Chicago Aviation

Maneuvers and S-turns

Length: 1.1 hours

Total Time: 49.2 hours

Quick update:

At this point, I'm confident on the majority of my maneuvers except for steep turns. From what I understand, these are the most challenging as there are the most variables. You have to maintain your altitude while splitting your lift into the turn. You have to ensure you're maintaining a steep turn and not just a 30 deg turn as I kept finding myself. You have to ensure you airspeed doesn't exceed the maneuvering speed, but doesn't fall under tolerances as well. Lastly, you have to keep aware of your location within the turn so you can end it on course.

I seemed to find myself loosing altitude while approaching 45 degrees. Technically, I was well aware that you need to increase elevator pressure to maintain altitude, then increase power to compensate for the loss of lift. But, I couldn't figure out how to best implement these controls.

 After noticing that I was losing altitude, I increased the elevator pressure. This causes a very noticeable change in g-forces in the plane. It's clearly not a good sign when anything drastic is occurring & I knew it. After chasing back to my altitude, I lost an extra 10 - 15 knots. At this point, I was all over the place. I could get things under control, but it was not a properly executed maneuver.

At this point, I'm still not able to pull this maneuver off. Technically, I knew what was needed, but it's different when attempting to execute.

Night Cross Country (dual)

Length: 1.8 hours

Total Time: 48.1 hours

My trip to South Bend started one hour after nightfall. I've done some local work at night, but never a XC. Luckily, Chicago gives quite a good reference point. Same goes for the lake, but the lake is a black area exactly the same as the non-lighted ground areas.

Although there are some rural parts (i.e., non-lighted areas) between Lansing and South Bend, it's not enough to cause any disorientation. Downtown Chicago is always visible, so there's always a solid reference on the horizon... at least when weather is good...

All of my checkpoints were airports for this trip. I made a non-direct path to South Bend, sacrificing length of the trip for safety. This also allows me a lighted checkpoints. Each time I was expecting to be in visual range of a checkpoint, I would look to see if I saw it already lighted. If not, I would click the pilot-controlled lighting on (using the freq listed for lighting, of course). It would light up, and there was my perfect checkpoint.

The green/white beacons were also helpful, but these weren't as 100% obvious to me. In the future, once I have more experience picking out the beacons from all other town lighting, perhaps I can get by on beacons alone.

Approaching South Bend was uneventful except for the large jet taking off on 09R when I was told to approach for 27L. The large jet departed with a tailwind and, although it moved much quicker than me, it departed the pattern as I was mid-way downwind.

I did a few 360s while the jet departed. This gave any wake turbulence a chance to dissipate, and it also allowed me a good look at a huge plane.

The return journey home was uneventful, but I did get get a bit confused with the horizon and the shoreline. It's just another example of how flying at night can easily disorientate.