Practice Landings on a Gravel Strip

Posted on April 23, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N13205

Flight Time: 1.2 hours

Total Hours: 39.2

After flying less than perfect patters at Birchwood the other day, I felt I needed more practice landing at non-towered airports where I don’t have familiar visual cues to guide me along my downwind, base and final legs. Goose Bay, a 3,000 unpaved runway on the other side of the Knik Arm seemed like a good choice, since I’d never been there before. Plus, it would be a chance to get in some genuine soft field takeoff and landing practice on a real Alaskan gravel strip.

We took ‘205’ today, since it has the bigger tires and flew a few miles north after crossing the channel until the strip came into sight. It was certainly different than anything I’d done yet, being right up against the water on the south and surrounded by trees on all sides. I entered the pattern, announced myself on the common traffic frequency and began my descent for runway 25. I was a little low and far out over the water on my base leg, and Mark pointed out that if the engine were to fail, we wouldn’t have enough altitude to glide back to land. I made a mental note to fly a tighter pattern next time.

It was exciting to come in over the trees and make my first gravel touch down, and although I came in pretty fast and ate up a couple hundred feet of the runway, I got the plane down pretty smoothy and kept it straight as we slowed down. We came to a full stop on the first landing and then after we took off again, we did 6 more touch and gos. My patterns got much more precise as I went on. I really concentrated on being consistent with the power and trim wheel during my descents and eventually was able to get my airspeed under control on final so that I wouldn’t float too much during my flare. One thing that threw me off a bit was that ‘205’ indicates airspeed in MPH instead of knots. I haven’t flown this plane in quite awhile, and so that difference might have made thing a bit more challenging.

The thing I had I struggled with today was getting the nose up enough during the flare. I kept landing somewhat flat, which is exactly what you don’t want to do on a soft field landing. Fortunately, the strip was in pretty good shape, but this is an area where I need work. Overall, my landings today were pretty smooth and straight, I just need to refine my flare.

I felt that I accomplished the two things that I wanted to improve on today, which were to fly a more consistent pattern and to make sure I was not swerving on the runway after I had landed. I’ve been having trouble with that, and I think it’s because as the plane slows down, the rudder control loses effectiveness and that’s the time it’s most prone to veering left. The amount of control input that’s needed to keep the plane tracking straight on the centerline of the runway during final quickly changes and I haven’t been compensating for that. Today, I made sure to increase my control input on the rudder once we were on the ground and slowing down each time.

Once back at Merrill, Mark and I talked about my progress and went over the numbers in my logbook. At this point, I have met all of my other requirements and only have less than one hour to reach the required 40 hours of training. Although I feel good about my skills at the point, and know that I just need a little bit of work on my landings, I asked Mark what he thought.

He agreed with me about the landings, and thinks that we can knock those into shape with one more dual lesson. Other than that, he feels that my flying skills are up to par, and since I scored a 90% on my written exam, I obviously have a solid knowledge on the material. His assessment is that I’m ready for my checkride!

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More Checkride Prep

Posted on April 21, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight Time: 1.3 hours

Total Hours: 38

Today was the first time that my wife Amy went flying with me. She felt that it would help to have an instructor in the plane during her first time up with me, so she came along for the lesson. She wandered around on the tarmac while I was doing my preflight and then pretty much just sat in the back seat and enjoyed the view during the entire flight. The visibility was great, and we could even see Mt. Redoubt erupting with a huge cloud of steam and ash across the Cook Inlet. It was nice not have to worry about whether she was feeling comfortable, which could have made me even more uncomfortable and possibly added unneeded pressure during my lesson.

Overall, it was a good experience for both of us and it was helpful for me to learn how to deal with a passenger in the plane and know what and how to communicate with them, especially if things were to go wrong. Mark reiterated the need for the pilot to remain calm no matter what happens and portray confidence during the entire flight. After all, passengers may not always know what to expect and what is normal or not normal, so it’s up to the pilot to set the tone.

Since I’m working towards my checkride, Mark had me fly some headings, climbs and descents to make sure my tolerances were right in line with what I’d need to get my license. Next he pulled the throttle all the way out and had me go through the emergency landing without power procedure. It had been a few weeks since I last practiced this, and I did fine, but recognize that I need to keep reviewing this so that it becomes second nature. I spent a little too much time fiddling with the trim and so Mark advised me to scan all the necessary components while I’m doing this, since my attention is focused down there anyway during that step.

Next we went over to Birchwood, where Mark had me practice short field takeoffs and landings. I got a good feel for what I still need to work on, which is landings at airfields other than Merrill. I’m so used to flying the Merrill pattern and landing there, and not nearly as used to landing at smaller, non tower strips that don’t have the same visual references as what I’m used to, like the Anchorage city streets. My patterns weren’t perfect, and I struggled with a couple of my landings, but definitely got better during the third and fourth tries.

I struggled a bit on our final landing at Merrill, partly due to a crosswind. I let the airspeed get a bit too low and then bounced too much. I realized that one thing I don’t always do is look at the windsock as I’m coming in on final. I think I tend to listen to the ATIS and then not pay very much attention to the best visual cue that the runway has to offer.

So, when I’m on final approach, remember to LOOK AT THE WINDSOCK!! Again, look at the windsock.

Regarding the landings, I scheduled for later this week with Mark so that we can go get in some real short and soft field practice on the gravel runway over at Goose Bay. Should be very educational.

In the meantime, remember to look at the windsock.

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Better Landings

Posted on April 8, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight Time: 1.0 hours

Total Hours: 36.7

Thinking about what I still need to improve before my checkride, I decided to put in another hour of takeoff and landing practice and work on my short and soft field technique. I’d been visualizing the landing process in my mind over the past few days and going over what I’d need to do in order to bring them into tight tolerance, and I felt good about giving them a try again.

The day didn’t start out well, though, as I slammed the flight school owner’s finger in the hangar doors as we were pulling out the plane. I quickly put that behind me and got down to business, took off with a soft field technique and did a lap around the pattern.

I did a normal landing for my first one, and although it wasn’t great, it wasn’t bad either. Right as I was doing my roundout, I made sure to glance about 45° off to my left to get a quick perspective of where I was in relation to the ground. My second was better and so I did a few short and soft fields, all of which went quite well. My soft fields were surprisingly… well, soft, and in fact, I didn’t have any bouncers or floaters in any of my landings.

I had talked with my instructor beforehand and remembered that during my bad landing session two weeks ago, I had been abruptly pulling all of my remaining power out right as I got over the runway, instead of waiting until right before touchdown. This caused the plane to drop and pitch slightly nose down, and also caused reduced elevator effectiveness due to the downwash from the propellor slipstream being suddenly lessened. Normal control inputs that I’d been using during my final approach were now not enough to bring me through a smooth roundout and flare and I would end up hitting the runway hard, or else pulling back too hard to compensate and floating back up over the runway.

Today I concentrated on better management of the throttle through final, flare and touchdown, and worked on small, smooth applications or reductions of power as needed. It helped considerably and at the end of the hour, I felt much more confident of my landing skills. I still had a bit of trouble keeping it on the centerline throughout the landing and rollout, but started to get a better handle on that later on.

I did have confusing moment, and got chewed out by the tower for it. I was on the downwind and following a Piper twin who was turning base ahead of me. The tower called and told me to follow the traffic on final, and I replied that I saw the traffic turning final right at that moment. I continued onto my base leg and right before I turned final, the tower called and asked if I saw the Cessna on final. Right then, a white Cessna zoomed by in front and below me on his way down on long final.

That’s when I got confused, because I was apparently supposed to follow the Cessna, not the twin. The tower guy may very well have told me to look for the Cessna, but since the twin was on final at the time, I was looking at him. Even if he did, he didn’t say that I was number 3, which might have helped. I did a go around, but then did not make the crosswind turn quickly enough and the tower barked at me for not following my instructions. When I came around on final again, I was still too close to the twin, who was also doing touch and go’s and I had to do another go around.

The next time around, I made extra sure to follow and read back my instructions as I did two more touch and go’s. It was definitely a good learning experience and it illustrates the need to stay on your toes, even if you make mistakes.

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Preparing for the Checkride

Posted on April 3, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight Time: 1.2 hours

Total Hours: 35.7

Yesterday was one of three more dual lessons that will help me fine tune my skills so that I’ll be ready to meet the requirements of private pilot. After the difficulties with my previous outing, I was eager to get back in the plane and do better. With my flight training nearing and end, the focus now is preparing for my checkride and my FAA written exam. I feel confident with my overall knowledge of the materials and also with my general flying abilities, although, as I discovered last week, I need some more practice with my landings.

I was a little nervous as I did my preflight but quickly settled back into things when my instructor and I took off. We flew over to the practice area and Mark had me practice some VOR navigation. With the foggles on, I tracked inbound to the Big Lake VOR to fulfill my hood time requirement, then took them off and intercepted the 170° radial outbound as we turned and headed back.

Satisfied that my navigation skills were up to par, Mark had me do some practice landings when we came back to Merrill. He demonstrated landing without flaps, which could happen if you have an electrical problem. Essentially, it involves controlling your descent speed with trim and forward slips, and you end up having use up much more of the runway bleeding off excess airspeed before touchdown. For the second landing, I practiced landing without flaps and did quite well. I did a good job controlling my speed and touched down pretty smoothly.

We did three more touch and go’s and I practiced a soft field takeoff, a short field landing and a couple of slight crosswind landings. I was able to keep the plane tracking straight along the runway, although I used a little too much aileron correction and ended up drifting into the wind as I landed. As with everything else, it will just take more practice. Overall, my landings were much better than last week and I left feeling confident about how the lesson went.

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Touch and Go’s…a little out of practice

Posted on March 25, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight Time: .6 hours

Total Hours: 34.5

We had a break in the weather, so I decided to take advantage of the clear skies and get in some takeoff and landing practice. With my cross country flights taking up most of March, it had actually been almost a month and a half since I spent a dedicated hour doing touch and go’s in the pattern.

As soon as I came around for my first landing and bounced, I realized just how out of practice I was. I brushed it off and concentrated on the next approach, but it wasn’t much better than the first one. Nor were the next few. I floated. I bounced. I swerved on the runway. What I didn’t do was put it down nice and smoothly just like I’d been taught.

It was more than a little frustrating and after a half hour, I decided to quit. I figured that it was no use in paying for plane rental time time when it wasn’t going so well, so after landing #6, I came to a full stop and taxied back to the hangar, trying to analyze exactly what happened. I couldn’t really put my finger on it, so I did what my instructor told me to do, which was to call it a bad day and put it behind me.

I remember having a pretty bad day right before my solo, too. I’ll take his advice and look forward to my next lesson.

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Lesson 23: Long Solo Cross Country to Homer

Posted on March 19, 2009 by admin

 Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight Time: 3.2 hours

Total Hours: 33.9

I’d been looking forward to my long cross country. In some ways, it’s the culmination of my flight instruction and the real test of my piloting skills. The requirement is to fly to and land at a destination that’s at least 100 miles from my home airport, and then fly to and land at a third airport at least 50 miles away. My itinerary for this flight would be Anchroage-Home-Kenai-Anchorage.

The weather was beautiful and clear for my flight yesterday, and forecasts for all three locations called for VFR conditions the entire day. After calling the FSS to file my flight plan and get an updated weather briefing, I went over my proposed route with my instructor and took off from Merrill.

The air was incredibly smooth over the Turnagain Arm, much calmer than the two times I’d flown over it. I turned at the HOPER checkpoint, and then when I passed over the mouth of the Chikaloon River bay, I turned south to a heading of 182°. I checked my stopwatch as I passed over each of my checkpoints and noted that I was pretty much right on with my estimated groundspeed and times.

Flying down just to the west of the Chugach Mountains, I could see some of the glaciers of Kenai National Wildlife Preserve as I got farther south. It was a a breathtaking sight and I spent some time doing quality sightseeing in between checkpoints.
I tried hard to maintain steady altitude as I flew, especially during the times when I looked down at my map. Having always liked maps and the process of navigation, I find it incredibly enjoyable to navigate by sectional as I fly over the terrain and try to identify my location by identifying features on the ground below me. I’m also fascinated by the seemingly simple process of VOR navigation, and although it’s quickly being replaced by GPS as the desired method of route finding, I find comfort in those needles and radio codes.

In planning for my route, I had chosen to fly straight down towards the mouth of Kachemak bay, and then turing and following the coastline down to Homer. This meant flying to the west of a low, broad mountain, since I had decided on an altitude of 2,500 feet. As I got farther south, though, I noticed a low bank of clouds that sat in the low valley between the Chugach and the broad peak. Since, as a VFR pilot, I’m to treat clouds essentially as brick walls, I suddenly found myself needing to make a choice. My options were to climb and fly over the clouds and then drop back down towards the bay as I passed, going west around the low mountain and approaching Homer from the north, or dropping underneath the cloud bank.

The weather was more clear to the west, but it would mean adding some distance to the route. I wasn’t sure how thick the clouds bank was over the bay, so I didn’t really want to head underneath it. I chose to climb, but as I ascended to 4,500 feet, I could see that the cloud bank extended quite a ways over Kachekak bay. Since I didn’t want to end up stuck above the clouds near Homer, I changed course and began heading straight west, hoping to pick up the 003° radial from the Homer VOR. I called FSS on the radio and amended my flight plan.

As I flew around the low mountain, I tuned into the Homer ATIS and heard 1,600 foot broken for the cloud layer. I realized that with that kind of cover and the hilly terrain, I couldn’t just make a straight shot into Homer from the North either. I didn’t want to keep heading west, so I picked a route through clear air around and below the broken clouds, turned southeast and eventually made it to the bay. Turing towards Homer, I caught sight of the runway, so I called the CTAF, announced my inbound and tracked straight in for landing. There was a strong headwind on the runway, and my touchdown was a bit hard.

After taxiing down the very long runway, I turned off, parked the plane and got out to take a few pictures and look around. It was a bit surreal that I was actually standing there in Homer, and I spent a few minutes just thinking about that. When I was ready to continue, I got back in the plane, started the engine and taxied back down the runway, before turning around and taking off into the wind.

Tuning my nav radio to the Kenai VOR, I tracked north through clear air and spent a bit of time enjoying the view of Mt. Redoubt standing there across the Cook Inlet.When I was about 10 miles from Kenai, I called up on the radio and began my approach. The wind was 270 at 7, which meant that I’d be doing a crosswind landing on runway 1L, and as I came in, I actually pulled it off pretty well, dropping the left wing and letting the upwind wheel touch down first. I taxied back, did one more practice takeoff and landing, which wasn’t as good as the first, and then took off and returned to Anchorage. I’d flown this last leg twice before and so navigation was pretty easy, although at one point, I tuned my nav radio to the wrong frequency and wondered why my needle wasn’t lining up.

Overall, I felt really comfortable with everything that happened during a four hour round trip that involved some real decision making and execution. I tried to focus on being relaxed in the cockpit and fine tuning my general efficiency and techniques. I felt like a real pilot on this flight and got an even bigger taste of what flying will be like when I get my license. With this long cross country now complete, all that’s left to do is start prepping for my written exam and my checkride.

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Practicing Maneuvers

Posted on March 13, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight Time: 1.1 hours

Total Hours: 30.7

With the weather not clear enough for my long cross country yesterday, I took 654 over to the practice area and brushed up on maneuvers. In preparation for my checkride, I’ll need to go up with my instructor a couple of times and make sure that I’ve got all of my required skills dialed and up to tolerance, and since I need a few hours to reach 40, I figured that an hour of solo practice would be helpful.

By the time I took off, the weather had lifted around Anchorage, so I flew across the Knik arm and began running through the checklist that I had made for myself. I worked on power-on and power-off stall recovery, steep turns, s-turns, turns around a point, emergency landing without power, and forward slips. 

Everything went pretty well, and even though it’s been a few weeks since I’d done some of these maneuvers, I feel pretty comfortable with everything on my list. I know that I’ll have to fine tune some of them so that they meet FAA spec, but that’s what practice time is for. My confidence is growing so much, that it’s almost seeming easy at some points, but I keep that in check when I scan all around the instrument panel to make sure that everything is where it’s supposed to be, and when I scan the sky for traffic. 

The only thing that didn’t go quite so well was when I came back to Merrill for landing. I stayed above the required 2,200 feet over the Arm, right over two fighter jets that flew directly underneath me on their Elmendorf approach, but then had I trouble losing enough altitude to get myself low enough on final for runway 7. I even had all the power out with full flaps. That’s the second time this has happened, and since I ended coming in way high, I did a go around. After that, I did two touch and go’s before my full stop landing. I’ll just have to think about and plan that approach better for next time. Overall, my landings continue to improve, although I did have one minor floater this time. Looking at my logbook, I count 39 solo landings up to this point.

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Lesson 22: Solo Cross Country to Soldotna

Posted on March 10, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight Time: 2.0 hours

Total Hours: 29.6

I’m approaching 30 hours now, and looking forward towards my private pilot checkride, which at the current pace, should be sometime in April. As I make each new entry in my logbook, I can’t help but look over my previous entries, all the hours and flights that have brought me to this point. I remember being at 2 hours, and then, a few cold, foggy weeks later, hitting that first big milestone, the 10 hour mark. I remember the time when landing the plane seemed like such a struggle and wondering if I would ever get it down. I’ve come a long way during these incredible rewarding months and I’m simply amazed at how much I’ve learned.

For my second solo cross country, I planned for Soldotna, mostly because I’d never been there before. The day before, I plotted out a course that used both VOR navigation and dead reckoning and monitored the weather. It looked doable, but there were also points of concern. A low pressure system was causing low ceilings over the western side of the Cook Inlet, but the forecasts called for enough visibility and wind to make the trip possible.

When I got to my lesson, I called the FSS and got the latest briefing and was pleased to find out that even though Kenai had a 12kt wind coming in from the North, Soldotna was calm. Since Soldotna had east/west runways, I was concerned about possible crosswinds being too high for my landing ability. My backup destination was Kenai, which has north/south runways, but with Soldotna reporting calm winds, it was a go.

I was also concerned about 20-40kt surface winds over the Turnagain Arm, but talked it over with my instructor and he assured me that it was nothing I couldn’t handle. And if it did get back, I could always turn back. The practice that I had a couple of weeks ago could prove valuable today. When I actually took off and headed south over the Arm, it turned out to be not so bad. There were a few bumps, but certainly nothing like I had during my last time over this area.

Eyeing my VOR needles, I made the turn at the HOPER checkpoint, flew over the mouth of the Chick River, and then turned southwest. This was my dead reckoning portion, a 20nm stretch over an area with no real visible checkpoints. Using the numbers that I got from the winds aloft report, I used my flight computer to figure a wind correction angle and turned to the corresponding heading. It was incredible to look down, though, and see miles of forest, snow covered lakes and frozen, snowed over rivers that snaked and braided through the landscape in between tiny stands of trees. I looked for wildlife, but didn’t see any. I’ve always thought that the world is a beautiful place as seen from the sky.

I checked my time and groundspeed by using the 55° radial from the Kenai VOR, discovered that I was right on target, and proceeded southwest until I crossed over the small airstrip and road that marked my next checkpoint. From there, I could see the Soldotna airport, so I turned west, announced my position on the common frequency and began my descent. A voice came back on the radio that indicated a snow removal truck on the end of the runway. (It was actually the driver on the radio) As I got closer, I could see the truck plowing the edge of the runway, and I called to make sure that it was no problem landing on rwy 7. He assured me that he’d get out of the way, so I dropped into the pattern, made my turns and did a very nice landing on a very icy runway. I waited until I had completely rolled out until I applied the brakes and turned off.

The taxiways were covered in about 4 inches of fresh snow, so I kept the nose up and applied adequate power to plow through the powder as I taxied back to the end of the runway. I confirmed with the snowplow and then rolled back onto the runway and did a soft field takeoff before turning north. 

There was actually considerable low, almost to ground cloud cover to the west and I couldn’t even see Kenai. Even if I had wanted to divert there, it would not have been possible. To avoid the clouds, I had to head further west and at a lower altitude than I had planned as I flew north to pick up the 37° radial from the Kenai VOR. Once established on the radial and on the V-388 airway, I pointed the plane towards the Chick River bay, which I could see from my position. I had to use about 10° of right wind correction to hold the course. The difference in weather between what was in front of me and what was behind me was pretty dramatic, it was completely socked in to the west and mostly clear to the east over the Chugach Mountains. It made me glad that was able to get in and out of Soldotna, and it was probably good that I didn’t linger there too long.

The air over the Turnagain Arm was even smoother coming back and as I came across, I spent some quality time sightseeing and looking out at the mountains. Thats what it’s really ll about, right? Coming into Merrill, I made 3 touch and go’s before my last, full stop landing. For the first two, I practiced my short field landing technique, and although the first one wasn’t great, I held my airspeed low, paid attention to my rate of descent and the VASI, and actually put it down right on the numbers on my second try. My last two landings were standard technique and both went extremely well. Coming in on final and landing the plane is starting to feel really familiar. It makes me smile when I look back and remember how hard this used to be.

The strangest thing happened when I landed at Merrill today, though. Someone had apparently cleared all the snow off of the runway. It just didn’t look right, and when I touched down, I heard this weird chirping noise as my wheels touched the pavement. I hadn’t ever heard this before. Something must be wrong with the plane. 😉 It make take some time to get used to actually landing on pavement instead of snow and ice. I’ll have to bring this issue up with my instructor.

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Lesson 21: Night Cross Country to Talkeetna

Posted on March 8, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight Time: 2.5 hours

Total Hours: 27.6

This was my second attempt at the night cross country lesson. I’d been weathered out with low clouds and turbulence on my last try, but after checking the current and forecasted conditions with my instructor, we made the decision to fly to Talkeetna. There was quite a bit of wind up high, but not enough at ground level to cause any real problems. Or so we hoped. Hopefully we’d get to complete this lesson tonight, because with Daylight Savings Time just around the corner, darkness is coming later and later here in Alaska this time of year. Putting if off again could mean flying until past midnight just to get in the required hours. Waiting until summer up here, when there is really no darkness, means that you can’t actually get a full private pilot license until you can fulfill those hours.

We reviewed my cross country plan, which relied primarily on VOR navigation, since it would be too dark to pick out very many visual checkpoints, preflighted 654 and climbed to 4,500 feet after takeoff. I still needed a bit of time under the hood to meet my private pilot requirements, so Hart had me wear the foggles nearly the entire first leg until we were 10 miles south of Talkeetna. 

With the strong winds, it was a bit of a challenge to hold the plane at a steady heading and I kept having to make corrections to stay on the 335° radial inbound to the Big Lake VOR, and then the 330° radial outbound as we passed over the station. Our ground speed was also pretty slow going north, which indicated at least a 30-40kt headwind from the northwest. A high pressure to the south was drawing a heavy flow of air over the Alaska Range. 

When we got near Talkeetna, I took the foggles off, listened to the AWOS and began my descent to the airfield. I dropped into the pattern and announced my turns on the common frequency, l looked down to see the windsock and realized that there would be a slight wind coming down the runway. As I came around on final, it turned out to be a bit more turbulent than expected and I had to pay very close attention to my airspeed indicator and adjust my power accordingly. My touchdown on what turned out to be a VERY icy, slick runway was actually incredibly soft and smoothly executed. I waited until the plane had slowed way down before touching the brakes and turning off.

Since I needed 3 more landings to fulfill my night requirement, we taxied back and did two more takeoffs and landings. Those two were not nearly as good as my first one and I found myself fighting the bumpy air a bit more, especially on final. During both approaches, I heard the stall warning start to sound before I was over the end of the runway, which indicated that my airspeed was dropping too low. I managed to add enough power to prevent the stall and landed ok, but it was a good lesson in the importance of maintaining airspeed all the way until you’re over the runway. You can always bleed off speed later, but you DO NOT want to stall on final. 

Departing Talkeetna, we climbed to 5,500 feet and began our return flight to Anchorage. As we climbed, the wind calmed way down. We could see the lights of Anchorage from all the way up here and so navigating back was relatively easy. I did have trouble maintaining my altitude, though. I’ve had problems with this before, it seems to be the one thing I struggle with the most on certain flights, and so I’ll really have to work on paying attention to this detail during my next few hours.

Once back at Merrill, I did one full stop landing using only 10° of flaps and a forward slip on final. It was my first time practicing a slip and it ended up being a pretty hard landing. There was also a bit of a crosswind, so I had to correct for that as well. I used up alot of the runway getting it down and touched down pretty hard on all three wheels, so my instructor suggested that I try another one to end the night on a good note. My second landing was much better and so we taxied back to the hangar and called it good.

Tonight, I learned quite a bit about wind correction while navigating by VOR, and of course, learned that I need to keep paying attention to my altitude with quick scans across the instrument panel. This is especially important at night, when you don’t have the same visual cues to help you orient yourself.

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Lesson 20: Solo Cross Country to Talkeetna

Posted on March 3, 2009 by admin

Aircraft: C172 N52654

Flight Time: 2.2 hours

Total Hours: 25.1

A high pressure system brought two days of nothing but clear blue skies to Southcentral Alaska. It was so clear that the current weather report called for 100 mile visibility over Talkeetna. After getting an updated briefing and going over my flight plan with my instructor, Mark filled out the proper endorsement in my logbook and sent me on my way.

I’d been a bit nervous during the past couple of days thinking about this flight. I think most of it was that I had never landed at any other airports besides Merrill by myself. Up to this point, I had not flown solo anywhere, except in the traffic pattern and in the practice area, but for some reason, it was thinking about the landing part that made me a little nervous.  That said, I was looking forward to practicing some solo landings, which I had not had the chance to do for a couple of weeks. I’d built a side trip to Birchwood on the way back intending to do a couple of touch and go’s.

The idea of flying solo to Talkeetna had been an exciting prospect for me and I’d been looking forward to it ever since I started my lessons. Having flown with Talkeetna Air Taxi before and knowing some of the people who work there, I’d always wanted to go back and walk into the office after flying there myself. Also, I wore my TAT t-shirt for my first solo, and since it got cut up, I’d wanted to go and buy the symbolic replacement shirt.

Leg 1: Merrill to Talkeetna

My taxi and takeoff went without a hitch, and when I crossed over the Knik Arm, I climbed to 2,500 feet, tuned my VOR 1 to the Big Lake frequency and turned to track the inbound signal. Looking out my left window, I could see Mt. Susitna off to the west. The air was smooth up there, although I could tell that there was a slight headwind. 

After flying over the Big Lake VOR, I turned to track the outbound 330° radial. Soon, I flew over the Willow airport and veered closer to the large, braided Susitna River. To the Northwest, I could see the three big mountains, Denali, Foraker and Hunter. I didn’t see any other planes, but along the way, I tuned into the common frequency to monitor traffic over the surrounding airports. 

Eventually, I saw up ahead where the river split, and soon after, the Talkeetna airport came into view. I listened to the ATIS to get current weather and runway info and then called up Talkeetna traffic to announce myself inbound. I thought about making a slight left turn and then coming in on a long final approach to runway 36, but during my final descent, an Otter announced itself coming in from the northwest, so I got into the pattern and followed it all the way around as I watched the Otter come in for a landing. My final descent was smooth and my own landing went very well- my best solo effort yet, even though the runway was covered in snow and grooved ice. 

I taxied off the runway to the transient parking, secured my C172 and proceeded to the Talkeetna Air Taxi office to see of Paul Rodderick, the owner was there. Turns out, it was him in the Otter that landed just in front of me. I showed him ‘ruined’ TAT shirt and told him that I was on my first cross country solo. He and Sandra the office manager congratulated me and then Paul gave me another shirt. We talked about planes and flying for a bit and then I thanked him and went out to the garage to visit with Danielle, the TAT mechanic who was our pilot into the Pika Glacier. 

Leg 2: Talkeetna to Birchwood

When I was about ready to depart, I called my dad, ate my sandwich and then pulled the plane around to face the taxiway, figuring that it would be easier than trying to make a tight turn with the engine on. I followed a K2 Aviation C185 on skis to the runway, did my runup and took off behind him. Once in the air I climbed back to 2,500 feet and turned south.

While I’d used VOR navigation on the way up, I had decided to use pilotage and dead reckoning on the way back. I followed the road (there is only one- the Parks Highway), and the river back down over Willow, looking for my checkpoints along the way, then turned and flew over Houston. I’d forgotten to adjust for magnetic deviation when I turned after Willow and ended up south of Houston, but looking at the map, I spotted a place where the road and railroad met where I could cross reference with the Big Lake VOR 360° radial. When I passed that point, I turned right, this time correcting for deviation, passed Wasilla to the south and headed out over the Knik Arm.

Spotting Birchwood on the other side of the water, I tuned into the AWOS and the CTAF frequencies and began my descent to runway 19R. On my final approach, something didn’t quite look right, the runway seemed awful narrow, and I wondered for a moment if it was the taxiway that I was lined up on. Since I wasn’t 100% sure, I pushed in the power and did a go around. During my climbout, I glanced over my shoulder to watch another plane takeoff and confirm that it was indeed the runway. I had snowed the day before and they had only cleared it one plow width wide. I came back around and did two touch and go’s. My pattern could have been better, but my landings were not bad. Climbing out after the second one, I veered left to get on other side of the Glen Highway and headed back to Anchorage.

Leg 3: Birchwood to Merrill

Short, but nice fight back to town along the Chugach foothills and over Eagle River. When I had Merrill Field in sight, I listened to the ATIS and called up the tower. I had to call back to confirm that it was left traffic on runway 7, which is different than usual. The cleared me for landing, but since I was not used to left traffic on 7, I ended up making my turns to base and final too soon and ended up coming in too high. I was a little disappointed that my final landing was not nearly as good as my others from the day, but I shook it off, taxied back to the hangar.

After a quick brief with Mark, I filled out my logbook and rode home, very elated. It had been a very special and successful flight. Not everything went perfectly, but most things went really well, which, in my mind, made it a very productive lesson, not to mention a great experience flying.

Oh, and here’s the plane I hope to fly someday…

N9180Y, DeHavilland Beaver

A DeHavilland Beaver, N9180Y

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