High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr

With the amount of daylight peaking at this time of year, I've managed to make a number of bookings in the evenings at 7 PM. My intention has always been to either work late and go directly to the airport, or go home a bit early, get the kids ready for bed and then head out. On this particular day it was the latter and as a result I was rushed and showed up nearly 20 minutes late. It had been a long day of family and work for me, and on the way there I wondered if I was 100% in the zone for a day when I potentially really needed to be there.

The winds had been swirling around much of the day and when I showed up there was a definite crosswind. I was fully prepared for I5 to tell me I was too late or that the winds weren't right, but instead he asked me if I thought the solo would happen today. After a few seconds of thinking I simply responded that there were three variables at work here - the weather, his perception of my ability, and my performance. I only had control over one of them and would do my best.

We departed to the north today for left traffic and I felt great during the first circuit. I pooched my power control on the base and ended up being pretty high on the base. Without waiting for any prompting I went full right rudder, left aileron and put us into a forward slip which soon transitioned to a slipping turn. I had to hold it almost to the threshold and did a gradual transition into some sort of a sideslip for the crosswind which was blowing from my left. I held the centerline with a combination of rudder and aileron, put it down smoothly and held the nosewheel off, calmly put the flaps up, stood on the right rudder while I went full power and we took to the skies again.

During the climbout I asked I5 for some feedback and he simply said "that was a great slip and an excellent crosswind landing. You held the centerline. It was well done". The second circuit was much better on the power control and again we got down on the centerline. It was then that I realized I5 didn't plan on saying anything at all unless he needed to - and this was a good thing. On the downwind he asked me if I felt ready to solo to which I replied "yep". He called the tower this time and told them we were for a full stop, would drop off the instructor and "I'm going to send this student solo". After landing he took control of the aircraft and taxied to the tower apron where he shut everything down and popped the canopy open.

He pulled out a sheet of paper from his clipboard and handed it to me. It was my student permit signed and dated. He simply said "I've sent dozens of students solo and you are definitely ready. Do you feel ready?". This time I wasn't as confident and said "I guess so". As he hopped out he told me to fly a single circuit for a full stop, taxi back to the club, and good luck. With that he closed the canopy and smiled.

This was it. The moment I had been waiting for...

I popped open the window and realized I was nervous. I took a swig of the bottled water I had taken aboard, pulled out my checklist and started going through it. The engine fired up nicely and I5 who was standing on the grass gave me a thumbs up which I returned and I called ground.

"Ground, Diamond 20 Charlie, fox.. um no charlie golf foxtrot foxtrot charlie on the apron for taxi and we have information November."

"Foxtrot Foxtrot Charlie it's information Oscar now - winds ........ and did you want the circuit?"

Yes, can you believe that after all of my training with nearly flawless radio work, my initial call for my solo was a complete disaster. I realized then that I REALLY needed to bear down and focus. Time to make sure these guys new who they were dealing with

"We're for the circuit and it's our first solo, please pass that on to tower"

By some magic, things all fell into place from that point on. My taxi all the way back to 34 was perhaps the best taxi on the centerline I had ever done. The days of taxiing like a 19 year old leaving a frat party at 430 am were behind me. I took my time during the runup making sure I didn't miss anything on the checklist. Two things I noticed during the runup were:

1) I actually understood every check I was doing, what I was looking for during them, and why I was doing them. All of the book work was paying off.

2) I was happy to have the checklists. They seemed familiar and really calmed me down.

I spent a lot of time going through the safety briefing. Exactly where my go/no go point was, what I would do in case we had to abort, what I would if we had an engine problem after takeoff, and where I wanted to be at every point in the circuit. Finally satisfied, I pulled ahead to the hold short line and called the tower: "Fox Fox Charlie holding short runway 34". Tower asked me to hold short for landing traffic. Then a moment later told me there would be two more landing before he could get me out. I welcomed the extra time and told him "we're not in a rush".

This was a great thing. I had some time to relish the moment. I thought about how significant this moment was in my flight training, and my life. I thought about all of the times I dreamed about flying by myself. I thought about the countless hours I spent at home on my simulator flying heavy complex aircraft, then smaller commuter props, and then finally figured out that I loved to hand fly a tiny little "flib" more than anything else. Then it finally came - I thought about my dad. It was a year and two days since he had passed away - prompting me to finally get off my behind and start the flight training which I know I was "meant to take". I didn't get emotional - I simply looked up to the skies and said "I know you are up there watching and I know how proud you are of me for this moment". I am not a religious guy and I'm generally not a believer in ghosts and all that hocus pocus - but from that moment on I truly felt as if I had him in there with me.

The moment was broken by a skyhawk crossing over the threshold and tower asked me to line up and wait. I booted it out onto the runway and lined her up. A few seconds later the skyhawk cleared the runway and I was cleared for takeoff and left circuit. I pushed the throttle ahead smoothly, stayed on that rudder, called the airspeed alive, kept an eye on the engine instruments, started my rotation and "slipped the surly bonds of earth". It was an absolute rush and I let out a huge yahoo that any cowboy from rural Alberta would be proud of.

There was a twin departing IFR behind me and I suppose for some reason tower thought it would be appropriate to ask me to turn crosswind early. As he keyed his mic for the transmission I was just coming up on 400 AGL but still replied "no problem". I brought up the flaps and switched off the pump as I made the crosswind turn. The aircraft still managed to reach circuit altitude just as I turned downwind and I made sure I pulled the power all the way back.

Downwind checks - engine temp good, fuel pressure and quantity good, oil pressure and temps good, alternator and battery good, mixture full, fuel open, master on, turn fuel pump on, mags both. "Tower, Fox Fox Charlie downwind for a full stop."

I did what I had been trained to do the rest of the way in - talking myself through it the entire time. It wasn't until I turned final that I remembered again I was on my first solo. What if I lost an engine now? Would I make the runway - yeesh - let's just focus again.

I kept adjusting the power to keep the numbers centered in the windscreen. 60 knots, compensate for the crosswind - number, airspeed, windsock... numbers, airspeed, windsock... numbers, airspeed windsock.. reduce power and a bit of nose to bleed speed, power off, stay on the centerline, wing down into the wind, bleed of the speed, in the ground effect, hold the position.. hold it hold it hold it hold it - still floating... and then the magic happened - left wheel slightly touched down but I held the nose off - right wheel touched down, and then rather than dropping the wheel I continued to hold it off until it came down nicely. I put on the brakes - pulled off on the taxiway just as tower said "Ground on 121.8, nice work".

I thanked ground on the way in and asked him pass it on to tower. As I parked the diamond on the ramp, I5 and another made their way out to congratulate me. They took a few photos of me in the aircraft, then a few of me standing next to the registration numbers. Then they dumped a 5 gallon pail of water over my head!! As I walked back into the club soaked from head to toe I received many congratulations from everyone in there.

I5 asked how it went and all I could of were two things:

1) I lived.

2) It was too short.

The best part at this point was filling out the journey log with only my name as PIC and being able to sign the book with my initials and license number.

A huge milestone in my journey has been reached and I'm glad that it is now behind me so that I can get back to focusing on flying rather than focusing on the solo. It was only a taste for what was to come, but like a young adult tasting champagne for the first time, or better yet - a one year old eating cake and icing for their first time on their birthday - I liked it.

I liked it a lot!

21.7 hours and counting...

Flight Bag: Part 2

The aviation gods were probably sitting back, pointing there fingers at me and giggling. Everything was set for a flight on Saturday afternoon and the stars seemed aligned. Reality came crashing back when I received an automated email on Friday afternoon from the flight school cancelling my flight with the reason simply being "Equipment Failure".

Don't get me wrong, this is a great reason for the flight to get cancelled. According to the online booking system the aircraft was out of commission for an undetermined length of time, or as they appear to say in this world "UFN". I5 was available most of the day and since it was a Saturday there was an opportunity to simply book him and another aircraft. Alas - it was not to be. The remaining two DA20's were booked solid all day. Knowing that things change on a regular basis, I put in a "standby" request for I5 and ANY aircraft (DA20C1's) between 1230 and 630 PM. I checked on a regular basis including this morning at 6AM when my kids ran into the room to wake me up (gotta love early sunrises).

Somehow, somewhere between 6AM and 8AM, the bookings all changed. To make a long story short, there were a bunch of jumbles that happened, and of course the "standby" requests either didn't work or were completely ignored. I5 was available at one time but no aircraft was, and conversely an aircraft was available at a time when I5 wasn't. I was too frustrated to call in and ask them WTF the deal was with the standby requests and decided it simply wasn't going to be my day to fly.

I had to come into the office to complete some work but decided to treat myself on the way. I stopped at a local "camping" or "outdoor recreation lifestyle" type of store. Knowing full well that I'm soon going to be flying alone and embarking on some cross country action - it's time to put together a true flight bag.

As a starting point I purchased the following:

Small Mag Lite with extra AA batteries.
Leatherman "Wave" multi-tool
Small First Aid Kit (yes there is one on board all aircraft)
Personal survival kit (lots of cool stuff)
Small shoulder bag
Larger shoulder bag

The small shoulder bag is the key. It holds my David Clark headset perfectly in its large pouch. In other various compartments I was able to fit the leatherman, first aid kit, survival kit, and my kneeboard. There was ample room to fit my E6B, a protractor, ruler, pens, pencils, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, some sticky pads, two highlight pens, two extra maps, my spare glasses (I wear contacts), my wallet, my crackberry, a fuel tester, my documentation, and two energy bars.

It's truly amazing how much you can fit in a tiny bag - and there is lots of room to spare. With the headset out I could easily fit an additional few litres of water in the bag. I plan on weighing it prior to my next flight but it will surely accompany to the aircraft for future flights.

The larger shoulder bag (replacing one I had been using which I constantly swap with work stuff including my laptop) had ample room to fit my POH, two large training books (From the ground up and the FTM), my notebook where I write stuff down during briefings, and my binder where I keep various checklists, school regulations, aviation related receipts, and all other documentation.

I've been following an interesting thread here about what various people carry in their flight bags, starting with a bush pilot suggestion that the most important item you could carry is "A roll of duct tape". I would love to hear more suggestions from people with any personal experiences.

Next potential solo is Thursday afternoon.

Walk Around

I was fairly certain that the solo wasn't going to happen today. The winds had been 45 degrees off the runway over 10 knots since the morning and by the time I showed up at the airport the windsock was fully extended even without the gusts.

I5 confirmed this when he showed up and we went through the "solo checklist" to make sure all of my documentation was in order. As it turns out I don't have to wait for transport canada to send any paperwork back, the chief instructor at the school has the authority to issue me a student pilot permit based on meeting the criteria. I filled out some MORE paperwork and we decided to spend some time reviewing the quiz I was required to write prior to the solo as per the flight school's procedures.

Although I passed with flying colors - it took a good half hour to complete since we discussed many of the answers which were in my opinion the types that led the student to an answer they were looking for, yet had too many variables missing which needed to be part of the final answer.

For example:

During your landing you float more than normal and notice that you are already half way down the runway. What do you do?

It's obvious they are looking for the steps in the overshoot procedure (Full Throttle, Up attitude, takeoff flaps, and climb out at best rate (Vy 68). However the first thing that came into my mind was "make a decision based on the runway remaining if I could continue with a safe landing". It doesn't say anything about the runway so it could have easily been 12,000 feet long which would have allowed me to float for another 1000 feet, do a touch and go, and then land again (tongue in cheek).

Once we completed that the winds were at the level of insanity (30 knot gusts) so we mutually agreed that flying wasn't going to happen. I5 asked if there was anything else and since he had told me had nothing booked for a few hours I asked if he would go out and do a long walk around with me.

I hadn't done a walk around with an instructor since my first or second flight. After watching the attention to detail some of my friends had done during a group flight in New Jersey back in March, I realized that I didn't feel 100% confident doing my walk around. Naturally I5 obliged and we spent a full half hour walking around the aircraft - going into minute details that I had never learned or considered.

Finally satisfied I noticed a Diamond Star (DA40? 4 seater Diamond) had parked at the ramp and we decided to check it out. Very fancy G1000's in this bird. I was impressed. I5 seemed interested in my love for airplanes and asked if I wanted to check out a few others on the field he had access to. I followed him across the airport to a hangar where we spent some time sitting in a Cessna 310 chatting about aviation. Following that we checked out a Skylane in the same hangar with some fancy engine upgrades which I didn't really understand that had some affect on the aircraft at higher altitudes (can you tell I've been struggling at the engine section of ground school?).

After over an hour in this hangar we departed to another where we spent some time in a Piper Navajo Chieftain with the Panther conversion. This was a HUGE airplane. I could barely reach the horizontal stabilizer from the ground (granted I'm only 5'4"). The coolest part of this craft was the vortex generators just behind the leading edge of the wings. I5 explained how they work and for the first time, all of the reading I've been doing about the theory of flight somehow clicked in the gears of my brain. I actually understood (on a limited basis) what he was talking about.

We booked a few more sessions for the potential solo including one this coming Saturday and I departed the airport. One would imagine I'd be down since I was unable to take to the skies solo but this was not the case.

The solo will have to wait for another day.

Crosswinds, Emergencies, and Paperwork

I was checking the forecast and live winds since the previous evening - just hoping for a crosswind scenario. Unfortunately the winds had been light and down the pipe all morning. Perhaps this wasn't the day to complete the crosswind sign off - or was it.

It had been 5 weeks since my last flight and I made the most of any free time I had since then reviewing emergency procedures and plowing through as much ground school material as possible. Many of my friends with FAA licenses were a bit taken aback by the requirement to know the emergency procedures for your aircraft by heart prior to solo. I reviewed my printed copy of the emergency procedures from the Diamond POH but still found myself fumbling through them upon each review. Finally I decided that I needed to create my own checklist, with the hope that writing the information out would help commit it to memory. I spent hours creating a two page checklist on a spreadsheet and meticulously formatting it so that it fit on a single 8.5 x 11 sheet (back to back) that I could laminate. My final review the night before was still somewhat lacking - perhaps the adage about writing it down wasn't true after all.

I5 asked if I wanted to fly today or just do emergency procedures. Obviously my preference was to do both and as luck would have it, he didn't have a booking after me and didn't mind sticking around to do the procedures after we flew. The aircraft was back early so I had all the paperwork filled out - we made a dash for the aircraft considering how busy the circuit had been all day.

With "spring" arriving to southern Alberta - so was the risk of forest fires. This meant the return of the fire fighting aircraft that fly out of the airport, and compared to my tiny Diamond - they looked big.. actually HUGE. I had so much attention focused on one coming down the taxiway behind us that I hardly noticed the windsock at about 8-10 knots 45 degrees from the runway heading - crosswinds could be in the cards for this flight!

It was obvious that the checklist work had paid off when I nailed the takeoff briefing. I will also admit that the in depth review of the procedures coupled with the reading I had done on engine and electrical systems of the aircraft resulted in the normal checklist (engine start, taxi, run up, takeoff) making a whole lot more sense.

It was also obvious that I had not flown in 5 weeks. It was bumpy and gusty with winds blowing us from the side, above, and below - however my mental errors had nothing to do with that. First problem was a poor ground track on departure, followed by poor ground track on downwind. My altitude was consistently dropping close to 100 feet below circuit altitude and resulted in a whole lot of throttle work on my end. This compounded into horrible speed management on the downwind leaving us fast and super high on base. Knowing that I usually want to be 750 feet on the half base, carrying a lot of speed and with the winds behind me increasing our ground speed, I was in a bad situation. Once I finally cut the throttle and got the takeoff flaps out I had to go with major attitude to drop below the white arc. As soon as I got flaps all the way down I went into the slip and transitioned to a slipping turn (or is it a turning slip?).

This is when I5 was not impressed. We were in slip, about half way through the turn, super high, super fast, and I decided with the slip I should be able to put the nose down and turn steeper. Before I knew it we were at about a 35-40 angle of bank and the airspeed had climbed out of the white arc. After pointing his displeasure out to me I corrected the speed and took a breath. I concentrated on getting us back to center line, holding 60 knots, correcting the descent angle while holding the forward slip. I transitioned to a gentler side slip and the landing was miraculously on the center line and smooth. Someone once said that a great landing starts 10 miles out and they weren't kidding. This was a lot of work!

The rest of the spins were uneventful. I managed to improve on ground track, altitude, speeds, and approach planning somewhat, but still was consistently performing steeper turns than I should have. The combination of slips (side and forward) and landings were all well done. On one of the roll outs we actually had a bit of a tail wind and we actually were lifted up off the ground before we hit our rotation speed. Identifying this I simply nudged the nose forward and let us accelerate while in ground effect before climbing out at the proper speeds. Another thing that was in my opinion purely the result of watching, asking, reading, and listening to other people.

After the flight we sat on the couches upstairs and went through the procedures. Rather than having me spew out them out line by line he would present a scenario without making it obvious which of the emergencies we were facing. I found this very interesting, since smoke pouring out of your panel and filling the cockpit doesn't result in a big red hologram yelling "You have an electrical fire - execute section 3.3.8 of the emergency procedures!". Needless to say, our review lasted 45 minutes and went very well.

I5 then asked me to bring in my passport, radio license, and medical as soon as possible. We filled out some paperwork, I signed some stuff in my PTR, and he showed me the front page where emergency procedures and crosswinds had now been signed off.

Once I get this paperwork in the flight school will send it off to Transport Canada who issues a student pilot certificate. Time to process is usually just a few days (I dropped off the paperwork the next morning).

Afterwards we discussed how the how the solo flight would work and what happens after the solo including sign out permissions. Not sure if the paperwork would be completed before my next booking he asked if I wanted to scrub it - of course I said "not a change" as I'd be happy to do another flight with him prior to the solo if I "had to", especially in light of the areas requiring improvement.

At the conclusion of that conversation, I5 pulled out the PTR again to fill in something else in the front section before showing me (it went something like this):



"I [Certified Instructor Name] certify that [Student Pilot Name] meets the minimum requirements for a student pilot license"



20.6 Hours and counting...

Touchdown Point

I can remember a few years back when I first started seriously day dreaming about working on my private license that the school I fly out of had a flight training FAQ. One of the questions was simply "How long does it take to get the PPL" and obviously the answer tried to address that question as well as possible. The subject of pace talked about how retention starts to drop off quickly after a few days and as a result of not flying on a regular basis you might find yourself reviewing what you did last time for 25% longer than someone who had just flown the day before.

My pace has for the most part been slow. Just look at the dates on the blog entries to see how slow! Every now and then I get a good block of time wide open and take as much advantage of it as possible. This flight was to be my 4th in 10 days, and I had flown just 16 hours earlier. This accelerated pace made all the difference in the world.

Another beautiful morning for flying. Today I was again paired with I5, and I'm happy to say at this point that I5 has landed himself the role of my primary flight instructor. I suppose everyone has to stop playing the field and settle down some time ;)

The first few circuits were extremely precise, the landings were pretty much down the middle, and there was a massive improvement in staying on center line during the roll. I5 wanted to nail me down to a better approach angle and started by asking me if I knew where I had been flaring, how long I had been floating, and where my touchdown points were. I was unable to answer any of them. We started talking about the different runway markings and what they meant.

While on approach, I5 told me that on average I float "x" feet, and thus based on that float - where would I need to start to flare in order to touch down on a certain bar. With that in mind he told me "OK, land there" and I continued the approach. I flared exactly where I needed to and found myself going much faster than anticipated - thus the float looked like it would be long. I made some adjustments and put the aircraft down - HARD, right on the intended landing spot.

In the crosswind I5 told me that I landed exactly where we were intended to, however I would have failed my exam. He went into more detail, probably due to my puzzled look. As it turns out, the exercise isn't about actually landing on the intended spot, it's about PLANNING the approach and flare so that you have the best opportunity to actually land there. There are many factors involved in landing an aircraft, as a pilot you have control over many of them, and others you can only react to appropriately.

Armed with this tidbit of knowledge we continued to select landing spots that were closer and closer to the threshold. Each of them required a lot more planning during the circuit. RPMs back on the downwind, flaps down before the base, precise airspeed and angles on final, and carbon copy flare heights. The results were astounding. We nailed each of the landing spots almost on the dime. The approach angles became much shallower and I no longer found myself "diving" for the runway. The angles were also fairly consistent the entire approach.

For our final two we flared over "the dirt" and landed smack on the numbers. Amazing what some planning and analysis of past results can do for future results.

Everything in the circuit was comfortable, the workload seemed far reduced from the previous flights, I was close to the centerline when I landed, and I managed to stay close to it as we slowed and then accelerated again for the next time.

I5 mentioned that one of the largest things he has noticed is that when I slow down and take my time, I have more time to think about things, and thus relax - resulting in far better performance.

After the lesson I5 reviews my PTR and notes that we need to get some crosswind work in soon and I should show up next time ready for the emergency procedures review. Here in Canada we are required to know the emergency procedures for our aircraft by memory.

The lesson ends with I5 telling me he's of the opinion that it is time for me to solo.



(gulp)

19.7 Hours and counting...

The Balloon

After a short business trip to that hot steamy chunk of concrete commonly known as Houston, I was ready for back to back flights. I5 was back in the saddle with me this time and I was excited.

The focus for today was to review the engine out procedures done during the last flight and to "just fly circuits" so we could identify any kinks that needed to be worked out. It was obvious during the first circuit what I needed to work on:

1) Nailing my speeds on the climb out, including the climbing turn.
2) Reducing drift caused by the winds resulting in a poor ground track.
3) Better power reduction and planning on approach to get rid of my steep angles
4) Keeping the aircraft on the center line during landing roll out and especially on the takeoff.

During our 8-10 touch and go's, the landings were all pretty good and I will admit that my confidence level is increasing. My speeds, ground track, and procedures were improving with each iteration and I'm starting to feel a lot less rushed. We did tackle better power reduction and planning for the approach, but I still don't seem able to get rid of my steep descent angle. I am able to manage it by slipping but I5 still wants a shallower approach angle.

I absolutely suck at keeping the aircraft on the center line. My roll outs aren't great and once I add power it looks even worse. I5 must have been saying his prayers a few times as I aimed us for the grass on the left side of the runway (if he was I couldn't tell). We continually spoke about what went well and what didn't during each circuit and came to the conclusion that I needed to take my time on the roll and concentrate.

Prior to this flight, I had an opportunity to chat with a friend who has been acting as sort of a "mentor" during my flight training. When I explained my drunken sailor rolls down the runway he brought up the fact that whatever control pressures you exert need to be constantly adjusted. In other words "what worked 10 seconds ago isn't necessarily going to work now". This was good advice, but for some reason I was still unable to make steady improvements during this flight.

I mentioned earlier that everything else improved with each circuit. I definitely feel more comfortable looking at what I need to on the panel without taking my attention away from what is happening outside the window. The downwind checks and approach checks are happening almost naturally now as are the flaps/pump up/off after we reach a safe altitude (usually 400' AGL). However, I did have two major brain farts during the flight. As we turned final with takeoff flaps, I moved toward the lever and called "flaps down to landing" and subsequently put the flaps up to clean. I5 caught it and immediately moved them back to landing. A few circuits later I made a similar mistake when on departure I called "Flaps Up" and flipped them from takeoff to landing. Again, I5 caught it and made the required adjustment. He wrote it off as a mental error that I should have caught myself. The silver lining is the fact that I always call my flaps out loud, though I'm not sure how that is going to help me when the right seat is empty!

During one of our downwinds he asked me if we had discussed the balloon yet. I told him that we had reviewed it during a circuit ground brief back in October, but nothing since then. I mentioned briefly that I had started a discussion about this with some "friends" recently - simply because I was curious. I know that I am lucky to have some great resources for aviation related questions, and I tried to take as much advantage of that as I could. I sent an email to three friends: a private pilot with his IFR rating, a CFI teaching at Embry Riddle, and a commercial pilot flying for one of the US majors. The responses I received were all similar and contained slight nuances that when all put together really helped me understand. One friend (the private pilot) went so far as to put the discussion a blog entry titled "Landing Tips: Floating and Ballooning".

During our base leg I5 told me we were going to do some balloon work. After I flared he would pull back on the stick and put us into a balloon. He said he would then recover for us, but then reconsidered and asked me if I wanted to attempt to recover. Armed with the knowledge from the discussions I had with my friends, I indicated I wanted to do it. Established in the flare, I5 pulled back on the stick and we went into the balloon. I added a small amount of power, put the nose down a bit on the horizon, went back into a flare, cut the power, and landed.

We continued doing this 4-5 times and each time the adjustment was a bit smoother, even going so far as not to cut the power which was causing us to have a less than stellar landing due to vertical speed.

After the lesson I5 told me that the next day we could either do an oral review of the entire set of emergency procedures (including electrical, fire, etc) or if we had some crosswinds we could fly. I told him that I had a lot to do this evening and with the NHL playoffs starting - there was a good chance I wouldn't properly review. We decided that we would probably go with flying in the circuit to work on the remaining issues I had and perhaps take advantage of crosswinds.

18.5 Hours and counting...

Engine Failures!

Three hours before my scheduled flight my phone was flashing “CFC” and I was fairly certain this wouldn’t be a great call. I6 was on the line and was telling me that there were reports of turbulence in the circuits and the winds were steadily gusting to 22 knots, 30 degrees off the runway. He was of the opinion that I would be fighting the bumps the entire time and probably wouldn’t get much out of the flight. I did mention that I only lived 15 minutes from the field and everything could change in the next few hours. He insisted that the flight was off and if things cleared up he’d call me.

After hanging up the phone I sat there and considered the scenario. My family was out of town and this was a great opportunity for me to get some flight time in. I was headed to Houston the next day and wouldn’t have a chance to hop back in a plane for close to a week. I thought about his comments that I wouldn’t gain much valuable experience and it would probably be a waste of my money. The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that even $200 spent for an hour getting my brains beat out in the pattern where I couldn’t gain any new signoffs in my PTR (Pilot Training Record) was still money well spent and experience well gained. I remembered quickly back to a conversation I had with a friend about why my “hours” were logged as engine time running rather than air time. His response was that every minute you are sitting in the aircraft with that engine running – you were gaining some sort of experience.

I picked up the phone and called the club to ask for I6 but he was “unavailable”. I left my name and number with a request for him to call me. Over the next hour I watched the live winds out at the airport and they had died back to about 6-10 knots, 10 degrees on either side of the runway. As we neared 45 minutes from the scheduled time I once again said “sometimes you just have to say what the heck”, stuffed my kneeboard and headset into a flight bag, and headed for the airport.

I6 was a bit shocked to see me. After a 5 minute discussion and a trip outside to look at the windsock he relented and said, “OK, one of the seniors will be down in a few moments and we will ask her how the circuit it”. She said it was a bit bumpy but would be worth taking a flight to see how things were. I6 asked me to do the inspection while he changed back into his fancy flight gear (he was about to leave for the day).

The plan for today was to review engine failures in the circuit. We did a quick review regarding the procedures for both a failure before takeoff, after takeoff, and while in the circuit. I’ll admit that I’ve spent the past 4-5 days reviewing these out of the POH and even made myself a private checklist – but none of it seemed to stick. No matter how many times I wrote it out, read it, or even recited it aloud (my wife loved that) I couldn’t commit it to memory. For some reason – just sitting there and talking to him about it – a little light bulb went on inside my head.

Checklists went great, engine started nicely, my headset transmit cord is still SNAFU (need to fix that), and we had an opportunity for a good chat during the long taxi out to runway 25. I asked I6 if I could do a mock takeoff briefing to see if things actually made sense to me. I started by talking about what we would actually be doing “down the centerline, rotate at 55, climb at 68, flaps up at 400 and speed 75, crosswind at 500agl unless otherwise told by tower, and then downwind on the 45”. Then I followed it up with other important information: “If we have engine trouble before takeoff I’ll cut the throttle, apply the brakes, bring up the flaps, pull the mixture, turn off the ignition (magnetos), and then finally shut off the master”. I’m not really sure how I remembered that – perhaps all of the reviewing actually paid off.

We took off and flew a normal circuit. It was pretty bumpy on the cross and down winds but not enough to make things impossible. Approach was stable and landing fairly good. This time I remembered to bring the flaps back to takeoff before advancing the power for the go. I6 asked the tower if they would approve simulated engine loss on departure, which was approved. At about 400 AGL he cut the power and said “ok power loss – now what?” Again the briefing kicked in – my first goal was to pitch for 58 knots with the flaps at takeoff. Following that I said aloud (but didn’t actually do any of it) “Mixture idle, fuel shutoff closed, ignition off, flaps as required, master off when landing assured”. I must admit that I was shocked at how much forward pressure was required at takeoff attitude to get the aircraft back to 58 knots. I had been holding it pretty well while I read out my procedures when I6 said “that’s great, but where are you planning to land?” While concentrating on the airspeed and procedure I had obviously missed... well I missed the obvious – where in the world was I going to land. Suddenly the training from my forced approach started to come back to me. I gave a quick glance ahead of us and declared “this isn’t so good”. We had tree lines, power lines, and some nasty terrain. Judging the way things were moving on my windscreen, there weren’t any good options. I told I6 I would try to put her down in the field at our 10 O’clock and turned for it. Somewhat satisfied he called for the overshoot which for the first time felt somewhat natural.

On the downwind we were approved for another engine out procedure. Abeam the numbers he pulled the numbers and asked what I planned to do. I went right back into procedure mode again “pitch for best clean glide of 73, throttle idle, mixture idle, fuel cut-off closed, ignition off, and I’ll keep the master on to operate flaps and radios, until landing is assured”. Again I missed some obvious steps. First of all, I was still on a downwind. I6 told me that while I’m doing this I should be turning back for the field to make sure we can safely glide to a landing. As I turned for the field he asked me if I thought we would make it. It looked like it wouldn’t be a problem based on our distance and altitude, not to mention the fact that the diamond has a glide ratio of 11:1. “Yes, we should be just fine, this thing glides well and we have lots of time” This is when I6 informed me that if I had some time, I might want to try and determine what the problem is and correct it before shutting everything down. I remembered now from the POH we were supposed to go “throttle full, mixture rich, alternate air on, fuel cut-off open, ignition both, fuel pump on”. Even with the “late” turn back to the field and flaps full we were too high. When asked what my options were I said “slip would be best”.

We had to hold the slip all the way down to the runway and this is when another interesting thing happened. Now first let’s consider the slip. You are banked one way, yawing the other resulting in a straight track over the ground while practically moving “sideways” (well maybe 45 degrees). The aircraft is making a freaky noise and you feel like you are literally dropping to the ground. Even after doing this multiple times it still feels and looks quite weird (and super cool at the same time). When I came out of the slip I suppose that the sensation of dropping so quickly while getting closer to the runway made me fall back to my old habit of gently pulling back on the stick to slow the descent. Moving into this flare too early caused us to float much higher than I would have liked and in the end we had a nice hard landing. We were so far down the runway that I was a bit hesitant once we were stable to raise the flaps and apply full power. I6 stepped in and said “I’ll help you out a bit here” as he raised the flaps. I jumped back into action and advanced the throttle and we took off.

This cycle repeated 4-5 times. We’d takeoff and I6 would cut the power. I’d pitch for 58, look for someone to land and start going through the emergency procedures. Each time we did it my performance was calmer, quicker, and execution improved. Once we got down closer to the earth he would call for the overshoot and we would rejoin the circuit. Next he would pull the power on downwind and I’d pitch for 78, turn for the field, run through procedures for restarting, and then finally go through the shutdown phase of the procedures.

Each time we were SUPER high and I had to slip to get down to the runway. This again resulted in my freakish early flare and a horrible landing. On one of them I simply said to I6 “I’m going around” and advanced the throttles. I6 seemed pleased that I was making a decision that I didn’t like the way things looked and would try again.

The lesson ended after we asked tower for a runway change. CYBW is not your standard traffic pattern as they operate to the west of the north/south runway (16/34) and north of the east/west runway (07/25). This ends up causing a nice “mish mash” of left and/or right traffic patterns depending on winds. We had been operating right traffic for runway 25 and were just in the overshoot/right crosswind after a simulated engine failure on takeoff when tower gave us “left turn approved to join downwind for runway 34”. This required me to make a climbing 180+ degree turn to the left to join the downwind. We barely had reached the circuit altitude of 5000 MSL when we were already abeam the numbers. Naturally, I6 pulled the power again. I am starting to get the feeling I should be prepared for this at any moment from here on. I thought about how high I had been and the fact that we had a 10 knot wind that would be acting as a tailwind on base and told I6 “We’re high, close to the runway, and I’ll have a nice tailwind on base so I’m not going to turn back for the runway just yet”. My plan was to get the approach slightly higher than normal so that I could come in without a forced slip. While I’d like to tell you that my plan worked out perfectly – it simply didn’t. My judgement of distance on the downwind wasn’t great and the wind affected my ground track which I had not corrected. The base turn with the tail wind was extremely short and before I knew it - I had turned final and was way too high. We slipped all the way down to the runway (after I miraculously remembered to dip my wing into the crosswind for the slip) and I constantly told myself “nose down, nose down, nose down”. This improved the flare but not by the delta I was hoping for. I held it off the runway, applied some extra rudder away, aileron towards, and landed. My rollout probably had the people in the tower in tears as I was all over the place. On the way in I remembered to say thanks to the controllers again and they appeared to appreciate it. One of these days I need to go upstairs and pay them a visit.

On the way home I had many thoughts to ponder. I was pleased that I had checkmarks next to “Engine Failure in Circuit” and “Runway Change” but was a bit concerned about a few things. First of all the landings were god awful. I need to focus on transitioning from the approach to landing phase and this must include being able to transition from a forward slip to landing. I think that this is going to take experience and not much else.

Second of all, I need to do a better job of judging from any point in the circuit where I will touch down if I turned back for the runway. The instructors are telling me often about this or that landmark but I’m really trying to judge it with my eyes so that when I’m landing somewhere else (when the landmarks aren’t available) I can still figure things out.

Last but not least I need to correct my horrible track on the ground. My taxiing has improved immensely (and I pay a lot of attention to the taxi phases) but on the runway during my takeoff, touch and go, and landing rolls – I am not what I would call “in complete control of the aircraft”. Any CFI’s out there who have some advice for me – I’m all ears!

There is one last thing to think about with respect to losing power after takeoff. Each time I take a lesson, the briefing for that scenario is to “fly straight ahead and look for somewhere to land”. Yet during my recent flights out in New Jersey I noted that in three takeoff briefings (two different pilots) the scenario was similar except it continued with something along the lines of “if we reach 800 feet (AGL) we will attempt to turn back for the runway to land”. One of the pilots went so far as to mention that based on the winds he would make a right turn to minimize the drift from the winds (which actually was what geared me up to think about that and mention it during the last engine failure mentioned above). So my question is “Is it actually safe to turn back for the runway and under what conditions should you do so?” I don’t know if this is a Canadian vs. American flight training thing or just a consideration that there is a difference between losing an engine on takeoff vs. losing one at 800 AGL where you would certainly be in the crosswind if not already turning on the downwind.

I have no idea who reads this blog – but if we have any opinions out there I’d be happy to hear them. Hopefully we can get both the Canadian and American perspectives.

I’ve got back to back flights coming up in a few days after a short business trip to Houston. Between now and then I need to memorize the emergency procedures for just about everything that could go wrong in an aircraft. Hopefully I can pick it up quickly.

17.3 Hours and counting…