Once again, cold and high pressure dominates. Once again, no wind. It was a pretty day, after the snow storm last night, although the bit of snow on the taxiways made moving around on the ground entertaining. Three little wheels on a light bird make life entertaining, that’s for sure — much better in the air. Today was more landings — woot for touch and goes. I’m feeling more and more comfortable with the approach and landing and I think Willis is as well, so that bodes well for being able to solo before I die. I screwed up one approach that I’m not happy about – had to go-around. Also had one approach cancelled by the tower – the plane ahead of me was slow to get off the runway, probably because the tower made the taxiway conditions sound really bad (and there was that whole Southwest flight sliding off the runway last night).

We practiced a couple of power-off approaches, and I’m feeling much better about those — I drilled every one of them. Also flew the last three landings without an altimeter or airspeed indicator, practicing approaches and landings with instrument failures. I had no problems with it – actually, it was a bit easier because I was flying the plane looking out the window instead of looking at the instruments — I should really try that more often. The last approach, he also declared a simulated flaps failure after I had put down the initial 10 degrees of flaps. And here’s where we have “Brian’s dumbass moment of the week”. Willis made some comment about how it was no problem to fly without instruments and with flaps stuck at 10. I, of course, made some remark like “I’m good as long as we don’t lose the engine”. So he decided to simulate losing an engine. We did make the runway, no problem. Actually, my smoothest touchdown of the day. Last landing, there was traffic close behind us on approach, so we were asked to expedite the approach. We were abeam of the runway and made a 180 degree turn onto landing. I think I even made it look good.

Things left to do before my first solo: pass medical exam (and thereby get my student certificate), get non-owners insurance, cross-wind landings, an hour of instrument flight, and short field / soft field takeoff and landings.

Yes, more take-off and landing work. Today was also extraordinarily cold, this time a nice balmy 15 degrees. Wind was variable from the north to west at 4 knots and was completely unnoticable. The cloud ceiling was at 1400′, so not even enough room for a standard pattern (1). This time, the plane did not spend the night in the maintenance hanger, but instead was in an unheated hanger. That was not the most comfortable preflight ever. But no one froze to death and we managed to get into the air before the windshield fogged up, so no worries. Today was the first day I can honestly say I was the one putting the plane on the runway. Still far from perfect, but I felt much more in control than the last two flights. Still sometimes a bit too aggressive with my control usage, but getting better. Also let my speed get a bit out of control at a couple of places, which is something that I definitely need to correct in the next couple of flights.

Had one practice go-around, which was no big deal. Since the plane performs so well when it’s so cold out, there’s nothing hard about aborting a landing. With no flaps, two people, and a full load of fuel, the plane was still climbing at 800 FPM. At full flaps, it probably would have made 200 FPM no problem. As opposed to the summer, where that plane is lucky to make 50 FPM climb rate with a full load and full flaps. I’m sure that next spring when it’s warm and we practice aborting a full flap landing, I’ll be looking back at this abort with longing.

Also had one practice engine-out landing. Abeam of the end of the runway, the instructor declares an engine failure simulation and brings the engine to idle. The trick is to then land on a runway :). Because of a rouge cloud at 1200′, I was already low and because I was (poorly) recovering from an overspeed from descending to avoid said rouge cloud, I was a little slow at this point. And then I poorly adjusted to best glide speed (70 knots in a Cessna 150), so it went bad. We made it, but it wasn’t pretty. I would not have tried to make 35 if not instructed to given my attitude when the engine “failed”. I think I would have instead applied flaps and made for runway 6, which would have been an easy turn and not stretched the glide distance from position of failure. But Willis, my instructor, is a better pilot than I am and wanted to show how one would get there if it had to be made. In post-flight conversation, he said that he would have done the same thing my instincts told me to and head for 6. The disadvantage of that is that you’ve landed without clearance. Not a problem in a real emergency, but not so good in a simulated emergency :).

More landing practice is clearly needed, but I’m making progress. More go-rounds, emergency landing simulation, and cross-wind landings are in my future. But if it’s nice on Friday for my next flight, I’ll probably be flying simulated instrument to get my second hour of that out of the way. The third hour will be when I’m doing cross country flights.

(1) The FAA rules for visual flight rules in class D airspace (small airports with control towers) are 500′ below, 1000′ above, and 2000′ horizontal from any cloud. So if the base of the cloud cover is 1400′ AGL (above ground level), the highest we could climb is 900′ AGL. Standard traffic pattern at US airports is 1000′ AGL. 100′ is not a big deal for visual flight rule landings – easily accounted for along the way. By the way, minimum cloud base for visual flight rules flight is 1000′.

It was just cloudy enough that it would have been difficult to find space to fly simulated instruments, so instead we had hour 2 of take-off and landing. Flight was at 8:00am, and it was very cold (under 20 degrees) when we started. Thankfully, the plane was in the BMG maintenance hanger overnight, which is heated. So preflight and all that was done in the hanger, where it was not toasty but not so cold that your fingers went numb trying to get the oil cap off. We were taking off and landing on 35 today (1), which was the opposite end of the runway from last time. There was a 7-10 knot cross wind out of the west. I managed to get relatively comfortable with the cross wind approach. You end up in a cross-control situation when making a cross wind approach. The plane is banked into the wind to stay on course directly down the runway and the rudder is used to put the plane into a slip so that the nose continues to point directly down the runway (2).

Once again, had trouble rolling out at the proper altitude or rolling out too quickly, leading to slight ballooning and a harder landing than I would like. I still didn’t feel like I was in control of the craft to the extent that I would like – I was letting the plane get away from me as we got closer to the ground. My approaches weren’t as clean as I might like, but I think I was getting more comfortable during the lesson. One thing I need to work on is the accuracy of my adjustments. I tend to over-adjust, leading to me chasing the plane. For example, I would take off too much bank when I noticed that I was overslipping against the cross wind and end up on the downwind side of the runway, then have to bring it back. At least the oscillation was dampened, I suppose.

(1) If you ever wondered how runways got their designations, it’s the magnetic compass reading, rounded to the nearest 10 degrees, with the last digit (obviously always a zero once rounded) removed. So if you are pointed down runway 35, you should have a compass heading of 350 degrees. Obviously, runway 17 is the other end of runway 35. If there are two parallel runways, you end up with 35 L and 35 R, for Left and RIght. Left and right are in reference to the position you would be when looking down runway 35 from the 35 end.

(2) Normally, if you want to follow a course with a cross-wind, you do what is called crabbing. You have a heading slightly into the cross wind such that the cross wind is cancelled out and you follow your intended heading. So if you want to go due north and there is a cross wind out of the west, you might hold a heading anywhere from 1-30 degrees west of due north.

Wow – footnotes in a log entry…

Today was an absolutely beautiful day – about 40 degrees, with calm winds, almost clear skies, and great visibility. Rather than waste such a day on simulated instrument flying, we worked on take-offs and landings. Well, the hard part was the landings – the take-offs are easy at this point, but it’s hard to land without taking off first. Landings were on runway 17, which is 6500′ long, plenty of room for a long landing, roll-out, and take-off. I think we got 5, maybe 6 landings in during the hour we were in the air. I usually could get the plane lined up pretty well and on a decent glide path onto the runway. I had some trouble with the rollout to bring the plane out of the descent and onto the runway. I would start at about the right altitude but then get a little over eager and get into level flight too high. At that point, the plane isn’t going to glide until the runway quite as smooth as one might like. And since I was sitting in ground effect for so long, I’d have a tendency to let one wing drop a little bit and drift or yaw or such. I started feeling pretty comfortable with the whole thing, but need much more practice. I get my chance either Friday or Monday, depending on whether Friday gets allocated to instruments or not.

Hopefully I’ll get to the point where I’m ready to solo by early January. I need to schedule my physical and all that in the not too distant future… woo!

Today was originally supposed to be the last hour of simulated instrument flight until cross-country flights start. However, the cloud ceiling was pretty low and it was pretty windy. So I was going to be flying low in heavy winds, which is not the ideal way to do simulated instrument flight. Instead, we moved on to the next set of lessons, turns about a point and s-turns. Both of which are easier to see (and more challenging) with a strong wind, as the plane gets moved much more with the strong wind. I got the hang of both pretty quickly, although I need some practice on s-turns. I was slightly misestimating where I was compared to the reference line, so I would roll out a bit early. But nothing that I can’t correct with a little bit of practice.

Next flight (on Monday) is either more simulated instrument practice or landings, depending on what the weather is doing.

Today was more simulated instrument flying (and that’s about it). Took off with the foggles on, which was interesting. Did not deal well with that at all, but hopefully will do better with that next time up. Worked on stalls (power-on and power-off), steep turns, and VOR intercept / tracking. I was turning way too steep when I was trying to do the VOR navigation, which was irritating me. Oh, and IFR unusual attitude recovery, which has to go down as my least favorite part about flying at this point ;).

Tomorrow is (hopefully) the last of the IFR for a little while. I believe we’re going to be working on more VOR navigation. And probably something else that makes me want to smash the glasses into little itty bitty pieces.

Today started with power-on stalls again. Recovery was slightly better than last lesson, but am still not recovering quickly enough. Making progress, so hopefully will get there soon enough.

The second half hour of flight was spent doing simulated instrument flight. Even though extra work is needed to be able to fly on instruments, private pilots are required to receive 3 hours of simulated instrument flight during lessons. When flying simulated instruments, you wear these glasses that are fogged on most of the lens, but clear in the lower 1/3 or so, so that all you can see is the instrument panel. From there, you have to keep the plane flying where you want it to fly, which is harder than it sounds. I did ok, but had trouble with focusing on one instrument, rather than looking at the entire set of instruments. Apparently, a recent study found that experienced instrument pilots will look at 3 different instruments each second. So you really can’t focus on any one thing while flying that way. Today was just straight and level flight, turns, climbing turns, and such — the basics of controlled flight. Next time up, I’ll have to take off with the stupid glasses on, as a way of practicing keeping straight controlled flight. Bloomington doesn’t have the equipment for a tower assisted radar approach, so I won’t have to do an instrument approach until we start cross-country flights and fly out to Terre Haute.

Today was a tad bit windy, but nothing major. Other than that, it was beautifully clear and warm, so everyone was out and flying today. It was a bit busy on landing – there were four plans all coming into bloomington airspace for a landing at about the same time (one of them us, of course. And one a citation). So that was interesting – lots more communication than normal while coming into the pattern. I did ok on the approach, but didn’t hit my targets quite as well as I would have liked and came in a bit hot. There was a bit of a cross wind that I didn’t deal with nearly as well as I would have liked.

Next time up is more instrument flight and some more maneuvering practice. Cross country flight isn’t too far off…