First Solo

Today was finally the day that I have been waiting for, for a long time. It was the day of my first solo flight in an airplane. The whole experience turned out to be rather anti-climatic but I did have a short adrenaline rush at the end. The kind where you have this urge to call everyone you know and tell them the good news. Then I got home and started doing yard work and the rush went bye-bye.

I was unsure what today would have in store. I knew there was a chance we would do the solo flight today but we also needed to go over the things that the phase check instructor wrote down on my exam paperwork. I was unsure of the requirements of the flying club I belong to in that I did not know if they required us to go over that stuff before they allowed you to solo. After talking with my instructor, I found out that we needed to do the review and turn in all the papers before they would let me check the plane out by myself. However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t solo: it just means that I can not go into the scheduling system and schedule the plane for myself just yet. I still need to schedule it with my instructor.

My instructor asked me what I would like to do today and, of course, I told him that I was anxious to solo. The wind was variable at 4 knots which is very light for Palo Alto and the sky was clear. It was a beautiful day and perfect conditions for a first solo.

After discussing the phase check ride from the previous weekend, we hopped into the plane and performed the normal start up and taxi procedures. The plan was to do a few take offs and landings with my instructor in the plane first to get warmed up, and then I would let him out and go around the pattern a couple times on my own. The take off was normal but soon I realized it was a bit bumpy. I also noticed this on approach to the runway. I think with the heat and lack of wind, there was a decent amount of thermal activity around the airport. This conspired to make me work for my landings even though there was not much wind.

I learned another lesson today. It would seem that flying without much wind would be very simple. After all, the plane goes pretty much where you point it. However, I had to contend with a problem that creeps up when you have little wind and that is you tend to float a lot more. Immediately, I set up my first approach like I always have and my instructor made the comment that I am flying the approach as if there was a headwind. Now that I think about it, besides the time in Livermore where I had a tailwind on a few landings, I have always had a minimum of 6 knots headwind when landing. I was unpracticed in landing with no wind so I was very high on the approach. I ended up having to do a slip to lose some altitude but I was still too high over the runway and was forced to go around. Not an optimal start to the day when you are trying to impress your instructor so that he will let you solo.

On the second approach, I did not fully learn my lesson as the approach was too high again. However, I recognized my mistake well in advance to correct it and I was able to get down to the proper glide path before reaching the runway. The resultant landing had a small bounce and then I recovered from that and touched down fine. The third landing was a little better but had a slight tailwheel shimmy which means that I was not fully in the proper pitch attitude on the flare to touch down on all three wheels at the same time.

After the third landing, my instructor told the tower that we planned on pulling off onto the Alpha taxiway and he was going to exit the plane. Once we pulled off, I shut down the engine and he entered the proper endorsements into my logbook and onto my student pilot certificate. He then told me to make three full stop landings and wished me luck. I shut the door, started up the plane, and taxied out to the runway.

I have read many stories from pilots about their first solo experiences. Lots of people are filled with fear, some make some crazy mistakes because they are so worried, and others fly like nothing has changed. I am happy to say that I was the latter. Soloing was really a non-event for me. When my instructor got out of the plane, I was calm and went through my checklist items like a normally do and flew the plane like I normally do. I suspect part of that is because I have a lot of hours in my logbook due to the delay in getting my medical certificate; I now have 32.1 hours. Another part is probably because my instructor has not really touched the controls in a long time so I have been flying it by myself for a while. Also, this airplane has tandem seating so my instructor sits behind me, which means that during a normal flight, I can not see him. So I was not able to look over and see an empty seat like you can in a side-by-side seating arrangement.

After I taxied to the runway, I was told that I was number three for departure. There were three arrivals inbound also so I waited for over 5 minutes before it was my turn to take off. The sun was beaming down on me through the window and I could feel the heat. The inside of the plane was like a sauna so I opened the vents in the cowling to let some cool air blow in. The funny thing is that these vents are aimed right at my shorts so when we are in flight, my shorts puff up with air and it is a bit drafty down there. Sitting on the ground, the little bit of prop wash coming in through the vents, felt nice.

The pattern was very busy today and it is easy to understand why. You couldn’t ask for better flying conditions and we are just coming off of winter so many people, like me, have not flown much during the winter and are anxious to fly again once spring comes along. Because of all the traffic, I was forced to extend my upwind to the car bridge every time. I was also forced to extend my downwind to the amphitheatre which meant that I had long, slow approaches. You also had to keep your eyes out for traffic as there were five or six planes in the pattern at the same time.

My first solo landing was pretty consistent with my earlier landings when my instructor was in the plane. I rounded out a little early and floated a bit but set it down on the runway relatively smoothly. I taxied back for another takeoff and saw my instructor sitting on the side of the taxiway, taking pictures with his nice digital camera. The second landing was not good. I had a relatively large bounce and I applied some power to soften the resultant landing but it bounced again and I realized that I was off of the centerline. I applied full power and went around to try again. Afterwards, my instructor said that I could have salvaged the landing but he was happy that I chose to go around.

The third landing was similar to the first but I didn’t have a bounce. I did have a slight tailwheel shimmy which usually means that the tailwheel touched down a little hard. This often happens when the main gear touches down a second before the tailwheel does, which means that you were not quite in the proper three point attitude when touching down. After rolling a few feet, the shimmy stopped and I slowed down and pulled off of the runway. I was taxing back to the runway and looked at my instructor as I went by and he was giving me the kill sign, meaning I should bring it in. I held up my finger to ask for one more take off and landing but he shook his head no. I contacted ground and taxied it in and shut it down.

Because of all the traffic and the long waits for takeoff and long approaches, I was at the end of my allotted time and someone else had the plane immediately after us. This, combined with the fact that I was starting to look tired, is why my instructor wanted me to come in instead of doing one more. But me being upset at having to come in is a good thing on a first solo as it is indicative of the fact that I was having fun.

Afterwards, my instructor walked up and congratulated me and took my picture with the airplane. I hope to have some of those pictures soon and I will post them on the site. He also asked if I wanted to do the first solo ritual which is where they cut out a hole in your shirt and write things on your back. If I would have known about that, I would have worn one of my older shirts. As it was, I had on a decent shirt that I didn’t want to ruin so I said that I would skip that part. He put my name on the big white board inside the clubhouse which is used for noting various member accomplishments. I will also get my name in the next issue of the club newsletter.

The plan for the next lesson is to go out to the practice area and work on those few items that came up on the solo phase check. At the end of that lesson, I imagine we would do what we did this time where he gets out of the plane again and I fly a few laps around the pattern. Then I need to turn in the packet of paperwork I have to the club and my instructor has to turn in the airplane checkout form. My instructor had a funny comment in that they don’t allow you to take out an airplane until the weight of the paperwork you have to fill out is equal to the weight of the airplane.

Once they get the checkout information entered into the database, then I will be allowed to take the plane out on my own without having my instructor around. There are, of course, limitations to what I can do. Initially, I can only fly in the pattern at Palo Alto, or to the practice area to work on my flight maneuvers. Also, the cloud ceiling has to be at least 3,500 feet to fly to the practice area and at least 1,500 feet to fly in the pattern. I can not fly in wind greater than 12 knots and with a crosswind component of more than 6 knots. These restrictions will gradually be lessened as my amount of solo time increases.

This was a positive day for me and I am happy that it has finally come and gone. I am excited now to get these final formalities done with so I can fly on my own. After today, I am now one giant step closer to getting my pilots license.

Solo Phase Check

Well, this would appear to be my 13th lesson. In fact, I had three lessons that I have not written about in my blog. One was a very short one where we did 4 short field landings and take-offs and the other two were normal pattern practice. One was at San Carlos airport and the other was at Palo Alto. My flying through the winter has tapered off for several reasons. The most obvious is that the weather does not cooperate as well in the winter and VFR pilots have a difficult time finding good days to fly. The other is that my son started daycare so he was getting sick a lot and, consequently, my wife and I were getting sick a lot also. The third reason was I was having some problems getting my medical certificate from the FAA so there wasn’t too much more we could do besides the night flight without my medical certificate. However, I am happy to say that I have my medical certificate and spring is in the air which means beautiful weather for flying.

The next milestone for me will be the solo flight. The club that I belong to requires I pass a take home exam and then do a phase check with a different flight instructor before I am allowed to solo. The phase check is set up like the private pilot check ride. It consists of a ground quiz portion where the instructor asks me some questions about the airplane, rules and regulations, pre-flighting, using navigational maps, etc. After that we fly and I perform the basic flight maneuvers, emergency procedures and pattern work. The phase check is not set up as a pass/fail scenario like the private pilot check ride. Instead, it is designed more as an informative experience where someone else can take a look at you and make notes on your performance and recommend things that you should work on a little more.

I was a little nervous when we started the phase check. I had not flown all that much lately, combined with the fact that I was flying with someone totally new who would be rating my performance. I guess it showed because after asking me a couple questions, he asked me if I was nervous and I told him that I was a little bit nervous. The questions for the most part were not too difficult. He spent a lot of time asking questions about the engine and fuel systems in the plane which I did pretty well on. He then asked about the pattern at Palo Alto and how we were going to get out to the practice area. I then pulled out my terminal chart and he asked me a few things about airspace on the terminal chart. The last item was to talk about my preflight procedures and start up procedures.

The ground quiz portion lasted almost an hour. Then I went out and pre-flighted the airplane and started her up. After taxiing to the run up area and doing the final checks, I switched to the tower frequency and noticed that it was really busy in the pattern. Our initial plan was to go out to the coast first to work on practice maneuvers but the instructor changed that and requested that we do the pattern work first. The wind was shifty, blowing at a consistent 12 knots but from anywhere between 360 degrees and 330 degrees. This meant that runway 31 had a nice crosswind on it. I was a little bit worried as I have not practiced too many crosswind landings because I have not had many lessons where there was a crosswind on the runway. However, my instructor had asked me to practice some crosswind landings on my flight simulator and I think that really helped me today.

We held short for about 5-10 minutes as we waited for a bunch of planes to land and then we were cleared to take off. My first approach was good but I was so fixated on maintaining my position on the centerline in the crosswind that I did not round out properly and we bounced on the landing. I applied full throttle and went around. The next attempt was much better. I was lined up on the centerline again but this time I had a smooth round out and a very smooth landing. On the next approach, the instructor asked me to come in high and do a slip down to the runway. I did this for a little bit and when I reached the proper glide path, I straightened the plane out and touched down pretty smoothly again.

We then departed the pattern and went out to the coast to practice our maneuvers. Enroute he mentioned that I should slow down my leaning procedures for cruise flight. Basically, I was leaning the mixture until the engine rpm started to drop and then I richened the mixture two clicks. He told me that you want to be around 50 degrees lean of peak exhaust gas temperature. There is a digital exhaust gas temperature gauge in the airplane so I leaned it very slowly until I got to the point where the rpm dropped and I added one click of rich. We then sat there and watched the temperature gauge for about 3 minutes until it stopped going up. I then gave it another click of rich and we watched it for another 3 minutes until it stopped going down at which point I gave it another click of rich. Once that stabilized, we were around 55 degrees lean of the peak. So, ironically, we were at the same spot I normally am on the exhaust gas temperature, only with this method it took me 10 minutes to get to that point instead of 10 seconds. But, he is right as depending on the altitude you are flying, the power setting, and the engine you have, 50 degrees lean of peak EGT, may not always be two clicks.

Once we reached the practice area, I did my clearing turns and then we began steep turns. I did one to the right and then one to the left. I started at 3,600 feet of altitude and finished a hair under 3,700. You need to be within 100 feet for the final check ride so I would have passed. The second one started at 3,700 and ended at 3,800. Oddly, after the flight was over he mentioned that I should work on my steep turns as I gained 200 feet of altitude which would not have passed in a check ride. I think he forgot to look at the altimeter before we started and assumed we started at 3,500 since that is where I leveled off for the cruise portion of the flight prior to reaching the practice area. That is the only problem with getting a check ride in a tandem seating aircraft as there are no gauges in the back. The instructor has to look over your shoulder and around your head to see them.

We transitioned immediately into slow flight after completing the steep turns. This went smoothly and we did a 90 degree slow flight turn to the right and one to the left. After this, we did a power off stall and then three power on stalls; one flying straight ahead and two while turning to the left. My only mistake is that on one of the power on stalls to the left, I recovered a hair too early and did not let the plane fully stall before I lowered the nose.

The last item we did before heading back to Palo Alto was the engine out emergency procedure. I went through the engine start checklist, and trimmed the plane to 65 miles per hour which is the speed that gives you the longest range in a glide. I picked a large field on the coast as my landing zone and made my way over to the touchdown point that I picked out. I then started to circle to lose altitude. There was a strong wind which I estimated to be between 15-20 knots. I wanted to land with a headwind but the instructor told me to land the other way with a tailwind. He said the field had a slight downhill slope and he would rather land with a tailwind uphill than a headwind downhill. I am not sure I agree with that logic. Especially since once I turned on final and that tailwind hit the airplane, we floated for a mile. I initiated a large forward slip to lose altitude but the tailwind was too strong. We went down to about 50 feet off the ground and I am glad there were no humans around as they probably would have freaked out seeing an airplane 50 feet over their heads.

We were at my touchdown point when he told me to apply power. If we had actually landed, we would have been a ways past my touchdown point and there were a few bushes there so we would have run into those. Would we have gotten hurt? Probably not, but it wouldn’t have been that smooth. What lesson did I learn here? Well I learned that you really need to compensate a lot more than you think when you have a tailwind. Had I really had an engine failure at this point and needed to land in this field, I would have chose to land with the headwind. There was not that much slope to this field at all and with the thick grass and a 15 knot headwind as well as brakes on the airplane, we could have landed smoothly and stopped well before the cliff.

We climbed back to 3,500 feet and headed back to Palo Alto. He showed me a few things on the GPS on the way back and asked me a few more regulation questions. He then asked me if I had ever done slips before. I said that you had me do one on our second landing of the day and I did one on the approach to that grassy field during our engine out drill. He didn’t say anything after but asked if I would do one on the final landing. So, I did another slip on the final landing and came in nicely over the centerline and had a decent landing. He also added in my logbook that we did 6 landings but we actually only did 4 today. Maybe he counted the emergency procedure a landing but that would only be 5 then.

Anyway, it was a beautiful day for flying and I felt really good afterwards. My nerves calmed down as soon as we entered the airplane and started taxiing. Once in the air, flying is very relaxing and it is nice to enjoy the sun and the view. It was also nice to have someone else take a look at my flying and offer different pointers on things.

My next flight is in a week and it is with my normal instructor. I am not sure if this will be my solo flight or not. I hope so because I feel more than ready to solo and this will open the door for me to fly more often because I won’t be dependant on scheduling both a plane and a busy instructor.

Lesson 12 – Cross Country

Today is the day we get to see what real flying is about. We will be doing the dual cross country today and land and eat lunch at another airport. The flight will consist of a mix of pilotage, dead reckoning, and gps navigation. I will also get practice with filing a flight plan, getting flight following and doing a diversion to another airport.

The term cross country in regards to pilot training is kind of a misnomer. The FAA defines it as a minimum of 150 miles total during the day and 100 miles at night. I suppose in some states, you could fly to another state and back in that distance but in big ole California, 150 miles isn’t going to get you very far on a geographic map of the state. In the case of today’s flight, we are flying out to Lodi airport which, as the crow flies, is 60 miles from Palo Alto. After our Lodi stop, we were going to practice GPS navigation and a diversion to another airport. A diversion is useful if you have some emergency which dictates that you land as soon as possible. It is also used when the weather at your destination deteriorates to the point that you can’t land there.

The day did not start off great as I did not sleep well the night before because I was excited for the flight. Then I woke up early in the morning thinking about all the things I had to do before heading out to the airport. First on the list was to get myself ready and then I logged into Duats to check the weather. I entered the route and got the winds aloft forecast for my intended cruising altitude of 7,500 feet. I then did all the flight heading and ground speed calculations. This gave me a magnetic heading to fly using the compass and it gave me an estimated time enroute. For the dead reckoning portion of the flight, we don’t use any VOR’s or other navigation tools. We use features on the ground as checkpoints and then fly certain headings from those checkpoints and time how long it takes to get between checkpoints. If the weather is as forecast and the calculations are correct then when your timer reaches your Estimated Time of Arrival, you should be over your checkpoint.

The weather forecast for Palo Alto and for Lodi called for broken clouds at 4,000 and 8,000 respectively. I prepared the flightplan and filed that online and was about to leave when I decided to check the weather one more time to be sure. As I was doing that I had the thought that I didn’t really check the weather between Palo Alto and Lodi. Since the distance was 60 miles, it shouldn’t be too much different but I thought I should check anyway. It was good that I did because the METAR report for Livermore showed an overcast layer at 4,000 feet. Since our cruise was 7,500, we would be over this layer. This would be legal for VFR flight as long as you stayed 1,000 feet above the clouds. However, today we were doing dead reckoning where I needed reference to the ground enroute. Because of this, I elected to change our cruise altitude to 3,500 to stay below the overcast. With a change in cruise altitude by 4,000 feet, I would need to recalculate the headings and ground speed as the winds aloft would be much different. This delayed our start a bit as I did this.

Once the plane was ready and my instructor had a short discussion with me on the ground about our flight, we climbed in and started her up. The taxi and takeoff were the same as usual with me requesting a right Dumbarten departure. Once over the bridge and established in a nice climb, I contacted the Oakland flight service station and opened our flight plan. As we approached the hills and Sunol golf course, I noticed that the overcast layer was lower and more pervasive than expected. My instructor asked what I wanted to do and I said that I saw two options; either turn around or climb over the clouds. They were too low that flying under them would put me at risk of flying into the hilly terrain. My instructor recommended the climb so I climbed up to 5,500 feet. From here I could see that they were broken in a lot of spots and my intended route would take me along the edge, which would allow me to have enough ground visibility to be comfortable with continuing on.

One we reached Sunol, the pilotage part of my navigation was over and the dead reckoning part begin. I turned to a heading of 18 degrees on the compass and started my timer. We would fly for approximately 9 minutes and then I should be over the Byron airport. The Byron airport is a nice checkpoint because it is situated right next to a large lake. This lake is visible from a long ways away in the air so if you are off from your intended path, you can easily correct it by heading toward the lake. As it was, I was right on and I crossed over the airport 45 seconds past when I was supposed to, which was close enough.

I then turned 4 degrees to the right and flew toward Lodi which was 28 miles away at this point. Half way to Lodi, we encountered a big cloud formation at our altitude. I started to descend but I did not allow enough time and we got too close to it so I had to do a circle. Once we completed the 360 degree circle, I was low enough to continue on. While doing this, I had forgotten to stop my timer so I guessed that our circle took about a minute and a half to complete and I stopped the timer for a minute and a half and then started it again.

We were flying at 3,500 feet again and I needed to recalculate where to start the descent down to 1,500 feet. Basically I figure 4 miles for every 1,000 feet of elevation loss. Since we needed to lose 2,000 feet then I could start the descent 8 miles before the airport and, according to my chart that would put us over the Kingdon airport. It was at that moment when I looked out the window and wondered if we had passed the Kingdon airport already. I looked ahead and saw an airport so I had about 30 seconds where I was unsure if that was the Kingdon airport or our destination of Lodi. The easy way to tell is that Kingdon only has one runway and Lodi has two. Once the airport ahead came in to view better I saw that it had only one runway so I hadn’t missed it.

When we passed overhead, I reduced the throttle to 2000 RPM and started the descent. Since Lodi is an un-towered airport, I dialed in the common traffic advisory frequency and made the call to announce that we were 10 miles out and our intention was to over fly the airport to look at the windsock. This airport has a lot of parachute activity going on so we kept hearing them come on to the frequency announcing parachute activity. Because of this, I flew wide of the airport and took a look at the windsock, which indicated that runway 26 would be the best runway to land on. I set up for the 45 degree entry to the downwind and called my position on the CTAF. There was noone else around so it was clear sailing all the way down to the ground. My landing had a really small bounce and then it settled down onto the runway. We taxied to the Transient parking and shut the plane down so we could have some lunch at the café.

After lunch I got a chance to try the self service refueling station. It is a bit different than fueling your car so it was good to get a chance to do this. We then took off and headed east where my instructor told me to divert to Stockton. I grabbed my chart and plotter and determined that Stockton was about 16 miles away on a heading of 175. I turned the plane that way and was about to level off at 2,500 when my instructor said, “Lets circle,” and he moved the stick to the left. We circled around and talked about a few things like how to use the GPS and he wanted me to double check my estimates. We had flown a little south by then so I said we were now about 14 miles from Stockton and needed to head 175. I dialed in Stockton to the GPS and sure enough, we were 13 miles away and needed a heading of 173 which was very close to what I had said.

While we were circling, we were inadvertently climbing as I was paying attention to the chart and not the plane so I descended to 2,500 to stay under some clouds and I followed the course line on the GPS to Stockton. As we neared Stockton, I got the ATIS and tuned into tower and said, “Stockton Tower, Citabria 374DM is..” There was a pause as I realized I had no clue where we were at the moment. I finally said, “15 miles north, inbound to land with Alpha.” The controller attended to a couple other planes before getting back to me and then he said a bunch of things and the only thing I caught was “Make right traffic runway 29 right squawk 3…” In the midst of trying to decipher what he said I started to reply back, “right traffic runway 29 and repeat squawk please.” I forgot to say 29 right and he didn’t answer me with the squawk so after he finished commands for another couple of planes I said, “4 Delta Mike can you repeat the squawk please.” He said “4 Delta Mike squawk 3475.” “3475 for 4 Delta Mike.”

Finally I was done blabbering my way through that and I entered the pattern at Stockton to land. The runway was very long; 10,600 feet to be exact. I could have landed and taken off three times in the span of the runway. My instructor said even though it is very long, I still need to pick an abort point. The approach and landing was nothing new here but it was nice to fly into a place with a really long runway and that has jets flying around besides GA planes. Once we landed I was instructed to take off again so I put the throttle all the way forward and eased the stick forward as well to lift the tail off the ground. We took off and flew for a couple minutes before we reached the end of the runway and turned back toward Palo Alto.

On the way back to Palo Alto, I contacted Nor Cal Departure and requested flight following. He did not give me any alerts for most of the flight as there wasn’t any other traffic around us. I did get two alerts for traffic in front of us after crossing Sunol intersection though. One was flying away from us and we would never catch him and the other crossed in front of us about 6 miles or so.

When we neared the bay he told us radar services terminated and frequency change approved. He did not tell us to contact Palo Alto tower, which I thought was weird. Normally, they hand you off to the next controller. I dialed in the tower frequency and waited until I was over Lesli Salt to contact him. Just before I pushed the button in for the microphone, I heard the controller ask if we were on the frequency. I told him I was and gave him the normal position report and told him my intentions. He cleared us for right traffic on runway 31. I thought that was odd that he asked about us given that we were not handed off by the previous controller. My instructor voiced this same opinion as well.

The last landing of the day was similar to the others but maybe a tad rougher. Overall, this was a good day. I feel like a real pilot now and feel confidant that I could handle cross country flights solo; especially if I can use the GPS. The next item on the lesson plan is night flight. I need to do a cross country flight at night with my instructor and perform 10 take offs and landings. After this the only thing left is wheel landings and soft field take offs and landings. Then I will need to complete all the solo work and I should be ready for the check ride to get my pilots license.