Today, we prepared more for what I need to know in order to solo by reviewing the sectional (map) together.  I am allowed to fly within a 25 mile radius of the airport.  I don’t know when my solo will be but he makes it sound like it could be really soon.

We practiced more landings today, this time with a bit of wind so they were a little harder.  I still never landed a wheel landing very well–they all turned into bounces followed by full-stall landings.  He demonstrated a nice one where he landed on one wheel and went quite a ways down the runway like that until leveling out and lowering the tail.  The trick is the airplane MUST be lined up straight down the runway when it touches or else all kinds of craziness will start to happen.  If there is a crosswind you still have to be traveling straight down the runway but the only way for that to happen is if the airplane is banked into the wind with a bit of opposite rudder to keep it going straight.  That makes it so you’re just about guaranteed to land on one wheel at a time.  After a few failed attempts at wheel landings, he let me do some more full stall landings that all turned out pretty nice.

We practiced another engine failure from the pattern and I saved us and landed on the runway.  He gave me an engine failure shortly after takeoff and I got us lined up for a nice landing in some farmer’s field before he restored engine power and we flew around for another landing.

I’m writing this a day after flight school day 8.  I had planned on flying today but it was rainy and the clouds were a bit low for flying so I got my flight physical today instead… $125 to check if I’m colorblind, read letters on the wall, and to have a light shined in my eyes and stuff stuck up my ear :-)  Anyone looking for a future profession might want to take that route.  Anyway, when I asked Aaron when I needed to get it done he was extremely relieved that I remembered and said to get it done ASAP.  When I called the place they asked if the 27th would be good and I said the earlier the better, so they said I could come by at 6:30PM in the afternoon–I don’t generally consider that to be the afternoon but I showed up anyway.

Anyway, flying yesterday went great.  We flew around the pattern at the same time an AN-2 (the largest single engine biplane) was flying.  We had to be careful to fly a little higher than it and land and takeoff outside of its wake.  I practiced about 13 landings.  The landings were really starting to work out nicely so Aaron decided to have me try “wheel landings” where you land on the front two landing gear with the tail in the air before slowing down and lowering the tail into the ground.  The method we were using before is known as the “full stall” method where you fly close to the ground and keep pulling up with the engine idled until you can no longer pull up anymore and the wings stall as the airplane touches the ground.  The trick to the new method is once the front landing gear touch, the back end of the airplane keeps falling towards the ground increasing the angle of attack of the airplane (basically automatically pulling the nose back into the air) and makes the airplane want to take off again, so you have to push forward on the stick right after the wheels touch to plant them on the runway and then perform a balancing act on two wheels until the airplane is slow enough to gently put the tail down.  My “wheel landings” all turned into bounces that got recovered as full stall landings.

After we landed, we went and talked to the pilots of the AN-2 biplane and they let us get inside and see what its like.  It was pretty impressive.  There were way more knobs, dials, switches, and instruments in the cockpit than I imagined.

Both days I flew from Madison County Executive Airport to Moontown (the grass strip airport).  Apparently a grass strip is more forgiving to land on and that is why we practice so many landings over there.  He is pretty much completely letting me land the airplane.  At first there were some crazy landings including one sideways bouncy landing on the left side of the runway that resulted in a go-around.

I’m still learning how to slip.  It’s a little hard for me to get myself to do opposite rudder and ailerons and get into the somewhat crazy attitude, but I feel like I’m getting better at it.  It’s preferable if you’re turning to keep the airplane rolling in the direction of the turn and then apply opposite rudder.  At first I would somehow end up rolling opposite of the turn and then guessing again until I figured it out… by then it would be about time to do a go around and try again.  Now I feel more comfortable with it but tend not to quite fly the straight line while doing it that I intend.

Takeoffs yesterday were pretty hairy with the airplane going all over the place.  Then he told me to be a lot more aggressive with the rudder and more immediate with the aggressive pressure.  That has seemed to work great so far and since then all my takeoffs have been very good.  I am even taking off at the right airspeed without going too fast like I was before.

Today he turned off the throttle and told me the engine died and I had to make it back to the runway.  The first step is to get the airplane to 68mph which is the optimal glide speed.  I was pretty gentle about pulling up to raise the nose and decrease airspeed because that is how I usually slow down to land, but I needed to pull up more immediately because any time not spent at 68mph is wasted distance.  I turned the airplane towards the runway sooner than usual and needed a huge slip to drop enough altitude to get down, but we landed safely on the runway.  Because he cut my engine while I was checking for icing in the carburetor by applying heat, I forgot to turn the carburetor heat off before takeoff and he had to remind me before I taxied onto the runway.

Todays landings were much better and I only did one go around because I was too high.  I also tend to pull back on the stick without noticing when I feel like we are short of the runway.  This decreases the airspeed below the optimal airspeed and causes us to glide even less distance than we want.  I need to keep the nose down and airspeed at around 70mph regardless and increase throttle when we are short.  I performed almost all the landings myself and he seemed to think they were all pretty good.  There were still a couple bounces today but much lower than before and I did a better job of keeping the airplane in line with the runway on landing.

While we were flying around a huge biplane (apparently the largest single-engine biplane ever built) flew from Madison County Executive Airport to Moontown.  It was definitely a slow-mover.

All total I did 15 landings and takeoffs the last couple days.  Aaron said I will probably be solo pretty soon.

Today I flew in the pattern and practiced landings and takeoffs for about 45 minutes.  One of the landings (my seconds to last) was near perfect.  Aaron was really excited with it.  The rest were a little bit of everything.  My takeoffs got progressively better but I still have trouble heading straight down the runway.  The problem is made worse because I leave the airplane on the runway a lot longer than I should.  I know I’m forcing it down but I am hesitant to glance down at the airspeed indicator to verify I am at takeoff speed because I’m busy keeping the plane from driving off the runway.

We practiced some more side-slipping to reduce altitude on approach and that seems to be working okay just trying to get the right amount of rudder and aileron to keep flying straight.

Today we practiced some more stalls and added the power-on stall where we slowed down to about 60mph and then increased the throttle to full-throttle while pulling up.  This was a bit easier to recover from without losing much altitude but you feel like you are going pretty steep before the plane actually stalls.

Then we flew to a grass strip called Moontown.  Caroline flew there in 7th grade.  I attempted 4 landings of which two actually ended up with the plane on the ground and the others ended in go-arounds.  Aaron also taught me how to side-slip to lose altitude because I kept coming in too high.  I seem to have a psychological block preventing me from wanting to fly close to the ground :-)  That’s probably been the most wild maneuver so far but it seems to work nicely for him.  I am getting a lot more comfortable with the takeoffs–I didn’t realize how far you have to push the stick forward to get the tail off the ground before but now it seems to work nice.  I am still fighting against drifting left on takeoff but it’s getting better.  Also, my turns in the pattern are still a bit shallow and I end up flying a bit past the runway and having to come back in.

We flew back to Madison County and I judged the distance better and chose the correct time to idle the engine and we made it at about the right altitude but I wasn’t completely level when we touched down and we bounced on one wheel before settling onto the runway.  He seemed pleased with the landing though–he was probably just glad we survived.

The attached image is from the Moontown webpage, I just thought you’d like to see what it looks like.

Today was a pretty windy with a brisk wind from the south.

He let me preflight the airplane myself before he came out and made sure I didn’t miss anything.  Since it was windy we had to use the ailerons and elevator while on the ground to keep the plane flat on the ground.  I taxied the airplane to the runway and took off with his help.  We still took off a bit left of the centerline but not as much as yesterday.

We practiced 45 degree turns some more and he said I did great.  I tend to climb a bit when I end the turns because I pull back through the whole turn to maintain altitude and then don’t let off enough at the end.

We practiced slow flight again today at 60mph (yes, thats 60mph, not knots).  Yesterday we practiced slow flight at 70mph.  We did some more power off stalls and they were a bit better today except for I still yaw about 15 degrees during the stall and recovery.

Then we flew at about 1500 feet while turning around a point on the ground.  The wind made this quite challenging–when you are downwind of the point you have to turn harder to keep from getting blown away and when you’re upwind you don’t turn very steep at all.

I also got to talk on the radio a little bit before takeoff and before we entered the traffic pattern.

Today was a little bit better.  I was able to taxi a lot easier and get to the runway without too much help.  We took off from runway 18 today (36 yesterday) and had to wait for a jet to land.

I think he left me more in control of the takeoff than yesterday as we drifted left of the centerline once we got the tail off the ground and I continued drifting left through the whole takeoff roll once we were in the air.

First we practiced a lot more 45 degree turns and I did a better job looking out the window rather than staring at the instruments.

The main point of today’s lesson was to learn about slow flight and how to control airspeed with pitch and altitude with thrust as well as how to compensate for the yawing motion to the left at slow speeds.

We practiced power off stalls as well.  He performed one first and then I performed one.  Mine had a pretty ridiculously steep recovery but we made it–it was probably more ridiculous than some rollercoaster drops.  He then demonstrated another one for me :-)

He had me maintain 75 knots for the landing and again had me hold the controls while he landed.  The landing seemed pretty good and then I managed to taxi off the runway and back to the tie down spot.

Today was the first day of flight school.  I am flying a Citabria Adventure: http://www.flyacroair.com/N2088V.htm.

The plane is interesting, the instructor sits in the back seat and the control panel layout is a bit different from what I pictured from seeing so many pictures of Cessna cockpits.  The surface of the plane is some sort of fabric rather than aluminum.

Taxiing was a bit harder than I expected and I don’t think I really every got good with it–you have to get it going a decent clip before its easy to steer and then I feel like I’m going too fast :-)  The whole steer and brake with the pedals was a little tricky as I never quite felt I knew where the cutoff between braking and steering is.

He had me hold the controls and fly with him during the takeoff which was a bit tricky… once we got going we had to push forward on the stick (it has a stick rather than a yoke) to get the tail off the ground and then when we got up to speed we pulled back and flew away… the whole takeoff seemed to take about 5 seconds so I missed the whole thing :-)

He had me fly the initial climbout and level off around 3000 feet.  He had me practice a few 30 degrees turns while attempting to keep the altitude constant and keep the rudder in the correct position.  It was tricky… I got lucky my first turn and kept the altitude within 50 feet the whole way around.  Then he had me practice turning 180s and 360s while climbing or descending 500 feet.  We did a turn while banked 45 degrees while maintaining altitude… I really felt like I was getting stuffed into my seat (it was a 2G turn).

The landing was fun… my instructor had me idle the engine and trim the elevator and hold on the controls while he landed.  I was surprised that we landed with the tailwheel slightly before the main wheels but he said that is allowed in a full stall landing which is what we did.

Actually flying was crazy… you feel every bump in the sky :-)  The instruments don’t stand still like they do on the computer flight simulators… everything is always moving and it seems all you can do to get everything lined up how you want it for one second :-)