Chicago Aviation

Length: 1.3 hours
Total Time: 32.5 hours

Back to dual training.. Today's lesson included special-use take-off and landings. There are two situations that require alternative TOL (Take off and landing) procedures. First is short field; second is soft field.

Short field landings are required when the runway doesn't allow enough distance for a 'normal' landing. There are many airstrips that are not paved, or in remote locations that will require these landings in order to fly in and out.

Basically, the idea of a short field takeoff is to get the plane airborne as soon as possible. Flaps and ground effect allow the plane to get to Vx (best increase of altitude over distance) while still allowing for short term altitude increase.

A soft field takeoff's main purpose is to keep the weight of the plane off of the wheels and onto the wings as quick as possible. Even while taxing to the runway, the elevator must be used to keep the tail down. For a soft field take off, the plane will start to wheelie down the runway before taking flight.

Same rules apply for landing. For a short field, the weight is moved from the wings to the wheels quickly (by retracting the wings) whereas a soft field landing leaves the weight on the wings to reduce the chances of planting the nose-wheel in the dirt. A soft field landing will also result in a wheelie, if executed properly.

The procedures aren't too awkward once the feel is known. Short landings can be done in approximately 500 - 750 feet opposed to 2x - 4x that amount.

While practicing with the instructor, everything was going well. I think I have these procedures down, but trying to perfect their execution is another thing..

Length: 2.0 hours
Total Time: 31.3 hours

The haze was pretty noticeable today. The drive down to Lansing gave no indication of poor visibility and the tops of the downtown buildings were well in sight. Be that as it may, when I arrived at the airport, the sky was murky. AWOS told of 10 SM visibility, so I had only mild reservations about going up.

Once I got off the ground, I realized that I would not be able to climb to 3,000 MSL. I need at least that much altitude in order to execute some of my practice maneuvers. I haven't attempted to practice any ground reference maneuvers, so this would be the perfect day to try some out lower altitude maneuvers.

Ground Reference Maneuvers include turns about a point and S-turns. They're both executed pretty much as they sound, with turns about a point basically attempting to keep the airplane at a constant radius from a central point and S-turns being 180 turns on either side of a North / South street.

The point of the exercises is to account for changing wind drift. When you have a tailwind, the turns require more bank. The opposite is true with a headwind. The tricky part is knowing exactly where the wind is. Since these maneuvers are executed at 800-1000 AGL, you can actually see the groundscape fairly clearly. So, scoping the trees, tall grass, flags on a golf course, smoke, or anything else that would indicate the wind. If nothing else if available, you can feel the drift of the airplane during the maneuvers to determine the direction.

Overall, today's practice was acceptable; especially if you take into account the fact that I haven't practiced these in over five months. I believe that I was a bit tougher on myself that I should have been after reviewing the gps data. My circles were relatively round and my S-turns were quite evenly spaced. Then add in the fact that there was quite a bit of thermal turbulence today, and I believe I did quite well. The thermals were enough to swing the airplane enough to cause a bit of apprehension due to the proximity of the ground. Also, as the S-turns required up to a 45 degree bank, a gust could easily push an angle with which I wouldn't be comfortable.

The takeoff and landing portions of the day were pretty normal. The winds were favoring runway 36. As that's about a 10 minute taxi, so any possibility of taking off of 9 or 27 would be welcome. The wind sock looked like the wind was coming from 040 or 030, so a 9 takeoff would be possible. But, after my runup, the windsock was steady from 36. I may have been able to make that takeoff as the wind wasn't too quick, but it's outside my personal restrictions (and my written authorization as well, most likely).

The active runway switched to 9 by the time I was ready to land, so I headed north along the west side of the airport. At the time I passed the strip, there was another airplane taking off for pattern traffic. I had to keep my eye on him and I entered a long base behind him.

I landed one wheel at a time for a proper crosswind landing.




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Length: 1.7 hours
Total Time: 29.3 hours

Today's flight was a bit more intense as there was a good amount of turbulence. Below 2,000 MSL the turbulence was enough to push the plane +\- 50 ft.

I climbed to 5,500 feet and started to do some standard straight & level flying. Then I went through the same routine as yesterday, except I didn't feel comfortable practicing Minimal Controllable Airspeed due to the turbulence. I did get up the comfort-level to try some power-on stalls. These simulate a stall after takeoff, so they occur at full power. These are a different from power-off stalls as there is much more torque to counteract as well as a much higher attitude to achieve stall.

All the while there was quite a bit of radio chatter. Some messages were unreadable while others were getting stepped on. Due to this, a good amount of energy was dedicated to listening for calls in my area & searching for traffic. I spent about ten to fifteen minutes doing 90° turns until I was reasonably assured that I could practice my maneuvers.

I had only one visual contact the entire flight. It was heading north at least 2,500 ft below me. It was the relative size of a dime, so it's really difficult to find other planes in the air. The best way to find any traffic is to hold focus on one section of airspace. Then, using the entire range of vision, including peripherals, look for any relative motion. After each scan, shift your view 10° at a time and refocus. This is the recommended method of searching for traffic.

As of right now, I'm comfortable executing the maneuvers, but I still need some practice to ensure I keep within the performance thresholds. I would say that I used the entire +/- 100 feet for most of my maneuvers. A few times I would notice that I lost 500 ft while performing stalls. I don't believe this is unacceptable, but I'd like to be able to recover quicker.

When I returned for a landing, I intending on flying by the airport to the west then entering a 45° downwind. As I approached the field, I realized that I would be breaking Gary's Class D airspace if I entered on my intended path. Instead, I descended to pattern altitude 2 miles south of the field and entered crosswind for runway 9.

Upon turning final for runway 9, AWOS was reading wind between 050 & 070 at 8 kts. Not as much crosswind as yesterday, but still enough to require a crab angle on approach.

The landing was quite good. A solid single upwind wheel landing with the second wheel touching down about five seconds after. Then the nose-wheel touched down during the rollout. No complaints with this landing.


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Length: 1.5 hours
Total Time: 27.6 hours

This was my first full solo. I checked the weather on my own and made my own agenda for the flight. Although this doesn't seem like a major change, there's a lot to be said for someone else letting you know that the winds are acceptable for flight. This time I didn't get the same comfort level and confidence buildup before the solo portion of the flight as all of my previous flights started with my instructor.

After checking the automated weather report, you need to check the actual wind on the field. This is done by finding the windsock(s) (or tetrahedron, or landing tee). According to FAA standards, a 15 knot (17mph) wind will fully extend the windsock. A 3 knot (3.5mph)breeze will cause the windsock to orient itself according to the wind. That means I probably was looking at anywhere from 8 knot to 13 knot winds as the windsock was floating at a 45° angle. The AWOS (Automated Weather Observing System) was reading a 13 knot wind gusting to 19 knot.

The wind was coming between 270° and 310°. This would have me taking off on runway 27. I am currently rated for 15 knot winds with a 8 knot crosswind component. You can see from the below chart that the crosswind varies drastically with orientation to the runway.

Today I was looking at anywhere from 0° - 40° angle of wind from runway 27. This would give me a crosswind component anywhere from 0 - 16 knots.



With these details, I decided that I am comfortable with my crosswind landings enough to handle this amount of wind. I have recently received some dual time landing at Gary with some varying winds, so that was enough to let me know where my skills were.

After run up, I heard a call from another plan on downwind for 27. I saw it and decided that I could easily takeoff before it turned final. It wasn't as nice as having nothing to worry about, but it wasn't a factor.

When I took off, the winds were up, but not too much crosswind as they were coming from 280°. After takeoff, I only had to apply a minor crab angle to hold my bearing.

I was still thinking about the clearance distances between my takeoff and the landing of the plane behind me during my turn to crosswind. I made a horrible call to the effect of "Lansing Traffic, Cessna 16U turning crosswind on Runway 9" (too wordy and stated the wrong runway) when it should have been simply "Lansing Traffic, Cessna 16U turning crosswind"

After departing the pattern to the South, my nerves were still up. I was looking all over the place trying to find any contacts in the area. I was traveling bearing 180° and about 70 kts. I saw a small line of cumulus clouds were at around 3,000 topping off around 4,500-6,000. I went to a relatively clear patch of sky and held 5,500 MSL. Since I was above the cloud line, the air was pretty smooth.

Once I had myself situated, I practiced the following:

• Straight & Level flight
• Steep Turns (45° bank)
• Power-off Stalls -- engine at idle and raise the nose until the speed drops below Vso)
• Slow Flight
• Minimum Controllable Airspeed

Length: 26.1 hours

Here's a quick review of the first twenty-six hours of flying time. During these lessons, I was out of town during the weekdays, so my available flight time was drastically reduced.

The first few lessons included the four basic maneuvers: turns, descents, ascents, straight & level flying. These are the fundamentals of flight, non-physically speaking.

Although these are really simple maneuvers, but it starts to build confidence in the aircraft. At first, I didn't know how much bank the airplane could withstand without the wings falling off.

There are two main confidence builders in flight: theory and practice. You could read textbooks that claim as long as the airplane is kept within maneuvering speed (Va), it will stall before structural damage occurs. You can read that along with stall speeds in various configurations per angle of bank, but that only gives the pilot partial confidence in the airplane. The maneuvers need to be executed in order to actually feel how they affect the body and airplane together.

That was what I took out of my first few lessons. The paradigm shift occurs when you realize that the plane 'wants' to stay in the air. As long as airspeed is above a certain point, it is quite difficult to stall and subsequently lose control of the airplane. After learning this, the next step is learning to use the four fundamentals accurately.

After about nine hours and eight lessons, we started to focus on landings. I had been landing the airplane each lesson, but there was a good amount of oversight. We started to stay in the pattern and execute some touch and goes. Touch and goes are when you land, but don't slow down to a halt. Instead, you configure the airplane for takeoff and increase speed until you can takeoff again.

I spent the vast majority of my time from six hours to eighteen hours doing these. At sixteen hours, I was allowed my first supervised solo. This is when the instructor believes that I could handle takeoffs and landings sufficiently. It always seems to be a surprise for people because you never know when the weather will work out just right. But midway through my thirteenth lesson, I was asked to make a full stop halfway through my lesson.

This was my first solo. The nerves really start to show for that first few seconds after the instructor left the airplane. I was told that the airplane would handle differently with the reduction of weight. The plane sped up much quicker and it had much more lift than before. I had to compensate for this by reducing my speed and maintaining altitude sooner than I had been to date. There was much going on around me as well. There were at least three other planes in the pattern at this time, so I had to maintain my separation as well as fly the plane.

After my first landing, I felt confident again. Once you realize that there's nobody else there to help you if something goes wrong, you just have to keep scanning the sky and instruments to make sure everything looks good. For some reason, thinking that kept me calm for the rest of my three touch and goes.

After my first solo, the weather started to turn for the worse. My next lesson included high winds. They were so fast that we reached 60 kts before the first taxi way. This is about 25%-30% of the standard distance required.

While airborne, we executed some slow flight maneuvors. With the high winds, we were able to fly in reverse and still maintain control of the airplane.

After this lesson, the weather turned for the worse. During the start of 2009, there were some unforeseen expenses with the dog, so this caused a few months delay while I rebounded from the financial drain.

After getting back in the game, we flew a few more hours of dual touch and goes before allowing me to fly my second and third supervised solos.

At this point I started to do some of the more interesting flying, so I kept a flight-by-flight log. Hopefully it'll help you get the feel for the process of securing a private pilot certificate. And maybe it'll give you the confidence to be a passenger of mine in the future :)