I Smell Pancakes

Today I set out for a bit of fun for a cross country. Calvin had agreed to go with me to the wonderful town of Granbury TX (KGDJ) for their monthly pancake breakfast fly in. I have a friend who lives there and has asked when I was going to come out for the fly in. Back in May I told him I would do everything I could to get out there in June. Well today was the day. I had several changes during the course of saying yes.


First, I had to find someone to fly with me. My friend Darren just passed his check ride, so I thought I would see if he wanted to go. Of course he did but was going out of town with his wife so he was unavailable. Next I asked my instructor if he would like some pancakes. He has an IFR student who has a 2 hour lesson every Saturday morning for the next 6 weeks, so he was out too. Next I called Calvin, our president and also a CFI in our flying club. He would have loved to go but had some vacation and wanted to go to Ohio. So I tried my friend Keith. He was up for it but wasn't up for getting up early in the morning. I convinced him it would be fun so he agreed. The problem for me was that I wouldn't get any flying done for me, but any excuse for flying was a good excuse. So we has a date set, June 28, wheels up no later than 8 AM (I reserved 3NB for 7 AM - 12 PM).


Everything was progressing nicely and I was really looking forward to visiting my friend Kyle and a good cross country flight on top of that. On Wednesday I got an email from Calvin where he asked if I still wanted to go eat some pancakes. I replied that I had made arrangements with Keith but would see if I could get out of it so I could fly left seat. I called Keith and he had forgotten about it so I was the new left seat guy.


I started my preflight on Friday afternoon at work. When I got home, I had some family things to do but as soon as we got Anna down, I started to get my outlook briefing from FSS. I was getting frustrated because I use several tools so I can get a big picture of what the weather is doing, plotted against my course. One of those tools is DUATS weather. DUATS was down for about 2 hours last night. By the time I got finished and felt comfortable, it was about 11:30 PM. My alarm was set for 5:45 AM. I could have used the sleep but I had to feel good about my planning. One of the reasons it took so long was the fact that I wanted to intercept VOR radials for all of my check points. Not just a single radial but a radial from 2 different VOR stations. I had spent a lot of time doing this.


5:45 AM and my alarm goes off. I get up and get ready and head out to the airport. During my briefing last night, the briefer told me that I would have a pretty strong wind to deal with today. The winds at my altitude were 200@34. If I had been able to fly straight to my destination, it would have only been 76 nm. Since I live in a very active class B airspace, I had to plan to fly under the 4000 foot outer shelf to stay out of the class B airspace. So my 76 nm route now was 98 nm with 5 way points for me to hit. I flew from TKI (McKinney) to HQZ (Mesquite) to (LNC) Lancaster to JWY (Midway) then as I flew straight to GDJ (Granbury), I picked up a couple of other reference points where I crossed I35W and the town of Godley. In a perfect world, I could have made this trip in about an hour. With a 34 knot wind to contend with, my calculated time was 1:22. I won't bore you with details but we did make it about 3 minutes late.


The pancakes were awesome as was the hospitality. My friend Kyle was out videotaping my landing. If I can get my hands on a copy of it, I may post it (depends on how good it looked). Calvin won some micro-fiber wipes that will help him keep his airplane clean and he also won a shirt that the gave to me. Time was flying by so we had to get out. I refueled and then went in to do my flight plan while Calvin watched the airplane. We said our goodbyes and prepared to head back to McKinney. Of course with my luck, when I got my winds aloft forecast, my 34 knot headwind I fought getting there was now only an 19 knot tailwind. Just my luck. As we were coming up on HQX, Calvin started the guessing game of when we thought we would touch down at McKinney. I could have won if I hadn't started to slow down so soon. My best guess was 11:57 AM and Calvin has straight up noon. I could have kept my speed up and just dropped down to 1,600 feet and slowed down once in the pattern but I slowed it down 5 miles out. Of course I was number 2 behind another Cessna and had to extend my downwind leg out past Hwy 380 so that ate up more time. All in all, we put it down at 12:00, as Calvin predicted.


I had such a good time and even though Calvin gave me some critiques of things I need to work on, it is going to be hard to wipe the smile off of my face for a while.


My video for this post is some cool shots of crosswind landings. Most people have a tough time with crosswind landings when they first get started. This is at the other extreme. These people shouldn't be able to land these things but when your skills are as honed as theirs are, you get amazing results. Then again, there is something to be said for the go around too.



My E-Logbook

I'm Back

After a month of layoffs because of work (and any thing else you can think of), I finally got back in the air today. I couldn't have asked for a better day to fly. It was dead calm when we took off so I didn't have to fight any crosswinds. This is exactly what I needed for my confidence. I had the best day of shooting landings I had ever had. I did soft field, short field and did some slips also. I did a slip beginning my turn to base and also slipped to final. I have never slipped an airplane as much as I did today. It was by far the most fun I have ever had flying.

Just before we decided to call it quits (that's because Richard gets bored when you do something right), we headed southeast to do some turns about a point. Since we had calm air, he thought it would be good to see what it was like to do this without any wind. The interesting thing about wind is that it is truly dynamic. What was calm 20 minutes ago, now may have a northeast wind blowing you around. Richard kept telling me that the wind should be coming out of the southeast but as I looked at the wind patterns on the lake, it was coming from the northeast. That explained why my TAP was not very uniform. Now that I knew where the wind was really from, we did much better.

I am so happy with my performance today that I want to go fly some more. Richard wants me to get back to flying solo again but I may have him go with me to do some more crosswind landings, just to get current again. I still need some night flying, instrument work and some hood work but it will all come in time. I feel really good and want to keep this feeling going. So instead of flying anymore today, I'll take my daughter swimming.

I'm going to try to find some cool videos on YouTube each time I post something. Today is about VERY short takeoffs and landings. See if you can get as good as these guys are. Good luck.



My E-Logbook

Steep Turns

I'm finally out knocking the rust off of my skills. I went flying with Richard on Sunday. As an added bonus, we took my boss's son and her husband with us. Luckily I was flying N733NB because it can carry a lot more weight and I could feel the difference a couple of hundred extra pounds in the back made. The one good thing was that I didn't need quite as much back pressure on the yoke while doing the steep turns because I had so much weight that far back. The farther back you go with weight, the more tail heavy the airplane gets. That also means that the nose gets a little lighter and easier to pull back on the yoke. Just don't go too far. That is part of the weight and balance equation and you don't want to get out of the envelope.

After we took off, we headed east then north. We got out to an area where we could do some high altitude (4000 feet) work. I did some steep bank turns at 45 degrees. After you get past 30 degrees you start loosing lift so you need some back pressure on the elevators to maintain altitude. Once I rolled past 30 degrees, I added the back pressure to maintain altitude. My requirements were to roll out within 10 degrees on the heading and no more than 100 feet either way of my starting altitude. This was a lot harder that I thought it would be. Once I got the hang of it, I had to be careful of overdoing it because of my 2 passengers.

Next we headed off to Sherman to do some touch and goes. The first one was OK but the second one sucked so we headed over to Grayson county to do a couple more. Both were mediocre at best. I guess that means that we'll be back doing touch and goes for the next time out.

Finally we needed to head back to McKinney so we made a dash south. when were were about 10 miles out, we called the tower and announced our intentions. I got to do an approach I have never done before at McKinney. Since the winds were out of the north we were landing runway 35. The normal traffic pattern for 35 is right hand traffic, which puts all of the traffic east of the airport. Since I was coming in from the northwest, I was given a left hand approach (over town). No big deal because we do right and left hand traffic all of the time but it was just a different picture I had never seen before. We landed and got off of the runway quickly then taxied to parking on the north ramp.

Both passengers seemed to be OK but didn't like the steep turns. It was bumpy also but that still wasn't as bad as the steep turns. I guess it is all a matter of perspective. I kind of liked the steep turns, but I also had the yoke in my hands.

Update:

I ran across this on YouTube. It is a really good piece on Harrison Ford. I loved the line "I'm just another Pilot".

My E-logbook

Starting Over Again

Today was an interesting chapter in my pursuit of the allusive pilot certificate. After my last rant, I managed to get in touch with another instructor, who happens to be the president of the board, and made a date to fly today. I reserved N737TY, the old plane I flew before it went away for 5 months. It was good to get back in it, especially since it has a new Garmin GNS 430W in it. Along with a new GPS, it has a new engine and a rebuilt firewall. In my previous rant (that was not fueled by alcohol), I was frustrated at my inability to fly. Calvin helped ease a lot of my frustrations and get me back on track.

I thought I needed to start back at the basics just to get a whole new perspective on what I am doing. So I told him that I wanted to do some basic ground maneuvers. I started with S-turns around a road and slowly got myself back into flying shape. I was rusty but I wanted this to be a kind of re-birth so I listened to how he explained what I needed to do to make the maneuvers better. We then moved on to turns about a point and I finally got a much better explanation of what I was doing wrong.

We got the plane back from a guy who was in my ground school class with me and it had about a half of a tank. While we were pre-flighting Calvin suggested that we head toward Greenville and get some fuel there to offset the incredibly high fuel cost at McKinney. The fuel at Greenville was only $4.00 compared to $5.69 at McKinney. I got to save $1.69/gal for 24.2 gallons. We then headed back to McKinney and were given clearance to enter the pattern on a right base for runway 35. Here is where the old habits kick in and although my approach was good, when I flared, I pulled back to hard too fast. That is what you get for not flying for a month. Of course a month is relative, but when you have as few hours as I have, a month without flying is an eternity. So I got busted for a less than stellar landing but we did survive and the airplane was still in good shape.

Calvin told me I needed to get back in the saddle and continue flying. I need to be flying with an instructor before I solo again. I knew this was coming, hence the reason for asking for Calvin's help. I can't tell you how much it helped to have a new and fresh point of view in my head while flying (I also liked his very calm and soothing voice). I will be flying again soon and more often, after an agreement with my boss who is letting me come in late once a week. I like to fly early in the morning to keep the brutal Texas sun from baking me too bad.

My E-logbook

I've Hit A Bump In The Road

I have a dilemma. I started a new job in January that demands more of my time during the day. I used to be able to occasionally get out to the airport and do some flying during the week. With the new job, I don't have time to do that. I have to be on the road by 7:45 AM, at the latest, to be at work by 8:30 AM. Traffic sucks and the best thing about it is I get to ride with my wife and use the HOV lane. I get finished at 5:30 PM and it usually takes an hour to get home. By the time I get home, eat and change clothes, it is 7:15 PM.

Here is where the flag for piling on should be thrown. Since I can only fly on the weekends, I have a very tough time making sure that we have acceptable weather and an airplane. Everybody wants to fly on the weekends. For the last month, we have had bad weather and grounded airplanes. These I can live with. What I am having a problem with is the fact that every time I try to get my instructor to fly on the weekends, he is out of town. I know that he flies a lot during the week. While that may be great for people who have the luxury of being able to sneak away for a while during the week, it really sucks for me. I am so frustrated that I can't get any instruction to finish this wonderful journey I have started, I am even considering giving it up because of this major hurdle.

I have endured financial hardship, a loving and wonderful wife who has sacrificed a lot for me to be able to do this, medical hell just to keep my third class medical current and now this seems like it is the one that may actually derail me. I keep this blog so all of my friends who have supported me can keep up with my training and now I don't have anything good to write and that bothers me. I'll try to do what I can to remedy this. As a matter of fact, I just reserved one of the airplanes for Saturday after I had a talk with my instructor. Of course nothing good is going to come from this as the plane I reserved is now grounded. Maybe it will be fixed by Saturday. Then again, I still have to get another instructor who is available. It sucks to be me right now.

Remos G3

Our flying club had the great pleasure of getting to try out a new airplane today. The way the story goes is that I was reading my AOPA Flight Training magazine and came across an article about places to train for the sport pilot rating. The sport pilot rating is a more restrictive license than a private pilot but has some other advantages that offset the restrictions. In the article they named the US Flight Academy in Denton Texas as a place that offered an accelerated course in the sport pilot rating. I had a weekend off (Hard to believe, huh?) and drove up to Denton to check out the facility. While there I was able to sit in one of their Remos G3 light sport aircraft. The weight restrictions for a LSA are that the gross weight cannot exceed 1320 lbs. Our Cessna 150's are a lot heavier than that and have a smaller usable weight than the Remos G3 does. They claim to have a 695 lb usable weight where our C150s have about 470 lb usable weight. When you are as big as I am, an extra 225 lbs goes a long way. If you do the weight and balance on a C150 for me and my instructor, we can put about 5.5 lbs of fuel in and be at gross weight. The Remos can not only take both of us and a full tank but it leaves us over 125 lbs for other stuff.

We gave away a couple of demo rides to club members and both of the lucky winners are still raving about everything from how fast it climbs to the view from the cockpit. I was lucky enough to get one of the rides and I'll be making a trip to Denton soon myself. Below are some pictures from today.

My E-Logbook

I Need Practice

After a grueling month I had to get back into the swing of flying. I knew that March was going to be tough but I really didn't expect it to be as bad as it was. I had one last obligation to my former employer and it was a whole week in Indianapolis. Of course in that business, one week on show site means at least a week of pre-production and then at least a week of post-production. I have a very challenging new job and all of the added stress of finishing this one last task took it's toll on me. To make things worse, I got home on Monday night only to turn around Tuesday and get on a plane to San Francisco for the night, attend a meeting the next day and fly back that night. Enough of the whining.

I finally got back in an airplane on Saturday. I was supposed to go on a cross country but I didn't have time to get with my instructor to adequately plan it. So I didn't get a sign off to fly the cross country but I did go and do some touch and goes just to get the cobwebs cleaned.


I couldn't have asked for a better day (actually I could have but I won't complain). It was in the 60's, not a cloud in the sky and the winds were almost non existent. This is more of a problem than I would have figured. Without any wind, I was carrying just a little more ground speed that I usually do. On my last cross country, when I landed in McKinney, I had about a 10 - 15 knot headwind and when I touched down, my ground speed was so slow that I had to add power to get off of the runway on to the taxiway. That was not the case this time. Several other little small things changed without any wind. I flared just a touch high and didn't get the sink I was used to so I dropped harder than I wanted on my last 2 landings. I knew I was going to have a bumpy landing when I heard the stall warning go off about 3 feet of of the ground. After my 5th landing I asked for a full stop landing and taxied to parking. I did notice that the tower has changed the way they tell us to taxi. When I requested taxi instructions for take off, I got "Cleared to taxi to runway 17 via taxiway alpha." We used to get "Cleared to taxi runway 17." It seems that the FAA wants the taxi instructions to be very clear.

One nice note was that after 5 months, we finally got our damaged 172 back in the air. N737TY is finally flying once again. It has to have 10 hours put on it without touch and goes to get everything seated and then the oil gets changed and can be put back into "full" service. Here is a shot of the first takeoff as a rented airplane.

It will be good to have a choice now to fly on weekends. We are looking into another 172 to buy and if that happens, I may be able to get an airplane on a weekend without having to reserve it a month in advance.

My E-logbook

Collin County Regional Airport on Skyvector.com

IFR Charts
at skyvector.com

The Real Solo (No it really is)

I just got back from the time of my life. I did my long solo cross country today and I still have a smile on my face that will not go away. I flew the same route I did when Richard and I went to do this at the end of January. The actual course is from KTKI (Collin County Regional Airport or McKinney as we call it) to F46 (Rockwall Municipal) to KGLE (Gainesville Municipal) to KCWC (Wichita Falls Kickapoo Downtown). The route looks like this and covers 140 nm.After I decided not to do a touch and go at KGLE it got bumpy. I was flying at 3000 ft and between KGLE and KCWC it got bumpy. I was a little concerned that I might not be able to safely land at KCWC. I started my descent about 10 miles out and got to about 2200 feet and it smoothed out. When flying, we calibrate out altimeters to MSL or mean sea level. So when you go to an airport, you have to know the height of the airport above sea level. You always try to reset your altimeter about every 50 miles. 25 miles out of KCWC, I tuned into their automated weather and got the current altimeter settings. KCWC is 1003 feet above MSL so when I was at 2200 feet, I was 1197 feet above the ground. This makes me think that I was in a boundary between the surface winds and the winds aloft. Winds blow at different directions and speeds at different altitudes. Today was supposed to have surface winds from 170 (South) at 8 - 10 knots. The winds at 3000 feet were from 300 degrees at 11. I was somewhere in between in the soup.

I finally got into Wichita Falls, canceled my flight plan, got some more fuel, grabbed a snack and some water, filed a new flight plan and then was back in the air. It got tricky here. I tried for over 20 minutes to get in touch with someone with FSS to activate my flight plan. It wasn't until I was past UKW (the Bowie VOR station) that someone finally answered me about activating it. I'm sure glad that they didn't automatically activate it or I would have been in big trouble. If you don't close your flight plan when you land, after a half of an hour passes, they start calling your house looking for you. If they don't get any response there, then they start a search party. So always remember to close your flight plan, even if you activate it late.

The rest of the flight was awesome. I turned north so I could get a straight in approach to KTKI on 17. I really wanted to do another ILS approach but didn't ask for one. I was granted a straight in approach, which suited my ILS need just fine. This landing was probably one of my best ever. Straight down the centerline, perfectly aligned and smooth. Just like my friend Tony says, a perfect grease job.

All in all, a 10 on the wow factor. Let's hope that there are more days like today. Can you see the excitement? It's quite stunning, eh?

My E-logbook

More Solo Work

Recently we have had nothing but lousy weather. This weekend has proved to be nothing short of spectacular. I had 2 hours reserved on Sunday for some ground reference work. I left early to be at the airport on time but as soon as I got there, I realized that I left my log book and medical certificate at home. I won't fly unless I'm legal so I called home to ask the wife if she could bring me my logbook and medical certificate. While I waited, I talked to some of the other instructors about my new role with the flying club and what they wanted out of their flying club. It was good to know how everyone felt and what I needed to do to keep the general membership happy.

My wife finally arrived with my daughter in tow and I took them down to the airplane for preflight. Once we got our preflight done, my wife and daughter went back to the FBO and watched me taxi and takeoff. I flew southeast for a little while then went south to do some work of turns about a point. After I did that for a while, I flew over the park where my wife and daughter were playing. I wagged my wings and went back to doing some S turns. It was a little bumpy but not too bad so I continued my practice exercises and even flew over the park again.

Since I was just off of the south end of the runway and we were landing to the north, I got a straight in approach to runway 35. I did my impression of a landing, taxied back to parking and shut it down. All in all, a beautiful day to fly. Looks like my next flight is going to be a long cross country on 3/8. Weather permitting and if everything else works out, I'll get that out of the way. I can't wait.

My E-Logbook

First True Solo

I've soloed several times recently but only after a few laps around the patch. Today was a first. It was all me. I had been watching the wind all day because it was supposed to be "breezy". Luckily for me, when it came time to go flying, the wind was just about straight down the centerline, but at 15 knots. I did my preflight and even had the guys from the FBO come over and top me off for my big 0.6 hour of fun. Getting down the runway for takeoff was easy but as soon as I was airborne, I realized that I had to land. Pilots have an old saying that goes "Takeoffs are optional. Landings are mandatory." I will say that I am a lot more comfortable flying now but I always have some reservations about my skills. Today was a good example of my growing confidence.

My first landing was OK, slightly off the centerline, as usual, but smooth. My second one was a lot messier. I realized too late that I was carrying too much speed for my approach and when I flared, I was too high so I had a little one hopper to the shortstop. I was having an old recurring problem with the airplane. This particular airplane has a tendency to sometimes have a bad nose wheel shimmy when the nose wheel touches down. The only fix I know of that keeps the plane from shaking apart is to pull back on the elevator and take weight off of the nose wheel and it goes away. This did it to me twice today. By the time my nose wheel touches down, I am usually under 45 knots so I can't take a whole lot of weight off of the nose wheel but I do what I can.

After several touch and goes, I decided to call it a day and enjoy the nice sunshine of the afternoon, all 30 minutes that was left of it. I had fun but I still need to grab Richard and head to someplace we can get some good crosswinds and keep working on landings. A funny side note is that our last flying club meeting had the topic of "The Perfect Landing." It reminds me of a joke that goes "Santa Clause, a perfect landing, the Easter Bunny and some rain all converge on the same spot. Which one has the right of way? The rain because the other 3 are figments of your imagination.

My E-logbook.com

A Little Touch Up

I have been trying to make the second part of my cross country happen for about 2 weeks now. It looks like I have to wait again for a shot. Our weather here has been so wacky that it is hard to plan anything more than a couple of days out and even that is a big risk. I had scheduled this coming Sunday (Feb 17) for my next attempt. Unfortunately I have to fly this on a weekend because that job thing gets in the way. Now it looks like Sunday is going to be a wash because of the weather.

With that in mind, I also need a little brush up on cross wind landings (can you ever get enough?). So as a birthday present to myself, I went up for an afternoon of flying the pattern. I had just enough wind and direction to make for a nice little crab to stay tracking the runway on my final. My first landing was a little off the centerline but very smooth. It was funny to hear Richard tell me that I was off center but smooth. My next one was a little off too but just as smooth then I finally got into the swing. I could tell Richard was getting bored when he asks me what are we going to do next. I did get a lot of challenges thrown at me because we had such a busy pattern that day which made every one of my approaches different and unique. I got to make right hand traffic, extend my downwind leg for instrument traffic, land behind a departing Citation (caution wake turbulence) and even get vectored because I couldn't see traffic because of the sun. Finally, during one of our last passes, Richard just pulled power and said "You just lost your engine. Put it down." I had plenty of altitude and was close enough to the airport that I just put the airplane into it's best glide speed, made a very high approach, added flaps and put it down just past the numbers. I was feeling better about landings that I have felt in a long time but I only spent .6 hours flying today (it's still better than no flying).

After getting finished, I deviated from my normal post flight because I didn't do my normal pre flight. When I got to the airport, I was late but so was the guy who had the plane before me. When I got there and walked out to the ramp he left the keys in for me. So I didn't have to go to the key locker or remove the gust lock from the yoke. This screwed up my post flight because I didn't replace the gust lock and about an hour later I discovered I had the keys to the airplane in my pocket. So before we went out for the usual family birthday tradition, I had to go back to the airport, replace the gusset lock and put the keys back in the key locker. Happy birthday to me.

My E-logbook

Where Did This Come From?

This story borders on the surreal so I'll tell it slow so when I re-read it I won't think that someone else wrote it. This all started about a week ago when I called the communications officer of the flying club I belong to and asked a silly question about getting some shirts embroidered. Since we don't have anything to offer the membership, I thought that I would take it upon myself to do the legwork needed to make this available. I called some great people I used to work for (thanks to Kim at Alford Media) and got the info I needed.

I had to take the information to a board meeting to present it to them to make this an official request. While there, an old topic raised its head. Our vice president of membership retired last year and no one wanted the job. Part of the reason that no one wanted the job was the fact that Keith was amazing at this job. He had the charisma, knowledge, drive, connections and skill to do this job better than the average bear. The board was still looking for a replacement but no one would bite. I got a lot of mysterious looks and winks when the topic came up but I told them that the demands of my new job were keeping me very close to home until I was in full swing.

The fun begins when I get home and talked to my wife. I told her about what transpired at the meeting and she just looked at me and said that I should go for it. After I finished shaking my head I asked her why I should try to fill such big shoes, never expecting the first response. She told me that she knew how much I love flying, and everything that goes with it, and I should try to share that with the flying club. I really do like everyone that I have dealt with to date in the TFC. So I mulled it over and the next night, I called the president and told him, in so many words, that I was his man. I also called the communications officer, whom I have tremendous respect for also, and let him know what I was doing. He was somewhat disappointed because he wanted to groom me for his board position but was happy for me to join the board.

So at our membership meeting on Saturday morning, I was announced as our new vice president of membership. I am very excited that I can contribute to something that I enjoy so much. There are a lot of responsibilities, as I found out at the end of the meeting when I had to do the paperwork for a new member. I want to project on to every new member, just how exciting this adventure can be. If everyone gets just a portion of what I have received from this experience, they all will be rich in ways that they have never knew existed. I take on this role with a lot of respect for the ones who served before me and am hopeful that I can follow in the large footsteps that they have left.

Respectfully yours,
the new TFC vice president of membership

First Cross Country is Done!

As I sit and type this, I am quite tired but I'd trade this kind of tired for just about anything. My flying day started at 1:00 PM (1300 CST or 1900Z). I had N733NB reserved until 5 PM but with the weather we had today I don't think anyone, other than myself, would be crazy enough to want to fly today. The ceiling was unlimited, the temp was about 50 degrees F and the sky was blue but at takeoff time, we had winds from 150 at 20k gusting to 28k. That is WINDY. Luckily for me, the crosswind component was small for every airport we had on our trip. An interesting thing is that every airport on this trip had a 17/35 runway so my crosswind components were easy to figure out.

When I got to the airport we had to do our preflight and it took a lot longer than we expected. I had done some of the calculations ahead of time but Richard wanted me to do them in front of him so I had to redo everything. I later I realized that we made a slight miscalculation in that all of the courses were magnetic instead of true. What that means is when we got to the point of calculating of course heading we were off by 5 degrees. The reason is that when doing anything that involves a magnetic heading, it will be off because of a variance in the magnetic field of the Earth. There are really 2 North Poles. There is the actual North Pole and the magnetic North Pole and they are quite different. If you plot a "true" heading, you must adjust it for magnetic variance. Our area has a variance of 5 degrees to the East or -5 degrees. What all of the gibberish means is my initial headings that I gave to Richard we off by -5 degrees since I had already taken the variation into account.

Once we finally got airborne, we headed into a stiff headwind. I rotated at 60k but my ground speed was only about 35k. We got to Rockwall in about 12 minutes. after entering the pattern, I did a very ugly crosswind landing (are you seeing a pattern here?) so Richard had me do another one. We needed to kill a little time and he wanted to make me do it again, so around we went for number 2 (no nasty remarks here). I did a lot better so off we went up again and made a climbing left hand turn to track my outbound course for Gainesville. This was a big turn as we went from 150 degrees to 299 degrees. We climbed out and headed in a northerly direction. I had 2 checkpoints between my next airport, T31 (Aero Country - 22 nm and 18 min away) and Pilot Point (a small town on the South side of lake Ray Roberts 39 nm and 18 minutes away). Incidently, this is where my GS was very high. My GS to Rockwall was 88k while my IAS (Indicated Air Speed) was 110k. On the Northernmost leg, my GS was about 135k with and IAS of 105k. Quite a tailwind, eh?

We finally made it to Gainesville in about 27 minutes (58 nm) where once we announced ourself entering the pattern, were promptly greeted by a Citation on our butt. we had slowed up to about 90k IAS and she was probably doing 160k. We had the right away since we were in front of her. Once we finally turned base and then final we did our T&G and high tailed it out of there to get out of her way. We did another climbing left turn to get up to altitude and head for Kickapoo Downtown in Wichita Falls (KCWC). Before we got out of KGLE airspace, we finally got to watch our Citation jockey land. She called a short final 5 miles out. I could land an Airbus A380 on a 5 mile final with the winds that we had.

So now we are on our last leg of this flight plan. It was the longest leg at 65 nm. With our wind situation, I should have been carrying a GS of 111k which would put me into KCWC in 38 minutes (give or take a minute or two). I hit all of my check points perfect except for Nocona (F48). I misread my map and was thinking it was the Town of Henrietta so I changed my course to put me in position to track my intended course. Richard soon started asking me what I was doing and to look at the map closely. That's when I realized what I had done and had to correct so I could get us into KCWC instead of getting into the Sheppard Air Force Base airspace. After the renegade Citation pilot, I didn't need a T38 checking my prostrate. I finally got us on the ground in Wichita Falls and followed the nice lineman to park at the FBO where we received very good service, inexpensive fuel (inexpensive to us but to you MOGAS types, it will be expensive. $4.29/gal of 100ll. I actually make money on that kind of price) and a place to relieve any built up pressure. Of course I called my very concerned wife after we got inside and my concerned brother also. I also called my really good friend, who has been encouraging me to complete my training, Michael Saperton. Michael is a pilot and we both share the memory of a good friend who got me interested in doing this but who also was taken from us much too early. I will always remember Brian while I fly. I think that every time I fly it puts me closer to heaven where I can be a little closer to him. We all miss him.

I closed my flight plan with FSS, paid $90.09 for 21 gallons of fuel, filed a new flight plan and we were ready to head out.

We took off at about 5:18 PM and headed back to TKI. Remember that we are technically still in winter, so the days are short. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and Sunset is 5:56 PM. Do you think I can make it back to McKinney in 38 minutes (104 nm) with an 18k headwind? So we set out and I did what I needed to do, other than dial in the wrong VOR out of KCWC, but I did track the correct course. By now the wind is starting to die down from 25k to about 15 k so I don't have quite the same headwind but it is still a daunting task flying into it. I got learn a lot about the accuracies of the VOR system. They are extremely accurate close in but get sloppy the farther out you get from them. I was tracking my course dead on, even after I flew between two TV antennas that were 3000 ft MSL (2000 ft AGL) and was about 10 degrees off course. I looked at the map and saw where I was supposed to be and fixed it. After we entered the DFW Class B airspace (we didn't enter it technically. We flew under the shelf that started at 4000 ft MSL) and were still tracking to McKinney, I asked Richard if we could do an ILS approach. It was dark by now and we weren't too far away. I did this because we would have had to enter on the upwind leg in the pattern and fly a whole lot more. I was getting tired and I like flying ILS approaches (I've only done two in my life but I really was intrigued by them). So Richard had me cancel our flight plan and we made a mad dash to the FLUET NDB. The tower granted our ILS approach and we made our way to the localizer. Richard had me do a couple of minor course corrections to intercept cleanly and I did OK for my first night landing (not technically because it didn't occur one hour after sunset), even though I brought in too much power but was able to get it down and slowed down to exit the Charlie taxiway.

Just writing this down has me tired but I am so happy that I get to try it again, solo, on Sunday. as I was typing this, I went and changed my time for Sunday from 12 - 4 to 11 - 4. I think I learned my lesson about giving yourself a cushion. Thanks to everyone who has kept me going through this and to Brian who I hope is watching and not playing with his SIM.

Sorry for no pictures from the air, but I did not need anymore distractions. I understand why autopilots are such wonderful instruments and not the work of lazy people.

733NB In All Of It's Glory

My E-logbook

Preparing For My First Long Cross Counntry

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I would follow Richard's advice and go on our first long cross country. This one is going to be a long one, 3 hours long. He gave me the places that he wants to go and had me plan the trip myself, but asked me to walk across the street and let him look at it for final approval. Our flight plan will take us from KTKI (McKinney) to F46 (Rockwall) to KGVL (Gainesville) then stop at KCWC (Kikapoo Downtown Wichita Falls). we will refuel in Wichita Falls then intercept the V355 airway at an intersection called HUNKI and take it to UKW (the Bowie VOR station) and then take a direct course back to TKI. Below is a track that I did on SkyVector.com.

The track of my first cross country.

This trip should take 3 hours in a Cessna 150 but I'll be flying a 172. The 172 has a much higher cruise speed so I may be throttling back quite a bit to stretch this out. We will be working on several things. My ability to track a course and correct for wind, ability to see if I am on course by using dead reckoning and finding objects on the map as checkpoints. we'll also be working on my ability to find radials off of several VOR stations and maybe alter our course if we need to kill some time.

Lastly, I need this to start getting caught up on hours that I lost last year because of my job and all of the travel. My new job won't have me traveling so much and I have made a very concerted effort to fly as much as I can this year. When January is over, I will have flown over 4 hours. Tis is already 20% as much as I flew all of last year.

I'll be posting a recap of the flight sometime later in the week. I can't wait.

Happy New Year

After starting a new job, I finally got the time to do some flying. This is going to be a little difficult because I will be working 8:30 to 5:30 every weekday and fighting traffic both directions so it looks like I'll be flying weekends now. Maybe when we get into the long Texas summer months, I'll have some time in the evenings.

After attending the first flying club meeting of the year (my first since July) I had to run to the airport with our president. He was giving a demo ride to a prospective club member and needed to see if 29U had enough fuel for the flight. If not, I was going to bump my time in N733NB back an hour so he could use it.

When I got to the airport, I saw a newly built Legend Cub. This is a replica of an old Piper J3 Cub. I saw him getting fuel at the FBO and then another one showed up. It was an awesome sight as they both taxied out and took off one after the other. I couldn't believe how quickly this thing was airborne. They each did 3 touch and goes (to a full stop because they are tail draggers) then took off to the South for what looked like a fun day of flying.

I had to run back home and get my bag and headset for my 3:00 PM departure time. When I got back, I had already pre-flighted the plane, filled out the logbook and had Richard's door open. I was ready. Too bad the dead calm wind that was there 2 1/2 hours earlier was gone. I now had winds from 330@12 gusting to 22. This went from solo work on turns about a point to cross wind landings again. My first couple of landings were not quite up to snuff. So I kept working on them and I think I may have made a break through. Instead of using flaps to get me down at a steeper angle, Richard had me slipping to a landing and all of a sudden, I was hitting the center line again and doing it quite smoothly.

After I was getting a lot better, we went out to the practice area near Lucas to do some turns about a point. Even with some pretty serious distractions, I was able to do what I wanted to accomplish. Since we were just outside of McKinney airspace, we continued to monitor the frequency and was told to look out for traffic on a straight in final just west of our position. After he was gone, we asked for a straight in approach for a couple more touch and goes. On our approach, we flew near a friend's house in Fairview and wagged my wings at him ( I told him that I would do that every time I flew over).

We did a couple more touch and goes and finally a full stop to parking. I was tired but glad to see that I may be finally overcoming some of my cross wind demons.

Now to prepare for my long cross country at the end of the month.

My E-Logbook.

Last Flight of 2007

As 2007 comes to a close, I started looking over my log book and was not very pleased with my flight training progress. My job has had me traveling way too much and that in turn has meant that I flew very little this year. What do I do? Well, for starters, I quit my job. That isn't the only reason but it does mean that I am going to make a concerted effort to fly more in the new year. I won't have traveling as an excuse anymore.

We have had fantastic weather here the past couple of days. So I started looking to see if any of the airplanes were available. I wasn't the only one who had these feelings. All of the club airplanes were reserved all weekend. That happens when you only have 1 of the 2 172s in service. Our 160 hp 172 is still out. It was supposed to be down for a month but it won't return to service until Jan 18. 2 1/2 months to rebuild the engine, replace the windshield and rebuild the carburettor, put a new dash cover on and rewire the tail marker light. Finally on Saturday night I was checking to see if any plane might have miraculously opened up and there was a block in the morning open. I emailed my instructor to see if he would be available but got busy and didn't see his reply until midnight. He said for me to call him at 7 AM if I still wanted to go. So I set my alarm for 6:30 and went to bed.

We left at 7:30 AM and it was a beautiful day. Winds were calm, the temp and dew point were 3 degrees C apart so we had a light frost and the temp was about 37 degrees. A great day for flying. As I started the preflight, I did find frost on the parts of the airplane that were not in direct sunlight. After the usual checklist was completed, we pulled the airplane out and pointed the windshield at the sun and soon the frost was gone. I rechecked all of the surfaces and the frost was gone from them too. It didn't take much. As soon as I got the plane started, the air from the prop would have melted a lot of it also. I did have a heck of a time getting the engine started. I have never had to use the primer but this time I did. It took a good 10 minutes for the oil temp to budge a little. I was surprised that during the run up, I was able to get 2200 RPM on a static test.

I finally got my takeoff clearance and we did a simulated soft field takeoff. In this beast, 10 degrees of flaps, shove the throttle to the firewall and it will jump into the sky. We did some soft field landings, short field landings and approaches over an obstacle. I just got clearance for the option and after we were on the ground, Richard said for me to turn off on taxiway C. He jumped out and told me to go play for a while and that he would be at the FBO drinking coffee. He also told me not to crash the airplane. So I went up and did 3 dead center "normal" landings and taxied back to parking. I went through my post flight checklist, met Richard for a cup of coffee and then headed for home.

This was absolutely the best day of flying I have ever had. All of my landings were as good as I have ever done, the sky was clear, my kind of temperature, very smooth air and a grin you couldn't knock off with a sledge hammer. I finished the year with 21.2 hours. I'll do much better in the coming year.

My E-Logbook

Getting Ready For Christmas

Since I haven't had the time to fly like I want, my wife suggested that we do some decorating for Christmas. She shocked me when she suggested we buy an inflatable Santa in an airplane. I was game for it so we went to Big Lots and found one on sale. It's pretty cool. It uses the air from the fan to inflate it but it also has holes in the end of the prop so that the prop turns too. I had to add my own touch to it so we took some white outdoor lights and made a runway for Santa's airplane.

We took a couple of pictures so we could show everyone just how goofy we really are (I think I'm getting a little stir crazy).

Anna wants to help but seems a little tired.

Finally finished getting the airplane tied down.
All of the "runway" lights are done.

A Little Light From The Tunnel

First of all, I didn't bring a camera to get any pictures. I promise that I'll get some soon. That being said, I did get a chance to fly within a 2 week period, which is unheard of for me. I also have to admit that my instructor is correct in telling me that I need to fly more often. I have noticed that my skills are deteriorating every time I go a month between flights. The last time we went up, we did the usual touch and goes and as usual, I had some difficulties but managed to put the plane down. This time several of the key elements to landing were already there. I had very little trouble with wind coming straight at me.

Before all of the landing practice, we did some turns about a point. I haven't done any of that stuff since my first lesson. The winds were fairly strong and gusty so I was having a tough time keeping my distance uniform. It took a while but I finally got the hang of it. As soon as I got the hang of it I started to get a little queasy and backed off for a while. We tracked a road for about 10 miles practicing crabbing into the wind then went in for a couple of touch and goes at SWI. Finally having a good day, Richard wanted to wipe the smile off of my face with a reality check. We headed to GYI for some more crosswind landings.

The wind was out of the south (17k @ 180) so we went to do touch and goes on runway 13. It was a lot better than our last time out there. We got to do about 6 before we needed to head back to SWI to refuel and head to a lunch date. We did get to see a Cessna Citation do a touch and go during one of our rounds. We kept hearing someone on the CTAF doing an ILS approach and never did see him. Finally he announced he was on a 4 mile final and we kept looking, then low and behold, a pretty little Citation flew right under us as we crossed over runway 17.

We finally packed it up and headed back to SWI, refueled and parked the airplane and headed out to lunch.

It felt good to get back in the airplane after only being out of it a couple of weeks. I still need to be flying once or twice a week but this is still better than only twice a month then a one month layoff. Maybe I will get this finished in this lifetime.

My E-logbook

First Flight From Sherman

First of all, I'm sorry for not having any pictures to post. I drove up to Sherman (KSWI) on Tuesday afternoon just to get a feel for the airport and make sure that I wouldn't have any issues with combinations or procedures. I found the airport rather quaint. It seems that the city is behind this airport and would like to make it grow. It has grown considerably since the TFC and NTFC have moved up there. Almost all of their tie downs are in use but I wasn't able to check out the hanger space. They have an A&P on site, J&S Aviation. The city even provides a crew car.

Since my usual trainer, N737TY is getting a complete engine overhaul, new windshield and new cover around the dash, I had to fly N733NB. The last time I flew 3NB was in June. I forgot how much horsepower it has. It is a Superhawk with a gross weight of 2550 lbs as opposed to the Skyhawk that has a gross weight of 2300 lbs. It also has a 180 horsepower engine instead of a 160. The torque and p-factor that this airplane produces is considerably more than the Skyhawk so you need a lot more right rudder on takeoff. I was able to climb to pattern altitude on my takeoff leg before I had to turn. I couldn't do that with 7TY. The down side to this extra horsepower is that it burns 10 gph at cruise. I found myself climbing too much before I had to trim the airplane. It really is an odd thing because I found myself throttling back early because I needed to slow down, reduce altitude and try to trim the plane for a slower speed. The take home lesson is more power means more trimming.

We did a couple of "normal" landings. Then Richard wanted to do some soft field landings. I really like the soft field landings. They are a lot less jarring than the "normal" landings. See my previous post on my feelings. We then did a couple of short field landings over an obstruction. I was closer to the numbers than I have ever been and it was on a narrower and shorter runway. I will be doing more touch and goes up here even after KTKI opens back up.

We then headed to Grayson county (KGYI) to do some crosswind landings. They have 3 runways but one of them is closed, 17L/25R and 13/21 are open but 17R/35L is the closed one. We went to 13 to do crosswind landings since the wind was out of the south. The first 2 were horrible. It is always the last 5 seconds that will get you. Don't get me wrong, a good approach is the key to a good landing but how you finish, after ground effects kick in is the hardest part. I kept forgetting to use my feet to keep the nose pointed where I needed it. One time the wind shifted on me as I was getting my nose pointed and I went too far. I really need to work on crosswind landings. It was starting to get pretty busy dodging all of the traffic at KGYI so we needed to call it a day and headed back to KSWI. I checked the pattern and there was no other traffic in the pattern so we did a straight in approach. I put it down smooth and slow and was able to turn off at the first taxiway.

We now have to refuel the airplanes ourselves so I taxied up to the gas pump and shut the engine down. KSWI has some of the cheapest gas around at $3.30 gal. We were in the air for 1.6 hours but only used 1.3 hours tach time and I only burned about 10.4 gal of fuel. The odd part was that the left tank took 7.4 gal but the right side used 3.o gal. We then started up again and headed to the tie down area and finished our post flight.

I'll try to get some pictures for the next time.

My E-logbook

Last Flight From TKI Maybe?

I finally got the planets to align and had a voodoo woman come out and scare away the clouds so I could take one last flight before TKI closes down for 30 days. It is all part of a continuing airport improvement that is supposed to eventually include a new parallel runway. For now they are resurfacing the runway which is supposed to take about 30 days.

We went back to doing pattern work as I needed to fly to get the cobwebs out. I always seem to be the one to get the strange instructions from the tower. While on final, I get a request from the tower to do a 360 and then re-join the pattern on final. We had a jet on the runway that needed to do a 180 because of all of the taxiway closures. The next takeoff I had to make right traffic because of a KingAir that wanted to get into the pattern (it is a very fast plane and I was in a slow plane).


It took me a while to get back into the swing of things but I did. I really liked the soft field landings because they were a lot smoother, not like flying a falling boulder.

All in all, I had fun and only used .8 tach hours.

I took a couple of pictures today. It was be the last time I was able to fly N737TY. When we make our move to Sherman it is going in for a new engine, windshield and lots of other work while it is down.
Our new flight line since they want to double the capacity of the north ramp. No more pulling in and turning. We now have to push back our planes by hand.
Update
When I got home last night, I received an email that our move is now going to take place on Oct 28. This means that I may be able to fly 1 more time from TKI. I only hope 7TY is available.

My E-Logbook