| Lesson 16 & 17:
Date: 2/16/2008 & 2/17/2008 Where: UZA Aircraft: Cessna 172 N64191 Instruction: 2.2/1.0 hours (air/ground) Dual Instruction with William Grannis Superstitious? Today is Saturday and it's beautiful outside today. I am working with Bill today. I got to the flight school a bit early and David gave me the keys so that I could go ahead and complete the preflight. Once I was done, Bill still wasn't outside, so I went back in to find him. Bill asked me what lesson I was on in the syllabus and we finally decided that I was on lesson 7. Bill said we'd be doing mostly "hood" work today, so I'd need my Foggles. I like "hood" work so I figured this flight would be a good one. We started off with a quick ground lesson on the "six pack". Bill explained to me that while doing maneuvers under the "hood", I need to scan the "six pack" in a certain order. Each instrument becomes primary and/or support for different maneuvers such as constant speed climbs or turns to headings. After about 30 minutes of review we headed out to the flight line. We got into 64191 and taxied out to runway 02. Traffic was light today. We took off and headed west for some practice. Once we entered the practice area I gave Bill the controls while I put on my Foggles. The Foggles limit my outside view. While wearing them, I can only see inside the cockpit of the airplane. Once I had my Foggles on, Bill returned control to me and he asked me to complete a series of maneuvers. We started off with some heading changes and moved to constant speed climbs and descents as well as turning climbs and turning descents. I did well with these and so we moved on to recovering from unusual attitudes. For this maneuver I had to take my hands and feet off of the controls and then put my chin on my chest and stare at my belly button. While doing this Bill would fly the plane into an unusual attitude and after a few seconds I would have to recover. When you look up you want to look at your Airspeed Indicator. If you're going really slow you're most likely nose up and need to bring in more power and level out. If you're going really fast you need to pull power, level the wings, then pull up. You want to scan the "six pack" continuously to make sure you're flying the plane nice and level. This was interesting and I really enjoyed these maneuvers. On the way back to UZA, Bill pulled power on me for a simulated engine failure. I looked around and Bill pointed out a grass landing strip we were flying parallel to. I slowed to glide speed of 65 knots and did my check to restart/troubleshoot the engine, then I made a turn to try and land at the grass strip. I was way too high. I made my radio call and Bill said we weren't going to make it. He took the controls and slipped us down to the grass strip. Very cool. He told me what I did wrong and I corrected for it on the next go around. He pulled power to simulate the engine failure. I made my check and my radio call. I was high again, but this time I did a full 180 turn to lose altitude all the time maintaining the 65 knot glide speed. This put us on a good glide path for final approach to the grass field. Bill gave me some power and we took off again back towards Rock Hill. The landing was uneventful and after securing the plane I headed home. Sunday looked overcast. I checked the weather before I left home and the ceiling was 1,100 feet with 6sm of visibility. I got the flight school and basically I had two options. Ground school on power and performance or work on landings by staying in the pattern. I chose the latter. I did the preflight on the plane and was soon joined by Bill. Today we were taking off from runway 20. It was another quiet day. There was no other traffic in the area and there wasn't any traffic on the radio. We had a slight crosswind and I was OK with that. We took off and I made my crosswind turn. Now, I won't bore you with the details of 12 takeoffs and landings. Suffice it to say that I did OK. It's really about practice and making everything second nature. I would make my turns, then make my radio calls, and finally adjust my pitch, power, and trim for each leg of the pattern. This can get tedious. The entire time you are scanning for traffic and getting ready for the next step in the process. Bill is a great teacher. If there were any instructor that I would like to impress, it'd be Bill. He can point out something wrong with every step along the way. My goal was to land the plane each time with less and less errors pointed out by Bill. I was doing well. Bill was instructing me to "fly the plane all the way down". I didn't realize what he meant for a while. Then it hit me. I was flying the plane to around 5ft above the ground and then I would just wait for it to hit the ground. I need to be the one deciding when the plane is going to touchdown, not the plane. Bill corrected me by having me fly the plane 5ft - 10ft off the ground, right down the center of the runway only going 65 knots. This helped. On the next go around I landed a bit better using his advice. We came to a stop and Bill said, "Well that was landing number twelve. We can stop anytime you want". I told him I wanted to do one more. Bill asked if I was superstitious (doing 13 landings) and I said no. We took off again and I flew the pattern. As I made my turn from base to final, I made a radio call. "Rock Hill traffic, Cessna 4191 on final approach for runway 20 full stop, Rock Hill". We were about 600 feet above the ground and I heard, "Rock Hill traffic, is there a plane landing on runway 20?" I quickly responded, "Rock Hill traffic, Cessna 4191 on final approach for runway 20 full stop, Rock Hill". Bill and I looked up and at the end of the runway and saw a twin engine coming in for a landing on runway 2. He was just released from Charlotte approach on an ILS and hadn't been listening to our frequency. He just caught sight of us at the other end of the runway because we had our landing lights on. He quickly made a right turn for a left downwind leg for landing on runway 20 behind us. If not for those landing lights one or both of us may have ended up landing in the grass. CLOSE!! Bill asked, "Are you sure you aren't superstitious?" I still gave him a no as we taxied back to the ramp to secure the plane for the day. Conclusion: Always look for traffic and make radio calls along every leg of the pattern. What I learned: Fly the plane all the way down to the ground Make sure the landing lights are on when you're in the pattern. |