Situational Awareness

[EDIT: Ya, so I'm a bit lazy and have about 5 blog entries prior to this which have not yet been completed. Since I finished the editing of this piece months ago - I decided to just publish it and move ahead]

Situational Awareness - as in "do you actually know where you are and where you are headed"?

This morning at 8AM I flew out to the practice area for forced approaches. It was the first time I actually felt "really" comfortable being out there. The forced approaches went "OK" but I think that I still need another session solo just doing them again. There were a lot of delays on departure (really busy) so I didn't have as much time as I would have liked - perhaps another 30 minutes out there would have been better.

Anyhow - things got super bumpy back in the circuit and no problems back to the club. I pulled up to the pumps and hopped out leaving all of my stuff in the aircraft. Inside I asked the rampee to fill her up for me and that I'd be back out in about 20 minutes. I signed the aircraft back in, filled out the logs, pulled a new weight and balance and signed the aircraft out. Then I5 comes out and starts asking me the usual - when he asks "what's our fuel at" I tell him "full tanks". He says "huh? what's our gross weight?". When I tell him he says - ummm notice the line below that says Spins not authorized above XXXX Lbs! - we were overweight (I had no idea we were doing spins). So I had to swap planes, do a full walk around and redo everything else. To top it off I5 wanted a short brief for the flight. We were going to do slow flight with full flap, power on stalls with all flap settings and turns, and fully developed spins.

I asked right before we started up if we had enough time to complete the dual flight and he said probably not unless you are really in the zone. We got out there, picked a zone and since it was quiet we went into slow flight for the transit to our practice area zone. Went great ;) Lots of turns, climbs, and descents. Then we went on to the spins. We climbed up to 9000 and talked about spins again and the recovery. He told me that this would be a fully developed spin and I told him we did them last time I spun but he said "my spins are a bit tighter than most". He put the airplane into a spin and said "your control" I immediately called "spinning left, power..." when he cut me off and said "wait - let it develop", and develop it did! I don't know how many times we spun before he said "recover". Throttle idle, full right rudder, stick down to break the stall and ease back up in the stick to level out (then it requires forward stick to stop it from climbing like a banshee) then slowly push the power back to cruise. We did 4 in total and they were pretty intense. On the way back we did full power stalls with full slap and let me tell you it isn't easy to stall the diamond like this. The stalls with turns were a bit more exciting to be honest - when that high wing stalls it really drops like a rock.

I also experienced something else for the first time - a guy who didn't know what the heck he was doing. It was obvious when he checked in on the practice area frequency with his callsign saying he was "entering the practice area" (from where?) and would be working 6500 feet and below (working where?). When he was asked both those questions his responses were not even remotely appropriate. On the way back out 45 mins later the call was made that we were southbound down the ghost river headed for the lake and the village to leave the practice area at 7500 descending 6. A few mins later he checks in saying he's 5 miles northwest of the dam at 6000. Umm - that's where I am. I check again that I'm 5 miles north of the dam at 6500 descending 6 and if he's sure that's where he is. "Yep he says". I look out my window for him and spot someone over the water and think to myself "Jesus - this guy is west southwest of the dam and he looks like he's at 65-7500". Just then a different aircraft checks in at that location leaving the practice area (another idiot, the procedure is 6000 feet leaving and he was at 7k+) and that is when I spot the first idiot at our 9-10 headed right for us. F****R is at about 5500 (we're at 6) and he's headed west - he's STILL to the east/south east of the dam. He had no clue where he was and he obviously doesn't see us and looks like he's climbing. Quick turn to the right for a diverging course and called "India Fox Alpha level 6000 over the dam turning for the village, traffic just east of the dam headed westbound please say intentions". Nothing. I kept my eye on him and the bugger stayed on course and climbed right through my altitude behind us. It was probably 2-3 more minutes before I got over the village and went back to the tower to check in - that guy never called on 22.75 or the tower freq while I was there. I was hoping to get the tail number to find out where they were flying out of. Honestly though - that was a dangerous situation (not to mention the moron in front of us). Every other time (as in all 5 times) I've been in the practice area people have been very good about where they are and what they are doing. It isn't really all that hard is it ;)

On the way back there was traffic ahead and behind us same route so a lot of speed management was required. We also had traffic that crossed us above and below - pretty cool stuff. I executed what I would say was my finest soft field landing to date and headed back to the field.

I treated I5 to lunch during which time we talked about the next few flights. As it turns out he had already briefed and flown "advanced" forced approaches with me, so I was good for a solo. With this in mind I booked another solo for tomorrow to work on the advanced forced approaches until they are where exactly I want them to be.

So - it has been 7 flights in 7 days and tomorrow will make it 8 flights in 8 days (four of them solo). I

I'm pretty excited but also pretty wiped. Those spins can really knock a guy out.