Lesson 10 – Basic Maneuvers and Pattern Work

The great flying gods have conspired against me the last couple weeks. I had several flights planned, but had to cancel them because both my son and I got sick. The sickness lasted a week and then turned into a lingering Bronchitis which I have been slow to recover from. When I got better, I had two flights cancelled because the planes I was supposed to fly were brought down due to maintenance issues. That left two Citabria’s, all of which were already taken by other students. Then I had trouble getting another flight scheduled because my instructor’s schedule is busy and I had fewer planes to work with.

So, I was happy when I finally managed to get to the airport with a plane in hand. My instructor asked what I wanted to work on and I said that we hadn’t done maneuver practice since the second lesson and that would be good to work on, especially since I hadn’t flown in a couple weeks.

Flying is not like riding a bike. Once you learn the skill, then you will never really have to start from square one again because you will always remember a good portion of it. However, as the length of time between flights goes up, so do the risks involved. The FAA mandates that you perform three take-offs and landings within 90 days in order to carry passengers in the airplane. Personally, if I hadn’t flown in close to 90 days, I think I would take the airplane at least around the pattern a few times before loading passengers in it. There are memory checklist items and other little nuances of aviation that you tend to forget when taking time off.

Having said that, I had three weeks off from flying, did I notice a difference in my confidence level or skills when I resumed? The answer is surprisingly, no. I had taken two weeks off before and noticed a slight difference in that I forgot a few things but I think as my experience is growing, the length of time I can take off before forgetting those little things is increasing as well.

The flight started as usual. I pre-flighted, started the engine, called for taxi clearance with a left Dumbarten departure and headed out toward the ocean. While enroute, I kept glancing for landing areas as I was just waiting for my instructor to pull the old simulated engine out trick, but he didn’t.

We got to the ocean and started our basic maneuvers. I practiced some steep turns and lost more than 100 feet on the first one which would not have passed in the check ride. The second and third ones were better and would have passed the test. We then did some stalls and now that I recover pretty quickly from them, you don’t get that dropping feeling as you mush forward. To compensate for that, my instructor demonstrated what he calls, Rich’s weight loss program. Basically he pushed the nose of the plane forward to give us some negative G forces for fun.

After stalls we did slow flight, which I am finding a pretty easy maneuver. We did some turns in slow flight and then my instructor pulled the engine out scenario. I went through the checklists and then turned around to find a suitable landing spot. I found a really nice, long field to land in next to a golf course. I approached it and started the circle to lose altitude abeam my touchdown point. The first circle took me too far from the landing point and the second circle was too tight as we were still a bit high. However, as I have mentioned before, better to be a bit high with the engine out than too low. I could have easily done a slip and landed perfectly on the field but instructors are paid to be picky.

After we finished the maneuvers, we headed back towards Palo Alto. We crossed the mountains and turned to parallel the 280 freeway. Approaching us from below and to the left was a Cessna. He turned in front of us and then was turning back and forth and I climbed a little and slowed down to keep him in sight in front of us. I am not sure what he was doing but he was getting awfully close to the hills. He then made a sharp turn and headed toward the bay. Coincidentally, the guy flying it walked by us as we were tying down the airplane at the end and he said “Thank you for not hitting us.” I am not sure if he was being sarcastic or serious. I assume that everyone who makes a comment as they are walking by is sarcastic but I don’t know what he could have been thinking as he cut in front of us for one and after I climbed and slowed down we were plenty far away from him. My instructor and I just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders.

We made our approach to Palo Alto and as we neared my instructor said we had some time left so we should do some pattern work. I agreed and once we landed, asked the controller if we could taxi back to take off and remain in the pattern. About this time, 16 planes were approaching the airport to either land or do pattern work. The controller was talking a mile a minute and I could tell he was stressed. He yelled at a lot of people. Some of his comments were warranted and others were not. However, I have to envy the controllers as there is a lot at stake if they screw up and some pilots do some really stupid things. We made a couple laps around the pattern and honestly, I don’t remember my landings that well; partly because they were good landings and partly because I was enthralled with listening to all the events unfolding at the airport with all of these planes around. It was like watching an action movie on TV and listening to the controller get upset with a lot of pilots was amusing.

Somehow, I managed to evade his wrath for all the laps around the pattern except for the last one. Most likely because we were flying as we should and he didn’t have to repeat himself to us. I did get yelled at once though and that was because we were on downwind and told that we were number 4 for landing and that the plane in front of us was over the amphitheatre. I looked that way and spotted the plane and read back the clearance. A few seconds later I was just getting ready to make my right turn over the amphitheater when he asked on the radio who was over the amphitheatre. I replied with “383 is over the amphitheatre.” That was met with a “No we are not” from my instructor and then swiftly followed by a “383 if you are over the amphitheatre right now, you need to turn back downwind immediately.” My instructor got on the radio and straightened it out but not before the controller had a couple not nice things to say.

In my defense, we were about 500 feet from the amphitheater and I was just starting to turn over it so I figured that was close enough. I saw the plane in front of us so we should have been the closest one to the amphitheater. I thought my call was valid but my instructor said that when things are this tight, over means exactly over and not close to. It turns out that the number three plane in front of us was not the one I saw. That was the number two plane and the number three plane was over the amphitheatre thus why the controller freaked at first. This brought up the question though of why the controller had to ask in the first place. He has radar and there are no obstructions to block it close to the airport so I don’t know why he did not know who was over the amphitheatre. This just proves to me the point that it is the pilot’s responsibility to ensure the safety of the flight and not the controllers. The controllers will help you out but they can not be relied on 100 percent of the time to help you avoid others.

Anyway, we landed and taxied back to the parking area. This was a good flight and I was glad to practice some of the basic maneuvers again and to get a chance to fly in really busy airspace. I am a little over half way done with my training and I feel that if I can handle all this at this stage of the game, when I finally get my license, I should be a confident and competent pilot.

Next on the agenda is ground training for the cross country flight. Next week we are working on short and soft field take-offs and landings and then on Thursday comes the big cross country flight. I have reserved 5 hours for this and I plan to take the day off work to fly the cross country portion of my instruction with my instructor. This should be exciting.