Chicago Aviation

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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