Lesson 19: Severe Turbulence

Posted on February 26, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight Time: 1.5 hours

Total Hours: 22.9

Lesson 19 was scheduled for my night cross country. Riding the high of having done my first cross country two days previous, I was looking forward to a night flight to Talkeetna. The weather during the day looked totally fine, and at around 5:00 PM, two hours before my lesson, I sat down to check the weather.

To my surprise, it said 1/2 mile visibility and freezing fog in Talkeetna. A big low pressure system was moving northwest of Anchorage and the radar showed a large band of precipitation moving across the entire Kenai Peninsula, as well as snow to the north. However, the forecasts were calling for lifting ceilings and watching the radar loop, it was apparent that the snow would blow through the area before my lesson. The question was, what would follow.

When I got to the airport, I checked the current conditions with my instructor and after calling the Kenai FSS, we made the decision to fly to Kenai. It looked like the all the cloud ceilings had lifted enough to make for adequate VFR conditions, so we preflighted the plane and got ready to go.

The wind started to pick up as we called for clearance, and so I got in some good crosswind taxi practice as we headed over to runway 16. We encountered a little bit of snow as we climbed and headed over South Anchorage, but things were still looking good at that point.

The air got bumpy as we crossed over the Turnagain Arm. Really bumpy. Being lined with mountains on both sides, the wind can really blow through there with much more velocity than in the open areas around the Anchorage bowl. About halfway across, the turbulence became severe, and I listened as my instructor gave me tips on reducing power and keeping the airplane straight and level as we were being tossed around in dark. I remained calm, knowing that as bad as it was, there it would lessen as we reached the other side of the arm. And we could see the lights of Kenai off in the distance, so it seemed as if this would be the worst of it. 

I knew that there were mountains straight ahead to the south, and so I watched carefully to the VOR needle so that I knew when to make my turn towards the Kenai VOR. Since I could see the lights of Kenai and the faint outline of Chickaloon Bay off to the right, my instructor suggested that I just go ahead and make a slow turn towards that heading. The turbulence remained severe all the way across, and even if we had decided to turn around, the smart thing would be to continue crossing and then turn around on the other side. 

It did get smooth again as soon as we crossed and so I loosened my grip on the yoke a bit as we continued our course to Kenai. I cross checked the NAPTO VOR intersection with the radio and started tracking to the Kenai VOR, realizing that our slow groundspeed  of around 60kt, as indicated on the DME, meant that we were flying into about a 30kt headwind. 

At about 25nm from Kenai, we started seeing some low scattered clouds up ahead, and dialing into the Kenai AWOS, the report indicated a scattered level at 1,000 feet. Shortly after, my instructor told me to make a 180 and looking out ahead of us, I saw a faint blanket of light gray clouds about a thousand feet below us. Unfortunately, this meant that we could not continue, and so we turned and headed back towards Merrill. We called the FSS and amended our flight plan and reported the severe turbulence over the Arm, and then called up Anchorage Approach to get flight following on the way back.

The turbulence was not as strong fling in the other direction over the Turnagain Arm, probably because we now had a 30kt tailwind, but it was still pretty choppy. Again, I used smooth, easy control movements and kept a hand on the throttle as we turned north, and eventually, we made it back over Potter’s Marsh where the air got smoother. We called up Merrill Tower, got clearance to land on RWY 16, and then made our descent towards the field. My approach landing was pretty good, despite the strong headwind coming straight down the runway, and my instructor kept a hand on the yoke as we brought the plane down onto the runway. As we landed, the tower guy told us “good job.” I’ll take that and give myself a pat on the back for landing in difficult conditions. My instructor told me that I did an excellent job as well, and as we put the plane back in the hangar, he even told the owner of the flight school how well I did up there- that felt good.

Unfortunately, since we didn’t land at Kenai, the cross country didn’t count, and I’ll have to redo it. It’s a bummer indeed, but on the other hand, I got very good experience learning how to handle the aircraft in really turbulent air and a practical lesson in judgement and knowing when to run away. Also, learned more about how the weather behaves in and around this area.

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Lesson 18: Cross Country to Kenai

Posted on February 23, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight  Time:  1.8 hours

Total Hours: 21.4

After being grounded twice last week for overcast, fog and low cloud ceilings, a strong high pressure finally came into the Cook Inlet area and brought sunshine and blue skies. Prime weather for my first cross country flight.

I had worked out two possible plans, one to Kenai and one to Talkeetna. Since I’ve been to Talkeetna before, I chose Kenai as our destination. I called the Kenai Flight Service Station to get an updated weather briefing, and then with my map and nav log charts clipped to my new kneeboard, we took off from Merrill and turned south. As we flew over Campbell Airstrip, I activated my flight plan over the radio and then began my process for identifying and logging my checkpoints along my course. 

Adding the new element on navigation into the mix, I suddenly understood the extreme importance of efficient cockpit task management. Put simply, there isn’t alot of time to fiddle around and just look outside at the scenery for long periods of time. In addition to all the navigation stuff, which include looking for checkpoints, writing down your times, dialing in the VOR frequencies and radials, you have to keep flying the plane, look for traffic and work the COM radios. It’s alot to keep track of.

Flying over the Turnagain Arm South of Anchorage in a C172

Flying over the Turnagain Arm South of Anchorage in a C172

My biggest trouble was holding a steady altitude. There were a number of times when I’d look at my altimeter and notice that I had gained or lost a few hundred feet during the last time I looked. I tried to adjust the trim wheel accordingly, but I didn’t seem to have the touch today and kept having to make big adjustments. This shows me that I need to get into the habit of glancing more frequently at my altimeter, or even better, just work into a system of regular glances of all my instruments. It also teaches me that I need to base more attention regarding my up and down heading on the attitude indicator, instead of the vertical speed indicator, which shows trend and thus has quite a bit of lag. The attitude indicator is what will show me immediately if I’m pointed up or down.

I also learned that if you were not somewhat familiar with the territory, it can be quite easy to get lost, or at the very least, misidentify a checkpoint. Frozen lakes start to look alike, as to rivers, and along the way, I made a couple of navigation mistakes, one when I was looking for a checkpoint in the distance that we had just passed over and another when I mixed up the direction to a VOR radial. Small mistakes that made me glad that I had an instructor in the plane for this first cross country. I did well correcting my mistakes, though, and also had to correct for the wind a couple of times. All in all, though, my course and estimated times between checkpoints ended up being very close to what I had planned.

My landing at Kenai was very good, one of my best. It was exciting to fly the downwind leg, turn base just before the water and then turn to final and land on an unfamiliar runway. The runway at Kenai is deceiving, because from the air, it looks quite small, but that’s just because the taxiways are really wide. The runway itself is very long and wide enough to accommodate much larger aircraft.

We didn’t stick around, I’ll save that for one of my solo cross countries. Instead, we just taxied back to the runway and got ready to head back to Merrill. I practiced a soft field technique on the takeoff; it was my first time, and so I didn’t hold the plane as level as I could have while gaining speed just above the runway when we left the ground. That will take more practice.

Approaching the Chickaloon Bay on the way back to Anchorage.

Approaching the Chickaloon Bay on the way back to Anchorage.

At one point as we were flying back to Anchorage, I did a wind speed calculation on manual flight computer, using the DME for groundspeed reference. It seemed that we were fighting it quite a bit and my calculation indicated almost an 18kt headwind at that altitude. It was definitely slowing us down. Coming in over Potter’s Marsh I called up Merrill Tower and announced myself on a Campbell arrival- yet another new thing. After passing the airstrip, I began my descent and we came in straight on the base leg to the runway and turned final.

For the landing, I wanted to practice a short field technique. I came in very slow, just under 60kt, and seemed to be all set to touch down at the end of the runway, but I think that I didn’t pay enough attention to the VASI and I ended up coming in too low. I realized that if I didn’t correct, I wasn’t going to make the end of the runway, so I added some power. In my slight panic, I added a bit too much power and ballooned up before coming down somewhat hard. The funny thing was, Mark just sat there, calm as could be. Later he told me, “I wanted to see what you would do and how you would correct it.” In his eyes, it was a pretty good short field landing, as I put the plane down right on the numbers, I just needed to refine how much power to give it in that kind of a situation. As with the soft fields, I just to go out and get some more practice, perhaps at Birchwood.
 
Overall, it was a very educational and rewarding lesson. Essentially, it was the real deal- going from one place to another by airplane, and it felt really cool. I look forward to my night cross country on Wednesday, and then my solo cross countries after that. I am now over halfway to my required 40 hours, although with longer flights now, the rest of the hours will come relatively quickly.

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Lesson 17: Night Flying

Posted on February 17, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight  Time:  1.2 hours

Total Hours: 19.6

My first experience flying at night. The objective of this lesson was to teach me nighttime navigational techniques and how to be deal with some of the spacial disorientations and optical illusions that can occur while flying in the dark.

We took off from Merrill, headed out over the Knik Arm and turned north, tracking towards the Big Lake VOR. Along the way, my instructor had me perform some basic maneuvers and practice stall recovery, which, as with any low visibility situations, are referenced primarily by using the attitude indicator. At one point, we headed straight west, where there were no lights at all on the ground and were essentially flying in total blackness, which is exciting and a bit eerie. It would be very easy to get lost in the dark and I even found myself slightly disoriented about which way North was.

As we got closer to Big Lake, we began looking for the airport beacon, a steady flashing green/white light. It can be pretty hard to pick out with all the street lights and traffic lights, but eventually we found it. I tuned to he CTAF (common traffic frequency) and broadcast that I was west of the airport and overflying the airport at 2,500 feet. As we got closer, my instructor showed me the procedure for activating the pilot controlled lighting, which is really cool. By clicking the mic seven times in a row, you can remotely bring up the brightness of the runway lights. They stay on for a few minutes and then fade back down. This way, the airport doesn’t have to keep them on max brightness all night long and the landing pilot can bring them up or down as needed.

Once past Big Lake, we flew back across the arm towards Birchwood, where we did two touch and go landings. This was my first time landing at a field other than Merrill, my first time landing without the visual aid of VASI lights (visual approach slope indicator) and my first time landing at a non tower field. The main difference here is that you watch out for other traffic and broadcast your turns in the pattern on the CTAF. Both landings were very good, even the second one, when I came in a bit low and could see the treetops near the end of the runway and my instructor made it interesting by turning off my landing light on final. I corrected my descent rate and touched down smoothly.

Leaving Birchwood, we turned back towards Anchorage and flew alongside the Chugach foothills. There was quite a bit of turbulence next to the mountains, due to a big low pressure system coming in, which made for a bumpy ride. As we got closer to Merrill, I called up the tower and came in for three more landings, all of which went exceptionally well. I joked that in the dark, I didn’t have the runway to distract me. 

It did occur to me, though, that my landings with two people in the plane have generally been better than my solo landings. I asked my instructor if this was due to the difference in performance due to a lighter plane and he assured me that yes, this does make a difference. I tend to float more on my solo flares than on my dual flares, because a heavier plane will settled down more quickly onto the runway. The solution, he told me, is to slow my final approach speed by a few knots when I’m by myself.

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Solo Touch and Go Practice

Posted on February 14, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight  Time:  .7 hours

Total Hours: 18.4

At this stage in my flight training, I’m starting to take a close look at my progress and evaluate where I am in relationship to my lesson syllabus. Now that I’ve started to fly solo, I’m about to move into the cross country stage and I feel like I am right where I should be for how many hours I have under my belt. I’m comfortable with the controls, and I feel like I have a solid understanding of navigation. 

The area where I feel I need work, is landings, so yesterday, I scheduled myself a short block to get in some more practice. Now that I’m endorsed to fly solo at and around the airport, I can essentially take the plane up for unsupervised solo practice flights. I’ll actually need to do this a few times in order to reach the needed 40 hours before I can get my pilot license.

Figuring that a short but concentrated time of working on the landings would be helpful, I gave myself 45 minutes to practice. It was the end of the day and although it was still light enough to see, twilight was fast approaching. I watched all the lights start to come on around the city and got an introductory feel for what night flying will be like. It was neat to see the runway lights on either side of me as I did my landings. I did seven touch and go’s in that time and tried hard to really focus on making them smooth. They were not all smooth, and in fact a couple were not all that good, The first one was by far the best, and the last one was pretty good as well.

There was a bit of a crosswind, and without Mark in the plane to help talk me through it, I found myself starting to have a better understanding about how the breeze blows the plane across the runway during the flare. I would line up on final and concentrate really hard on keeping the aircraft straight with the rudder pedals, but then would find myself drifting. Looking back now, I think that at the time, I perceived this as that I wasn’t doing a good enough job with the rudders, when it was actually the wind blowing me sideways. I’d try to compensate with the rudder, but would end up side loading the gear a bit. Fortunately, the runway is covered with ice right now, which makes it easier on the landing gear, but I need to get this nailed down for when the ice melts.

I did have one landing where I dropped the wing just enough and brought the plane down on the upwind wheel to avoid drifting. It wasn’t the smoothest of touchdowns, but I had at least done that part right, so I felt good about the learning process. One area where I see definite improvement are my pattern descents. I’m doing a much better job of controlling my airspeed through my turns to base and final, and I’m using the trim wheel to keep the descents at a steady rate. I also feel like I’m doing a better job of looking down the runway when I level off, just need to keep practicing that and refine my feel for the touchdown.

I have my first night lesson tonight, and the weather forecast looks good for my cross country on Monday. It will be an exciting next few days!

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Lesson 16: Instrument Reference, VOR Tracking, Crosswind Landings

Posted on February 12, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight  Time:  1.0 hours

Total Hours: 17.7

Fresh tracks on the runway today. I was the first one to takeoff after an afternoon of snowfall and runway 7 had about 3 inches of cover. After our climb, we headed over to the practice area, where I had another half hour of hood time. This time Mark had me track to the Big Lake VOR using only the instruments. Having a good handle on VOR navigation, I was able to complete this task with no trouble. I can tell that I’m so much more comfortable with the basic feel of handling the airplane, because I find myself holding the yoke like I hold the steering wheel of my car.

We also reviewed flying general headings and stall recovery by instrument reference and flying with no attitude indicator. (This is done by simply putting a sticky note over the instrument to simulate it being inoperative.) Lastly, Mark had me try to fly straight and level with my eyes closed, to simulate how easy it is for the body’s senses to be fooled. When I opened my eyes, I was not too far off, but it’s an easy illustration that flying blind in a cloud can really mess with your sense of what feels up and down. Even a slight downward angle could end up in an accident in mere minutes without correction. This is all designed to get me used to referencing the instruments should the need arise.

When we flew our approach back to Merrill, we saw our lone tracks on the runway; noone else had been out since we left. I got some crosswind landing practice, but it was pretty tough. Just as regular landings took time to sort out all the specific techniques, adding the crosswind component will take some more time and practice. I had a hard time coordinating the flare while dropping the left wing and ended up ballooning back up both times on the level off. I remember also being thrown off a bit by the snow, it was just a totally different look and it’s just another challenge that I’ll have to get used to.

I’ve been working on my cross country flight plans, and if the weather holds through the weekend, I’ll have a night lesson on Saturday night and then my first cross country on Monday.

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Lesson 15: Instrument Flying, VOR Navigation, Short & Soft Field Takeoffs & Landings

Posted on February 6, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight  Time:  1.1 hours

Total Hours: 16.7

My best landing yet! More on that in a bit.

More hood time today. For .5 hours, I wore the ‘foggles’ and flew the plane using only instrument reference. In addition to flying straight headings, Mark had me do climbing and descending turns and stall recovery, which is pretty interesting when you can’t see outside the plane. You use the attitude indicator, and a bit of your own body’s sense of direction to bring the plane back to level.

Next, Mark had me close my eyes while he took the controls and put the plane in an unusual flight attitude, such as banked and pointed upwards. I was to open them and bring the plane back to level as quickly and efficiently as possible. I seem to do well with the instrument maneuvers, probably because it’s like using the simulator.

Then we went over VOR radio navigation, using the Big Lake VOR to track our headings. Even though this was our second time talking about this in my flight lessons, I feel like I already have the skills to track to and from VOR stations and also to use two stations to triangulate my position on a sectional map. The simulator allows me to practice these techniques, and I’ve worked on them at home quite a bit.

Sights today include an AWACS jet flying an approach into Elmendorf, and a herd of about 25 moose hanging out in a clearing near a farm. I had never seen so many moose in one place and we flew over them at about 1,000′ to get a closer look.

Back at Merrill, Mark demonstrated short and soft field takeoffs and landings. Basically, short field landing mean flying a slower than normal final approach, so that when you hit the runway, you have minimal airspeed to bleed off during the level off. A good short field landing means putting touching the wheels down right at the end of the runway using as little of it as possible to stop. Short field takeoffs mean quickly accelerating to liftoff speed with one notch of flaps, then pulling back on the yoke and lifting the plane abruptly in the air at the proper speed. You climb quickly to clear any obstacles, which might be trees at the end of a gravel strip, for example, and then reduce pitch and climb as normal.

Soft field takeoffs and landings basically mean keeping the nose wheel off of the ground as much as possible. When taking off, you pull back on the yoke as soon as you start start rolling forward, climb into the air at minimal airspeed. You then level off and fly in the ground effect just above the runway while you build up your speed for the climbout. Short field landings mean landing on the mains and holding the nose up as you roll out until it drops to the runway on it’s own. 

I didn’t get a chance to practice these techniques today, maybe next time, but I did perform the final landing, which went exceptionally well. Even though I overshot the turn to final, I corrected and then remembered to round out smoothly and keep my eyes on the end of the runway as I bled off the airspeed. I quickly looked over my shoulder at the left wheel for a second to see it’s position in relation to the runway and touched down smoothly. Mark congratulated me on what was easily my best landing yet.

Finally getting it and feeling very postive. Now I start thinking forward towards my cross countries. Mark wants me to begin planning for two possible locations- Kenai and Talkeetna. Before then, though, I have one more one-hour dual lesson, and then a one-hour night dual; my first flying in the dark!

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Lesson 14: Solo in the Practice Area

Posted on February 5, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight  Time:  1.3 hours 

Total Hours: 15.6

Today was my first solo flight away from the airport. My lesson plan was to fly over to the practice area and work on a specific list of maneuvers. It seemed simple enough, but due to the high volume of air traffic this morning, I got in a good deal of radio practice and looking for other planes as well, which kept things challenging during the entire flight.

Before leaving Merrill, the tower gave me a squawk code on my transponder so that Anchorage Control could have me on their screens for flight following and traffic management. I was directed to dial them up as soon as I was over the channel and I remained in contact with them during the whole time I was practicing my maneuvers. The woman kept alerting me to traffic in my area, and although I kept reading back, “654 looking,” I rarely saw the planes that she was referring to. When I did seem them, I let her know. I’ve found that other airplanes can be hard to spot, although I’m getting better at learning how and where to look.

Always keeping an eye out for traffic, I went through my list of maneuvers- slow flight, stalls, S-turns and turns around a point. Being the first time I’d practiced stalls on my own, it was indeed very exciting when the nose of the plane dropped. It took some concentration to remember to push the nose back over and add full power, while coordinating with the rudder so as not to have the left wing drop too much. 

I felt good about my ground reference maneuvers, and did turns around a small island on a frozen lake, and the S-turns along a straight section of powerlines. There was a bit of a crosswind, so I had to correct the bank angles to compensate accordingly. 

As I headed back to Merrill for touch and go’s, I was told to watch for two F-15’s that were coming in from the north. Eventually, I spotted them as they descended over Elmendorf. After switching back to the tower frequency, I began my descent, although since I maintained my 2,200′ altitude all the way across the channel, I ended up coming in pretty high and had to lose a lot of air in a hurry.  At one point I was considering bailing on the landing and just going around, but I made the decision to stick with it. I used up quite a bit of runway, but landed ok. 

My second landing was a floater and my third was a pretty bad bouncer. I made sure to stay focused and fly a good solid patter for my last one and did much better. Still not quite fine tuned to that point between pulling up too much too fast, and not enough too late. More often than not, I either float or land somewhat flat. That will just take practice and continued concentration and evaluation. One instructor suggested that I try glancing over my shoulder at the wheels as I’m leveling off, just to give me a feel for where they are in relation to the runway. 

All in all, it was a very good solo lesson and a big mental workout. I definitely learned alot about cockpit management, traffic alertness and how to stay focused when new situations evolve. At one point during my climbout, I had to make a correction when the ATC alerted me that I had crossed into Elmendorf airpace. Looking down, I realized that I had strayed to the right of Ship Creek, which is the airspace boundary.

My radio skills continued to improve, as I had to tune my two COM’s to five different frequencies, between ATIS, Merrill Ground, Merrill Tower, and two different frequencies for Anchorage Control during the course of my flight.

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Lesson 13: Area Familiarization

Posted on February 4, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight  Time:  1.1 hours 

Total Hours: 14.3

The goal for this lesson was for me to become familiar with the areas around Anchorage and to get a feel for basic VFR flight out in a real world setting. It was first time we went away from the airport traffic pattern and the practice area. Essentially, it was my first ‘real’ flight as pilot out into the world.

We took off and did an east departure away from Merrill Field, and then turned north and followed the Glenn Highway alongside the Chugach foothills, past Eagle River, Birchwood and up towards the end of the Knik Arm. From there, we headed towards a large bump in the landscape called ‘the butte,’ which I used to practice my turns around a point. Off in the distance to the right we could see the Knik Glacier, and north of that, we were looking down the Matanuska-Susitna Valley.

From there, we turned and circled over the town of Palmer, then headed west over Wasilla and Big Lake before turning south back to Anchorage. (Yes, we flew over Sarah Palin’s house.) Along the way, I practiced some basic navigation skills using the Nav radio, VOR receiver and DME. The weather was beautiful- cold and perfectly clear and we had great views of all the mountains, including Mt. Redoubt, over 100 miles away. Fortunately, we didn’t see any smoke rising from the summit. At one point, we saw a number of moose loitering out on a frozen lake bed, soaking up the sun.

When we passed Twin Island Lake, I called up the tower and announced myself inbound. I recognized the voice on the radio as the same guy who ATC-ed me through my solo. I’ll probably never forget his voice. My landing was pretty good. There was a slight crosswind, and I didn’t do a perfect job with the rudder and wing adjustment, but we came down well and rolled to a smooth stop on the taxiway before returning to the hangar.

Another hour and one more step along in the learning process. Next time I’m scheduled to do my first solo away from the airport.

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Lesson 12: Solo Touch and Go’s

Posted on January 27, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight  Time:  1.3 hours 

Total Hours: 13.2

I was thinking about how nice the weather was as I rode to Merrill for my next lesson, which I was expecting to be dual. When I walked in the door, Mark surprised me by asking, “Are you ready to go up by yourself again?” Since it was indeed such a great, clear calm day, he suggested that I go do my second supervised solo and practice takeoffs and landings for an hour by myself. When I said OK, he pretty much handed over the keys to the plane and turned me loose.

Essentially, this would be my first solo flight from start to finish. I was certainly a little nervous, but I took the combination of confidence that I had in myself and that Mark had in me and ran with it. 

I went out to 654, sat in the cockpit for a minute to visualize what I’d be doing, and then very methodically went through the checklist as I did my preflight inspection and started up the plane. I found myself putting alot of attention towards little things that were more peripheral to the process of actually flying the plane, such as where I’d put my notebook and my pen, how I’d keep track of the time, should I put this here or here… probably because it was my attempt to begin establishing a system of how to handle those things for the future.

I got a bit nervous when I noticed that the traffic was using runway 25. Although it’s the same runway as 7, and follows the same pattern, just backwards, I’d never done touch and go’s in that direction. I reassured myself that I knew the visual reference points to follow, I’d just be doing everything in reverse. When I was ready, I called for clearance, taxied up to the runway and took off. 

The view on climbout was incredible. Flying west, I could see the huge coastal mountains off in the distance straight ahead standing out against the clear blue sky. In fact, all the mountains were out- Denali, Foraker, Hunter, the Talkeetnas and the Chugach. It was truly a beautiful day for flying. I could also see the 747’s taking off from Anchorage airport, which is always a pretty cool sight.

I was also a little nervous when I came in on my first final, “would I remember how to do this?” I though to myself. Of course, there was really no time to answer, I just went through the motion and landed 654 like I had been taught. It’s starting to become trained muscle memory now, and more practice will only increase my skill at landing and handling the airplane.

The first one went well, as did most of my landings. Some were certainly better than others. Sometimes I floated a bit too long or ballooned up a bit, but I always remembered to add power and bring it back down gently. Other times I had trouble keeping straight with the rudder on the icy runway. It can be tricky to manage the torque effects on the ice, when there is little to no friction for the wheels to help steer it from going left. It seems like the snow and ice make things worse if you don’t have the rudder well under control when you first touch down.  Also, with snow covering about two thirds of the entire runway width right now, there is only about a 30 foot wide strip of clear, icy asphalt, which looks pretty narrow when you’re on final approach. Flying lessons in Alaska in the wintertime- very exciting.

I did 12 touch and go’s in all, and I tried to evaluate each landing individually during the next climbout, hoping to improve on the next go around. I definitely need to make sure I’m holding off when I level out so that I bleed off the excess airspeed without floating back up before I start raising the nose. Being the most precise action of the landing process, this just will take more practice. Also, I need to make sure I’m looking down towards the end of the runway when I begin the flare.

I’m getting much more used to adjusting the trim wheel everytime I make a change, and my ATC listening and communication skills are improving. A couple of times I had to extend my downwind, and on one lap I had to come in for a very long final, which forced me to not just rely on the regular pattern cues and visual checkpoints as I did my approach. 

When the hour was done, I requested a full stop, did my last landing and rolled out easily on the snow before braking and turning off and taxing back to the hangar to secure the plane. My excitement level is growing, now that I’m experiencing solo flying – I equate it to leading your first rock climb, and I would say that the feeling is very similar. There are actually a few parallels with flying and climbing, which is probably why I’m enjoying this so much.

After today’s lesson and 15 solo landings and under my belt, I feel like it’s really coming together for me now.

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My First Solo

Posted on January 23, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight  Time:  1.3 hours

Total Hours: 11.9

I flew my first solo yesterday, January 22, 2009 at just after 3:00pm, Alaska Time. 

After being shut down by ice fog two days ago, I rode out to the field with confidence, hoping that today was the day. I had taken a few days to work through and process my previous lesson, which had not gone so well, and spent a good deal of time mentally preparing and going over all the procedures in my head so that I would be ready. And, first thing I did when I got in the plane was crack the seat handle all the way up.

Up to this point, my last hurdle with landings was smoothing out my roundout, or flare. I kept finding myself pulling back on the yoke too much, which would cause me to balloon up. I also couldn’t seem to break the urge to pull back for the flare with both hands, when I should have my right hand on the throttle. In order to work through this in my mind, I tried to shift my thinking about the roundout and level off to being a single smooth motion, instead of acting as if it were two, which is what I had been doing. To put it another way, it’s not descend, descend, descend… over the numbers, now pull up, rather it’s descending… now approaching the end of the runway, slowly and smoothly start to pull up and level off. I discussed it with my instructor and he put it very simple terms that could relate to, “When when you get to a corner on your bike, you don’t just yank the handlebars to the right, you make a gradual turn.” 

The concept must have sunk in, because when we flew around the pattern and came in for our first landing of the day, I did it just like I was taught. The roundout and level off was one smooth motion and the touchdown was way more precise than any I’d had last week. Add to that the 5-7kt drifitng across the runway, I even got a bit of crosswind training, straightening out the crab and dropping the upwind wing slightly just as we got over the runway.

After about five trips around the pattern together, it was obvious that I had it down. Mark got out of the plane, signed my solo endorsement and sent me on my way to do three full takeoffs and landings on my own. Although I definitely felt ready, I knew that it wouldn’t be good to think about it too much, so I just sat there in the plane for a minute or two, making sure I had my checklist and tower/ground frequencies ready and called for taxi clearance back to runway 7. 

The scariest part for me was probably that moment right when you roll forward onto the runway, line up with the centerline, and start to push in the throttle. After that, whatever doubts you may have right then just disappear. They have to, because before you know it, you’re in the air and watching the world drop beneath. You suddenly feel like a pilot.

I could see Mark and Hart standing over by the hangar, watching me as I took off. I flew off the runway and climbed towards the Chugach Mountains, marveling at the 172’s performance with just one small person it it. At one point, I looked at the rate of climb indicator and noticed that at 75kt, I was ascending at 1100-1200 FPM. Gotta love this cold Alaska density altitude!

I made my first turn over Costco parking lot, set my trim for the downwind and took a few moments to enjoy the view over the Anchorage area before starting my descent. I did a solid job controlling my airspeed and descent rate throughout base and final, and as I came down over the end of the runway, I leveled off and pulled back gently on the yoke until I felt 654 touch the ground. It went as well as I could have hoped, and even though I had been having trouble keeping the plane on the centerline through nearly all of my landings, this time, I kept on top of the rudder and held her straight all the way through. I think remember letting out a cheer for myself as I did my rollout and exited the runway.

My second and third trips around the pattern went just as well, as did the landings. My second was a little flat, but still pretty soft, and during my third, I pulled up just a little too hard and rose back up a bit on the flare. I remembered to add a quick burst of power so that it wouldn’t stall too high and drop hard, and even though the touchdown was a little harder than the first two, it was well within acceptable limits. The middle of the runway was very icy, so during all of my rollouts, I had to veer to the side where the snow was before using the brakes. 

During my alone time in the air, I found myself feeling a bond with the ATC guy as we communicated; after all, since Mark wasn’t in the plane to help me out with commands, it was just me and him. After I had done my three landings, a couple of the ATC guys called up on the radio to congratulate me on my first solo. That felt really good. 

When I taxied back to the hangar and shut the plane down, Mark came up, opened the door and said, “Welcome to the club.”

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