Flying

“India Victor Tango, congratulations on your first solo…”

I’ve always heard that every pilot, even those who have been flying for many years, never forget their first solo. Now, having had the privilege of doing the same myself, I can see why pilots can never shut up about their first solo – it’s an experience that is hard to describe, or make an analogy of.

It’s an odd feeling when the instructor asks you if you feel ready to go out by yourself, finding yourself unable to refuse and then, the next thing you know, the instructor’s closed their hatch on the run-up bay. Silence. You taxi slowly, down the taxiway, towards runway 35L. You’re excited, but you can’t seem to keep the rudder pedals steady or get a steady pressure on the brakes while turning. They’re just trembling far too much. You find it hard to hit the brakes before running over the runway entrance. You take a deep breath.

“Moorabbin Tower, Cessna 152 India Victor Tango is runway 35L, for circuits, first solo, with Quebec, ready.”

And before you know it, you’re airborne.

And it’s then you realise. You’re on your own.

It’s a very different kind of experience when you’re airborne by yourself. Maybe it’s just me (or the lack of the instructor’s weight!), but the flying experience is so much more fun! It’s almost like this is the experience that I’ve been waiting for my whole life. I also kinda enjoyed the utter silence, for want of a better word, in the cockpit. And those nerves? I dunno. They just seemed to go away once I was airborne.

I then completed an uneventful circuit.

It was only after I had landed and made my ground call that I realised what I had just achieved. The tower congratulated me for having done my first solo, that slap of reality. I then picked up my instructor from the run-up; she proceeded to ask me how it was and congratulated me for having completed the solo whilst we taxied back to the school.

Looking back, now I can truly understand why you never forget your first solo. I know I won’t.

Finally free from the grasps of assignments (but not quite exams!), I can finally write about the flying that I’ve done during October. It’s been a fairly good month as far as the weather is concerned; windy, but not too much, and relatively dry.

The last few lessons have been mostly revision flying. Most of the time was spent drilling the circuit pattern and working on softening up my landings.  Needless to say,  my landings still suck! I really need to be not so scared of the ground and flare a lot later – I think I’m flaring too early causing my plane to stall some distance to the ground. However, my instructor says that my circuits and approach have been generally quite nice other than the fact that I need to watch my airspeed on final. I also had a lesson where I revised stalling and incipient spin recovery.

I was also introduced to glide approaches, where the engine power is pulled at some point late downwind. Obviously, this is to simulate an engine failure in the circuit (or anywhere else for that matter). The drill is to (simultaneously) get the plane into a best glide attitude (i.e., 65kt), trim and run through the engine failure checklist which is CFM (carby heat, fuel/oil, master/magnetos/mixture). At the same time, depending on current altitude, the circuit would either be abbreviated or completed as normal.

Needless to say, my glide approaches still suck. I think I’ve only made the runway threshold once. At least I’m making the field, though…something to work on anyway. I need to learn how to judge how much I need to abbreviate the circuit by in order to come in with a good approach and not fall just short of the threshold (there’s still runway as its a displaced threshold).

I was also taught a technique that I can use in case I need to have a flapless approach (due to flap failure or similar) called sideslipping. This is where the controls are crossed intentionally to create additional drag in lieu of flaps (they shouldn’t be used together). To do one, I’d roll using aileron and counter the yaw by using opposite rudder. I’ve found that quite a bit of rudder (almost full deflection) seems to be the right amount for not a huge amount of aileron. Also, I still haven’t quite worked out which direction I should be deflecting the rudder/ailerons in relation to the prevailing wind, but my guess would be aileron pointing to the direction of wind and rudder the opposite.

I also had the opportunity to sit in the Diamond DA40 that Tristar operate with Bradley, one of my brother’s friends who is currently pursuing his CPL, at the controls. This was a brand new plane complete with glass cockpit and composite airframe. Sadly, I don’t have any photos of the really shmick interior, but it is very nice. Also, being a low-wing, I had my first experience of getting into one…climbing onto the wing felt a little strange especially with the kind of weight I’m carrying around. I was slightly worried that it would fall off! The flight control was a joystick between the legs (it sticks out of the seats) which made climbing into it whilst avoiding a collision in that general region interesting. However, once buckled in and on the move, I was absolutely gobsmacked at the technology in the aircraft; millions of different things happening on those two glass displays. After taking off on runway 17R, we headed to the training area. The canopy of the Diamond gave excellent visibility and, as a passenger and not having to worry about flying the aircraft, I had an opportunity to really admire the views around Moorabbin. I’m still kicking myself for not bringing a camera!

Brad showed me some of the features of the aircraft, including how well it climbed when pitched up hard (and not stalling in the process!), its turning performance and the auto-pilot. I must say, after paxing on the DA40, that I’m thoroughly hooked on this aircraft and will work towards an endorsement on it after I get my PPL!

Unfortunately, the last few weeks of the university semester does mean a lot of assignment work. I haven’t even had a chance to look at this blog during this time! A post is coming though, I promise. But, in the last few weeks I’ve done:

• circuit revision
• glide approaches
• side-slipping
• EFATO/Go-Around revision
• stalling revision

I’ve also sat the pre-solo/pre-area solo exam as well as had an opportunity to fly in the Diamond Star DA40, which was absolutely amazing. More to come when I have some time!

This post is for a lesson I had last week. Uni breaks tend to mean lots of uni assignments unfortunately…on the bright side, only three weeks left!

We did some more circuits today on 31R and boy did they suck. I’m not sure if it was the weather or the new runway or something else that caused me to trip up, but my landings were pretty darn hard. During the lesson, we also looked at Engine Failures After Take Off (EFATO) and Go-Arounds.

One of the key rules about aviation is to always follow this set of priorities – aviate, navigate and communicate. In other words, make sure you’re flying the plane safely, you know where you’re going and then let everyone know of what you’re doing. This is especially true in emergency situations. You don’t want to find yourself talking to ATC after an engine failure, only to find out that you’ve lost 1000ft in altitude because you let the aircraft stall on you. So, in the event of any emergency, fly the plane first!

In the case of an engine failure, the first thing is to immediately lower the nose attitude and trim for 65kts. Whilst doing this, run through the engine failure (CFM) checklist. This is:

Carby heat ON
Fuel ON
Magnetos, Mixture, Master BOTH/RICH/ON

After these checks, time permitting, an engine restart can be attempted. However, most time there will be insufficient time to worry about this, especially after take-off. As such, the first priority is to look for a suitable landing field in front of you within 30 degrees. Things like ovals, beaches or other natural features that would be relatively large and smooth. Preferably also away from populated areas.  Roads are possible too, but is probably not a good idea around Moorabbin especially when you include the consideration of power lines.

If you can’t find anything within 30 degrees, try 45 degrees. If there’s nothing within 45 degrees, try for anything on the windscreen. The trick is to avoid turning as gliding turns are highly inefficient and a lot of altitude (read: time) is lost.

Then call ATC. Last thing to do.

As for go-arounds, it is a matter of making a timely decision to do so. Then, by applying full power and trimming the aircraft for 75kts, the aircraft should start climbing. Once a positive rate of climb is established (500ft/min and climbing), start releasing the flaps in stages. As each stage of flap is retracted, there will be a sinking tendency as the aerofoil size has been decreased. Ensure that there is always a positive rate of climb before retracting a stage of flap.

During all this, flying should be to the dead side of the circuit (i.e., right hand side where left hand circuits are in operation). However, at YMMB where there are parallel runways, the go-around circuit is slightly to the side of the circuit (so, ‘inside’ the normal circuit). Whilst climbing, look around, especially at the runway, for traffic. Do not turn onto crosswind until past the threshold at the end of the runway. After this, fly a normal circuit.

Of course, tell ATC that you’re going around – but most importantly, aviate, navigate and communicate.

After a day of absolutely atrocious weather causing my lesson to be cancelled last week, I was able to fly in slightly less atrocious weather today (it was still pretty bad!). Winds were varying between 300 and 350 at 20kts with a 10kt crosswind, and the ride was very bumpy on upwind and final.

Flapless landings/circuits is a way to practice and become familiar with how the plane handles in a circuit where the flaps have failed. They aren’t too different from your regular circuit except for the obvious fact that you don’t use flaps. Flaps create extra drag which means that a lower RPM setting is needed to increase the rate of descent as it is lower due to the lowered drag. This also means that the nose attitude will be somewhat higher. It is otherwise the same as any other landing.

I did four circuits today, as that’s all we could fit into the time that was available due to VH-IVT being due in for a 100 hourly maintenance check as well as the additional time spent holding and waiting for three aircraft that decided to all come onto short final one after the other. Also, we wanted to avoid the worsening weather that was approaching the airport and thus avoid a VFR into IMC incident (hell, you see the cloud/rain front moving in towards YMMB!). I must admit, I was a little scared!

Tomorrow’s lesson is on engine failures after take-off (EFATO) and glide approaches (I think). Apparently tomorrow’s weather is meant to be somewhat better than today’s, but I am no longer trusting the Bureau of Meterology. It was meant to be sunny on Sunday dammit!

Bring on summer. That is all.

Success!

Did another 7 circuits today, in what could be described (by a rookie pilot) as rather nasty conditions – there was around 10 knots of crosswind which made staying in the circuit pattern and maintaining centre-line a particular challenge. The aircraft, on the crosswind and base legs, was pointed at least 20-30 degrees off the apparent circuit path in order to stay in the circuit path!

I’m particularly glad that I was able to make the last two landings of the lesson very nice and soft landings – perhaps the best landings of my aviation ‘career’ thus far!

With that, my instructor has told me that she’s happy to move onto flapless landings in the next lesson which is next Saturday.

Yay!

The last couple of weeks have been absolutely horrible for my flying -- have been bogged down with assignments from university and have not had the time to sit down and write a decent post about these lessons, the last of which was two weeks ago (eep!). The last couple of lessons have been a bit of a combination of sheer boredom (stalls) and being so busy I’m not sure that I’m even flying the aircraft safely (circuits).

My stalls lesson was two weeks ago, to what was originally looking like absolutely beautiful weather. After the briefing though, clouds had started to roll in but a stroke of luck (?) ensure that these clouds stayed at just over 4000′, the minimum for this lesson.

Stalling is a fairly simple concept really, though it is distinct from what most people would associate stalling with (i.e., stalling a car). It’s a condition where the wings ‘eat’ too much of the relative airflow. In other words, it is when the angle of attack (i.e., the angle between the airflow and the chord line of the wing) is beyond a ‘critical’ angle -- in most GA aircraft this is 16 degrees AoA. Another misconception (which is not wholly unjustified) is that  of the ’stall speed’. It is possible to stall an aircraft at any speed as long as the critical AoA has been exceeded. However, as most GA aircraft don’t have instruments to measure AoA (), airspeed is used as there is a correlation between the two.

I would guess that the correlation is what I had derived in Lesson 2’s post -- for any given change of amount of lift, either angle of attack or velocity/airspeed must increase whilst the other decreases as given by .

Symptoms of a stall include:

• high nose attitude
• low speed
• low cabin noise
• sloppy controls
• stall warning horn
• control buffet (shaking)

Turning the aircraft means that more lift needs to be generated in order to maintain level flight. This is because the lift force vector is perpendicular to the wingspan, whilst weight (its opposite force) remains in a direction perpendicular to the earth. This means that the vertical component of the lift vector during a turn will be less than than the lift during straight and level flight. In addition, banking the aircraft means that the lower wing has more drag and the upper has less. This effectively means that the lower wing has a tendency to stall at a earlier point than the upper wing -- this is an incipient spin. This is corrected by neutralising the ailerons, pointing the nose down to unstall the wing and applying opposite rudder to the spin direction to end the spin.

Further to this, power-on stalls are more likely to cause a wing drop (which can lead to an incipient spin) as, due to the slipstream effect, the tips of the wing will stall first. However, in general, the Cessna 150/152s are designed to stall from the root of the wing first.

This is a sobering video of such a stall (it did not reach the spin stage, but there was obviously a loss of lift) of a B-52 at a low altitude. All four crew were killed when a near 90 degree bank was attempted around the last minute of the video:

As for the lesson, we did power-off stalls with both gliding and powered recoveries. Entering a stall (well, who needs to remember this -- it’s not like something you exactly want to enter!) meant turning on carby heat, reducing power to idle and pitching the nose (read: angle of attack) up. When the stall warning sounded, it was time to start the recovery. In a gliding recovery, the nose is pointed down to pick up speed so that the aircraft reaches the best-glide speed (in a C150/152, this is 60 knots) and then is configured for a gliding descent. Recovery should take around 200-300′ -- I was able to manage it in about 300-400′ or so. A powered recovery, which should only lose around 50-100′, involves turning off the carby heat, pushing the throttle in, pointing the nose slightly down and then, using A-P-T, setting the aircraft up for a normal cruise. I managed this recovery in 100′.

The following lessons were on circuits. I’ve been told that this is the initially overwhelming, but subsequently boring, part of training; but is something that has to be absolutely nailed 100%. Rather than explain in verbosity what the circuit is, I’ll just do a diagram of it in WordArt (lol).

Circuit Pattern -- YMMB RWY 35R

As you can probably see -- a lot of work. It pretty much calls for the use of all the things I’ve learnt in lessons 1-5 -- flying straight and level downwind, climbing and descending, turning, (not) stalling and, obviously, knowing the effects of controls. Something I’ll have to work on is my landings -- by the looks of my first two circuit lessons, they really do suck -- a lot. Also, I came close to smashing into some birds during lesson 7…two seagulls decided to (nearly) get in my way! An EFATO (engine failure after take-off) would’ve sucked at that point, as I was still upwind and at 400′ or so.

I can imagine this blog getting pretty boring as I progress through this (what seems to be) repetitive phase of training. I promise pretty pictures when (if*) I go solo!

* will be explained later…

Last night, I had an opportunity to fly one of the A320 simulators at Ansett Aviation Training in Tullamarine. Jennifer (aka darksarcasm) went with me on the simulator and has written an excellent report about what happened. It just means that I don’t have to!

J and J in the A320 Simulator

Instead, I can write that long overdue post on my lesson on stalling. University assignments have been keeping me very busy.

I seem to be blogging a lot after the fact these days due to the kind of workload that Uni is throwing at me; I’m just gonna do my best!

This lesson was last Sunday and was on medium-level, climbing, descending and gliding turns. It was in very choppy weather which made it rather interesting up there. Something else that made it interesting was the fact that my hatch decided to pop open during the takeoff, just after we had lifted off the ground. It made for a, well, interesting few moments in the cockpit. I was also a bit scared of doing any left turns during the flight because of that.

Note to self: When doing the ‘Hatches and Harnesses’ check, actually try and force the door open.

So, onto the rest of the lesson. We covered all kinds of turns today – medium level (30 degrees of bank), climbing, descending and gliding turns. When an aircraft banks, the lower wing has less lift and the other wing has more lift. This means that the higher wing will go faster than the low one, resulting in a turn. The lift vector is now not in the same line as the weight vector, as some of it is now being used in the bank (so, something like a 30 degree angle) which means that the vertical component of lift is lesser than the weight component. Therefore, the nose needs to be raised in order to generate additional lift such that the aircraft holds its altitude.

To keep the aircraft balanced, use rudder to center the balance ball on the turn co-ordinator. This is to avoid skidding (too much rudder in the direction of the turn) or slipping (not enough rudder). Both these states are aerodynamically inefficient flight states.

As a safety consideration, clear blindspots by rolling the wings and execute the turn.

So the process for executing a turn is:

LOOKOUT!
Bank
Backpressure
Balance

Things to remember:

• Do not trim in the turn
• Before turning, pick a reference point to where you want to go and use it. Don’t rely on instruments
• Use the horizon to determine bank angle, and instruments to confirm. Don’t rely on instruments
• Anticipate the rollout of the turn
• Don’t need much rudder to balance the aircraft
• Stall speed increases in a turn
• Do not use ailerons to level the aircraft in case of a stall during a turn as it will worsen the incipient spin. Use rudder instead.

Descending turns are similar to medium level turns, the only difference is that a rate of descent of 500ft/min should be maintained rather than straight and level. An exception to this is are the gliding turns – where the optimal glide speed (60kt in a C150/152) is maintained rather than the rate of descent. What’s interesting to note about the glide turn is that the aircraft remains relatively stationary over the ground during the manoeuvre. Because of this, a golden safety rule exists:

NEVER EVER return to the airfield if you have an engine failure on takeoff – you simply won’t make it back.

Climbing turns are slightly different to the other turns. There is a less steep angle of bank – only 15 degrees – as the aircraft will stop climbing if it is banked any more. In addition, some forward pressure (instead of back pressure) needs to be applied to maintain airspeed above the stall speed.

My next lesson is scheduled for tomorrow and is on stalls. Hopefully, Mother Nature will be nice and give my a cloud base of over 4000ft or my lesson might be cancelled.

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In other news, I recently attempted the Pre-Solo exam in the Bob Tait theory book and got a mark of 88%. Can’t be too disappointed with that!