Night Flying

Imagine this. 2 posts in 2 days. I just got back from part of my night flying requirements. According to the FAA, I need 10 landings, 3 hours and in that 3 hours, I have to do a cross country. As of tonight, I have 1.9 hours and 8 landings complete. All I have left is 1.1 hours (with a 50 nm cross country leg in there) and 2 landings left.

We started out by leaving TKI headed for Denton (KDTO) which is about 30 nm to the west. I was going to do this on Thursday night but my friend Keith called today and asked if I could come up to Denton and pick him up as he had dropped off a Piper Seneca to be repaired. I tried to get there before the tower closed but as I made my call 10 miles out, the tower said that they were closing down in 3 minutes. I may be able to go a lot faster than a car but 10 miles in 3 minutes is over 200 mph. Not in a 172. I was able to make a beautiful slow turn to join the pattern on a right base and finally put it down without any landing lights. We finally we able to find our turn off and head toward the tower where Keith was waiting.

We picked up our passenger and headed toward Addison. I contacted approach control, got my squawk code and instructions for my approach to Addison. Our controller could not get my call sign right to save his life. He would call out the wrong call sign and I would answer with the right call sign. He paid too much for his clue but I had to live with it because when he handed me off to the tower, they had the wrong call sign. same results with them. Even after we landed and was handed off to ground control, it was still wrong. We dropped Keith off at Atlantic Aviation NORTH (Richard could not get it through his head that we were at Atlantic North, not South) and taxied back to the threshold. I did get to hear the ground controller call a Learjet pilot an idiot so eloquently, he though she was being helpful. I was in the midst of greatness.

We got our clearance to taxi back to 33 and then to take off with a departure to the east. So I did my best to remember how I used to get home after a few too many adult beverages (because I couldn't see the runway because of no landing light). Soon we were airborne and headed toward Rockwall. Rockwall is an interesting little airport. It is 3373 X 45 feet long and when you land to the north, you have to flare an lot more than usual because it slopes up. To top it off, there are some interesting power lines on the north end of the runway. I did a couple of touch and goes (in the dark) and headed back toward McKinney.

By the time we got to McKinney, it was dead and got a straight in approach. This was my absolute best landing ever and had someone there to confirm it. We got to the runway so smooth that even Richard was amazed. We taxied down to Delta and turned off to the Alpha taxi way. The controller found out that we had a red neck airplane. Because the taxi light was out, Richard was using my big flashlight to light up the reflectors so I could see the centerline. It was very funny to hear the controller ask if that was a flashlight we were using on the dash. What can you say. Once a redneck, always a redneck.

My E-Logbook

This post's video is another Cub video. These guys who fly Cubs are an interesting bunch. They can land an airplane where you thought only birds could land. Pretty cool stuff. This is still not a turbine Cub. We'll get to one of those soon enough.

I'm Starting to Like this Instrument Training

I got to go out again today and do some more instrument training again. This one was a little different. First of all, it was Sunday morning and it was daylight. Other than that, it was back under the hood. Richard told me that he was sorry but he was going to have to take away the nice beautiful day away from me.

On climb out, Richard had me put on the hood and head east again. He wanted me to track 090 at 3,000 feet then intercept the 180 radial off of the Bonham VORTAC. He punched in the frequency for the Bohnam VOR (114.6) and had me dial in the CDI for the 180 radial. When I started to see the needle move, I needed to turn to the VOR and track the course.

My big mistake was not thinking about what I learned in ground school. When flying a VOR radial, you fly to the other side. In my case, I was tracking the 180 radial, but I was flying north which means that I should have dialed in the 360 radial. This meant that I had a "FROM" flag in the window instead of a "TO" flag. This also caused me problems chasing the needle.

When tracking a VOR radial, you always chase the needle on the CDI. What that means is that if the needle is moving to the right, you turn to the right (in small increments) to get the needle to stop moving then keep turning the direction (in small increments) to get the needle to move back to the center. Once you get the needle back to the center, take out the added angle you used to intercept the needle and fly the course. Of course this may not be the same as the actual VOR radial because of wind. The VOR doesn't care which way the airplane is pointed, just which way it is tracking through the air. after I changed the CDI to the 360 radial, I got my "TO" flag and was able to "chase the needle" and have it work properly.

Once I finally got to track the radial correctly, I was able to fly it all of the way to BYP. I kept it straight over the top as I flew through the "cone of ambiguity", which happens as you fly over the top of the station. As soon as I got on the other side, my flag flipped for "to" to "from"and I was still tracking 360 degrees.

Before we set up to do some landings at F00, he had me do some steep turns. At least a 45 degree bank, stay with 100 feet of the assigned altitude (3000 feet) and roll out within 10 degrees while still under the hood. The first one was not great but workable. The second one was much better but he had me hold for 450 degrees. Then he had me drop to 1600 feet and take off my hood and we were on top of the F00 airport.

I entered the pattern and was setting up for a short field landing over an obstacle. When I turned base and was setting up for a 60 kt approach I made the remark that it felt like we were crawling. I was tracking 270 degrees and had 65 kts indicated but the GPS had my ground speed at 36 kts. That meant that we had a 29 kt headwind. A Cessna 172 only has a maximum demonstrated crosswind component of 15 kts. As we were sinking, we went through a shear layer and the wind dropped to about 7 kts. We did a few more of the usual short and soft field landings then he had me do a slip to a landing. That one was very hard because of the shear layer.

After I finally got us on the ground, it was time to head home and do the ILS 17 approach to McKinney. I tracked the course that Richard asked me to track, intercepted the localizer and glideslope and tracked it all of the way in. I was a bit tired but felt great. The instrument part of my training is getting interesting. I like the challenge but need a lot more work at it. I only have 1.5 hours of required hood time and 2.6 hours of night flying left for my required training in order for me to take my check ride. I'm supposed to fly this Thursday night to get some night flying out of the way and I'll see what I can do the next weekend to do some more hood work.

My E-logbook

The video for today is from the EAA. It is a video of a "cub like" airplane. Cubs have been around forever and the original ones had small engines in them but they now have turbine cubs (I'll save that for the next post). Enjoy

Simulated Instruments

I finally got off of my ass and went flying again. I'm glad I did. I'm on my last of 2 required elements (with an instructor). I began my simulated instrument training today. So far, all of my training has been centered around me seeing the big picture out of the front of the airplane.

Now with a view limiting device, all I can see is the instruments in front of me. I had to listen to the instructions that my instructor gave me as far as course, altitude and speed. Everything is coordinated by looking at the instruments. Each instrument can serve several purposes.

For instance, if you notice you are climbing, your airspeed will probably be coming down, the rate of climb indicator will be going up and the attitude indicator will show a climb. They are all related. If you are in a bank, the attitude indicator will show a bank, the turn coordinator will show a bank and your heading will be changing.

The object is to fly wings level, at a constant altitude and maintain course. This is easier said than done. The nature of flying is truly dynamic. The wind is constantly changing, the DG is constantly precessing (click here for an explanation of precession). In my case, the DG (directional gyro) was precessing a lot more than it should have. It made for a lot of extra work to constantly keep resetting it.

Once I finally got the hang of flying by instruments, I got to experience some unusual attitudes. Essentially, that is when the instructor puts the plane in an unusual climb or dive and hands it back over to you to get out of it, only using instruments. The main thing to look for is speed. Is it increasing or is it decreasing. If it is increasing, you are in a dive so you cut power and begin to pull up (not too fast or you will rip the wings off) and level your wings. If it is decreasing, you are in a climb, add full power and begin to push the nose over and level your wings.

By now, I am getting tired. It takes a lot of concentration to make minute corrections just by looking at the instruments when you are used to looking out of the window for that visual reference. So we did a GPS 17 approach back into McKinney. We got our squawk code and headed for our approach fixes. By the time I got to the outer marker, and descended to 1060 feet (the decision altitude for a GPS approach), off came the hood and I could see the runway. I made a small correction for the error in my tracking of the course, and landed (my first night landing). We did 2 more landings so I could be "night current". The problem with being night current is that according to our club rules, I can't fly at night unless it is with an instructor. According to the FAA, I can't carry passengers until I get my certificate. The only reason to stay night current is so that you can carry passengers at night. But I am "night current".

My E-Logbook

The video for this post is a DeHavelland Twin Otter on a short field landing then a short field take off. There is no way I would attempt that at my skill level.