000' MSL for our beginning maneuvers. Andy put the engine on idle, simulating engine failure, and asked what I should do....

I had been practicing mentally for these procedures for two weeks prior and felt prepared. I set the plane for its best glide at 65, looked for a best landing field 1.5 miles in front of us to the north (we had a south wind that afternoon) and began my cockpit checks, simulating any levers being pulled or switches thrown.

As we got closer to my chosen landing field, Andy asked me "do you think we're going to make it?"

"Yeah, we can make it," I replied. I kept heading straight north to the field, just like I saw in the instructional video I saw for ground school.

We approached closer to the field. Floating gently down at 500 feet per minute.

"Okay, are you going to land downwind? There are much closer fields that you can use to land into the wind instead of one so far away with the wind behind us," Andy told me.

One thing I've noticed about my flying, is that if I try to do something like I've just seen or heard, from an instructor or a video, and apply it in the airplane "just like I saw or heard about how to do it," there are always pieces of information missing that would make something more logical, simpler, easier or safer. The way you do it, is not exactly the way someone else is going to do it. But it doesn't mean you are wrong, just different.

Of course, there is always something you don't know because you're a flying noob with 14 hours under your belt!

We continued flying emergency approaches and did a complete power off descent all the way down to the tarmac at Sundance Airpark. Andy's preference is to get right over the airport as quickly as possible, as not to come up short of the runway, and implement a forward slip to lose the altitude, get down quick and use up plenty of runway for a safe landing. In this particular case, the forward slip to reach the runway was fun.

Landing can be an exciting affair. I've always liked them, and the more awkward the approach, the funner it gets. Forward Slip - High over the runway, put in full right rudder, a bunch of left aileron and you do a diagonal skid through the air that causes a quick loss of altitude. Roll it out and line up with the runway, then the final landing flare. Not bad, nothing like an emergency, and there is always complete control of the aircraft.

We did maybe two more of those and headed back for a normal landing at Wiley Post to conclude the lesson.

I sat down in the office for the de-brief and look down at my shirt to see that it was soaked with sweat. "Well, I just survived four or five engine failures. I guess I should be sweating."

Just a walk in the clouds

Wednesday was a very nice day to fly, just enough wind for a challenge, about 20 kts, but it was almost straight down runway 17L. No crosswind takeoff/landing practice today. Hopefully soon...I'm really looking forward to learning those.

After I got to the office, I talked to Tom Kilpatrick about skydiving. He's done about 165 jumps and had a few cool stories to tell. I met up with Andy and he sent me right out to preflight the plane.

The first thing I noticed was the airplane was being refueled. I said hello to the guy doing the job and hopped in the plane for a few checks while he finished gassing up and cleaning the windshield. It's nice to be able to have a clear view.

Andy came out while I was still doing my checklist and he was in a really good mood. It always helps me out, I tend to get really quiet and not talkative while going through the numerous items in the pre-flight checklist. After I got done, we went inside for a little briefing on the maneuvers for the day. The main being steep banks, defined as a 45 degree bank angle and 360 degree rotation. Sounds like fun. Up to this point, I felt nervous about going past 30 degrees of bank, it felt like I was going to fall out of the plane, but Andy assured me that the plane could handle up 60 with no problem, and even more. Okay.

We got out to take off with no problem and I handled all the radio duties with ease, surprising myself. We climbed up to 4,000 msl where we would remain for the next 35 minutes or so. We flew around a bit, needing to escape some traffic that kept flying through the area, and set up for the maneuvers.

We did some slow flight, and he covered up my instruments so I couldn't see any of them. I discovered that I like to look at the instruments because I think that they are what is keeping me in the air. If I'm not looking at them, we're going to run into the ground at any second! Surprisingly, that was not the case. After left turns and right turns, Andy would let me see the instruments again only to show that we didn't lose any altitude at all, we remained right at 4,000 feet. "Sweet!" I exclaimed, "who would have that the plane can stay in the air without my head in the cockpit!"

We soon made our way to the north and Andy started the first steep bank to show me how it worked. A forty-five degree angle may not seem like much, but in that plane, it seems as if your are sitting on a wall. We went around a full circle in only 10-15 seconds and leveled out. It wasn't too bad, it made me slightly dizzy though. Okay. my turn. 45 degrees of bank to the left....add a little power...a little back pressure to avoid losing altitude because of the increased drag...hold it...hold it...hold it...come back to our starting direction and level out. Fantastic. "Kinda makes you feel like your a fighter pilot for a minute," Andy said.

We did more of those in different directions and some variations with the controls. All of them turned out great. I was very stern with maintaining altitude throughout the turns also, not letting us waver more than 50-100 feet higher or lower than 4,000. I was getting better.

We headed back to KPWA and did some forward slips down to the runway, those were cool. We were way high over the runway when we would begin them and come down really fast, but always in control. It's hard to describe how forward slips feel. The plane is pointing one direction while you actually fly another and drop altitude at 1500 feet per minute. Very strange, but practical if you need to land just past some 200 ft tall pine trees at a strip in Aspen.

Ahh, pilot training, gotta love it.

Get back on the horse...err...airplane

I've been getting tired of being kicked around by N872SP the last few flights. I had been flying a lovely bird dubbed N2099D (two zero niner niner delta) and fell in love with flying it. From the first time I climbed in, it fit like a glove and flew perfectly, right in sync, like an extension of me.

But when I saddled up 872SP, I developed an itch I couldn't scratch.

Inside and outside, everything appeared the same, airframe, radios, avionics, all that good stuff. But right after she kissed the tarmac goodbye, something didn't feel right. During the initial climb-out, I looked at the tachometer to see how fast the engine was running, and there was my first clue. The tach was unusual to me, a few more tick marks and a longer green stripe, indicating cruise. I thought, "well, it's a different plane, so there's a different tach, no big deal." But as I continued to fly her for the next hour, I couldn't seem to get her flying straight, or the same altitude, turns were very difficult to coordinate and she was a bitch to land. It was a fight I didn't feel I could win. Like trying to pin an octopus in a wrestling match.

After touchdown and taxiing back to park I was exhausted. Suddenly, I remembered that this tin can had 20 more horsepower. I exclaimed this revelation to my instructor who casually responded, "yep." Well, maybe it's just that I forgot how to fly. I was just rusty. Yeah, that's it.

I didn't fly at all for two weeks and then had to take my progress check in the boxkite that had been giving me so much trouble. I won't repeat what happened there, you can read about it in the earlier post. Needless to say, I wasn't happy.

Anyways, back to Saturday's flight. I was on standby because Andy's schedule was full for the week. But, as luck would have it, at 12:08 p.m., Andy called me and said his 2:00 was open if I wanted to go. Absolutely. I wanted back in the air. I wanted to prove to myself I could actually fly a plane and not be some underconfident schmuck. Today was a new day, I was a new pilot.

I got to the airport and Andy went through the pre-flight for the day's maneuvers. It was mostly a review flight, no sweat. But which plane are we flying? "Two Sierra Papa," he said. Excellent! She is mine today. I was going to take that white dove by her sweet little neck and break it. Not really, but I was going show her who was boss!

I taxied out of the run-up area with a fervor, eager to jump into the air. Andy didn't say anything, but I had to reel myself in and slow my taxi on the way to the runway. I couldn't get there quick enough.

We took off into straight 15-20 knot headwinds and she hopped off the tarmac like a feather. Already cleared for the right turnout, I headed to the practice area. Andy only needed to tell me what to do, and I put the whip on her. She was going to do things my way, the way I wanted it, whether she liked it or not. Left turns, right turns, circles around a point, S-turns, constant speed climbs and descents, she did my will without flinching. My confidence driving the plane where I told her to go. At the end, I took her over Sundance at 2300 AGL then descended back down to land at Wiley Post, plowing her straight into the runway for a perfect landing.

Finally, the young buck was broken. It's quite possible that this beast and I are going to be good friends after all. We just had to reach a mutual understanding.

Ahh, pilot training. Gotta love it!

Progress Check...

OR, what could be known as the "check what you thought you might think you know but really don't" flight.

Actually, it wasn't too awful for a Wednesday. Sho Kassim, Oklahoma Aviation's head flight instructor, was my new passenger to check my state of affairs. Getting in that plane with someone new was a good experience. I was nervous at first and trying to get myself to relax but couldn't. I thought the most of how I wish I had a bottle of water with me to eliminate my cotton mouth.

I preflighted the plane by myself, came back inside, did a little check in session of what we were going to be doing on the flight and then headed out. I was hoping that this wasn't going to be like a driver's test, but it was. He would ask me to do something and then I would ask him again, just to make certain I knew what he wanted me to do. While getting ready for takeoff, there was lots of jabber on the radio, which didn't seem to help, so Sho took over radio duties and just wanted me to fly the plane. That was a nice relief, but I've been working on radio work quite a bit lately. My problem is that I practice by myself. When I talk to a real person that needs an answer, it's easy to get flustered.

Takeoff was a uneventful as we proceed to four thousand feet AGL to begin maneuvers. Sho was really quiet and didn't talk hardly at all, except to ask me to do a maneuver. I would question him some on what procedure I should take, but he would just tell me to do it the best I could remember. After trying to remember how to get into slow flight, (slow flight? what the heck is slow flight?) I would ask him what to do. No answer. I would babble something about what I thought he wanted me to do, but he would just not budge. After 10 minutes of that I finally thought, "okay, I'm flying this plane then, and he's along for the ride. I'm the expert here, so act like it."

I cut the chatter and would only repeat back to him the maneuver he asked for. Turn left, turn right, constant speed descent at 90 knots, set up for landing (sucky, sucky) and so forth. Not flying with an instructor for 2 weeks and then doing this ride wasn't too simple a task, even though I had beed practicing everything on the simulator at home. I did two overworked landings that weren't too bad, but on our final he offered some great advice, just set your power and direct your PLANE to the point selected on the runway.

"Oh!" I exclaimed, "I always pick a point, I just don't point the airplane that way." DOH!

Back on the ground, the guys made me feel good, Sho didn't have any real worries about me, other than I keep my head to much in the cockpit and not outside. That is already an absolute known about my flying, I want to always fly on instruments. So, he gave me a passing grade and I will go flying with Andy the next time. That's going to be nice, except he's going to cover all my instruments while flying.

Ahhh, pilot training, gotta love it.