Things I lie about….

(Bob, you probably shouldn’t read this)
 

What I say	What I actually mean
I’d like to know what day I’m flying so that I can plan my reading	I’d like to know what day I’m flying so I can plan my drinking.
I need to review that section in the textbook	I haven’t looked at that section of the textbook yet
That section is on my reading list for this weekend	I wasn’t even aware that there was a section on that!
I found that section of the book quite challenging to understand	I got bored after 5 minutes and went out drinking instead
“I have control”	Yes I know that I’m technically responsible for manipulating the bits that make us move, but “control” might be stretching the truth a bit
“with the traffic”	I can see something, however it may very well be a bug on the windshield or possibly even a boat
<callsign> - acknowledging the latest set of bizarre and complex instructions just given by ATC	<callsign> I haven’t understood a word you just said but I know if I say this you’ll shut up and stop bothering me
I’m staying at home to study	I’m at home watching “Top Gun” , “Iron Eagle” , "Flying Wild Alaska", " Ice Pilots"or some other crappy flying movie

 

 

                                                                                                               

Surrounded by swans.

Now I’m fully aware that 90% of my issues with flying are completely in my head. Attitude is everything. The more I convince myself something is hard the more difficult I’ll inevitably find it.

The problem is swans, you see.

Let me explain, I’m surrounded by people who make flying look easy. The proverbial calm and serene on the surface but kicking like mad underneath to make it all seems effortless. Just like a swan.

 RTH is a swan, so is Bob. All I see is the effortlessness in the way that they fly. I don’t see that they are doing the same things I am. Constantly assessing, am I too high? Too low? What’s my airspeed? Where am I heading? What’s around me?

They just have that much more practice than I do. It’s the same as the events I plan. They seem to flow effortlessly, when in reality I spend sleepless nights beforehand reliving every possibility and eventuality. Now, of course, I’ve done so many that it just comes as second nature.

It’ll happen for me. I need to keep reminding myself that I’m not that far behind the curve. I’m certainly not dangerous, I know for a fact Bob wouldn’t have sent me solo if that was the case. He may be a nice guy but there’s no way he’d put his reputation (and career) just to make me feel good about myself.

Why is it so hard to have faith in yourself, even when others do?

They let you fly planes?

A not unreasonable question from a work colleague today. After I somehow managed to walk into a door, failing to open it first.

I’d love to say that this is the first time I’ve done something like that but…… I’d be lying.

I sort of forgot I needed to land

Today was a weird lesson. Looking back at my PTR I realized that the last time I was out at the practice area was July. So it’s been a while. I’ve almost forgotten how to get there!

Which was actually the point of today’s lesson. I need to start learning how to navigate my way to the practice area, prepping for the time when I’m cut loose on my own out there. Actually it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I am slowly starting to learn the local landmarks. I need to practice my position calls a bit more. I’m out of practice, more used to doing my circuit calls.

The original plan was to do some steep turns and some approach stalls. The cloud base wasn’t cooperating though. So we made it out to Claremont and decided to stick to steep turns instead. You could see there was a lot of moisture and precipitation in the air and to be honest it made me kind of nervous. That combined with the mechanical turbulence generated by the northerly winds made for slightly uncomfortable flying. It took me into about half the lesson before I felt comfortable. I haven’t felt that unsettled for a while.

Steep turns were fine, maybe more about that in another post. The fun came on the return journey. Navigating back is a lot easier, as long as you can see the big pointy thing you are good. Failing that you fly til you hit the shoreline and then make a right. I requested and was duly given an approach over the lake to runway 33.  Then ATC changed their mind, pushing me north of the CN tower. With some prompting from Bob, we declined their invitation to climb into the low cloud over the city and we maintained our altitude as requested.

I’ve never landed on 33 before, the approach is unfamiliar, and I’ve got no visual markers to fall back on.  Mentally I’d probably already set myself up to have a hard time. The main problem was I was already well high thanks to ATC. I wasn’t ahead of the plane and found myself having to dump altitude pretty damn quick.

To be 100% honest I was so far behind the plane I may as well have been in a different time zone. I didn’t make the mental transition from returning from the practice area to being back in the circuit. I didn’t manage my speed in the base turn, I looked confused when Bob prompted me to make the radio call before turning final.

I genuinely think that I forgot I needed to land the plane. Looking back I’ve never come back from the practice area and landed. Subconsciously I was waiting for Bob to say “I have control” and land the thing. Apparently that’s my job now J

Despite approaching high and fast, I still managed to get the plane on the ground with no civilian casualties. I’ll get there. Despite the slight unease on the way out and the hectic approach on the way back I’m slowly getting the hang of this stuff.

Kind of looking forward to doing something different

I’ve spent a reasonable amount of time in the circuit, becoming more and more comfortable with being in the plane.  A lot of the stuff that I did in the practice area that I felt I struggled with makes a lot more sense now. For a start I’ve finally figured out how to use the trim wheel to trim the plane properly.  This means that when I review the “slow flight” stuff it should be a whole lot easier.

Spending lessons flinging the plane round the circuit has been incredibly valuable, the repetition is exactly what I need to develop some motor skills but at the same time , its never the same conditions, so it has forced me to develop decision making skills as well.

Having said this though, I’m kind of looking forward to getting out of the circuit a little bit. Now that I have some confidence I’d like to revisit the “upper airwork”. Especially now that I feel that I’m the one flying the plane rather than the plane flying me.

Of course the problem with that is I may have to do some navigation and that brings a whole load of its own issues with it.

A typical flying day (part 5)

So we are on the runway, slowed down and waiting for ATC to tell us where to get off.

ATC wait until they are reasonably sure that we’ve landed and are not just pogo-sticking our way down the runway. They look for subtle clues like the formation of a small crater on impact, that kind of thing. They then give you exit instructions. Taxiways are given letters, just like everything else in flying! So you might get told to “Exit Charlie, contact ground 112 decimal* seven”. If ATC use the word “Expedite” then it means you are about to have a Dash 8 land on top of you. You’ll notice the impact, they possibly won’t.

You exit the runway and contact ground as requested.  They give you permission to taxi back to the apron outside the flight school. Again you keep a sharp lookout for other planes, baggage trucks, wildlife, homeless people and anything else that might mess up the paintwork.  You also need to keep a sharp eye out for a guy waving his arms at you. This is called marshaling and is apparently meant to aid you in your quest not to hit anything. For me the reaction is usually “why is there someone waving their arms at me? What does that mean again**?  Are you sure I can fit through there? I wouldn’t stand that close in front of me if I were you.”

Eventually you come to a stop and reach the final section of your checklist which culminates in the “Mixture – ICO***” line. At this point I breathe a sigh of relief as the engine coughs to a stop. The relief is from another flight successfully completed with myself, Bob and the plane intact. After gathering my belongings and putting them to one side, Bob and I manhandle the plane into a decent parking position and chock it if needed. Then it is inside for the most painful part, paying!!!

I fill in the flight sheet, work out the numbers (billing is done in decimals of an hour but as there are 60 not 100 minutes in an hour, you have to work out the fractions) and hand over the credit card.
While I’m doing this Bob’ll be writing his usual extended essay**** in my PTR and then I’ll join him for the debrief. Bob often has a much more optimistic view of how the lesson went than I do. I am well aware of the fact that I’m my own biggest critic and to be honest it often takes a while to sink in. My best lesson reflections actually tend to come from writing blog posts about them several days later.

And that’s pretty much it ladies and gents. Other than my trip home and quest to replace the three gallons of fluids that I lost during the workout that is an average hour in the air. We’re done!
 


* yep pilots actually say “decimal” – we’re just that cool

** See my brain is strangely resistant to retaining anything to do with marshaling signals. Basically the funnier I find something the less likely I am to be able to remember it

*** ICO = Idle Cut Off – it basically cuts the fuel and thereby stops the engine. You shouldn’t do that in the air.

**** Despite the teasing he may endure because of it, I really like the fact that Bob writes proper lesson summaries. I’ve seen the three word lesson write ups the other instructors give. I like the fact that my PTR reads as a proper progression of my skills. Even if it has taken up the proportions of an epic novel
 
 

 

A typical flying day (part 4)

So just to recap in case you’ve lost track (or the will to live). We are currently just taxiing to the “hold short” point at which ever runway ATC have cleared us to.

As a side note here it is the wind direction that decides which runway we use. Sometimes I get a choice, say between 24 and 26 as they share a common threshold. I usually go with 26 because 24 and I don’t get on to well for various reasons.

Anyways once I’m on my side of the line, I point my plane so I can see any traffic on final. ATC prefer it if you wait until they a) aren’t talking to anyone else and b) have a legitimate chance of actually giving you clearance before you bother them. Once they give me my takeoff clearance I repeat it back to them, mostly to reassure them that I am indeed planning to takeoff from the runway situated directly in front of me and haven’t taken off on some mad urge to taxi halfway round the airport. Then I taxi out and line myself up so that I have a halfway decent chance of heading in a straight line when I gun the throttle.

So we point in the direction we want to go. I push the throttle in and pray! As well as offering a silent offering to whatever deity I feel may be listening, I keep one eye on the engine gauges (rpm, temp etc) to check that the engine is functioning as it is meant to, one eye on the centre line, compensating for the inevitable drift with the rudder pedals, one eye on the airspeed indicator and a final eye on Bob’s face to check that he’s not wincing too much at my directional control.

Yes I am aware that the above paragraph requires me to utilise twice as many eyes as I actually possess. Welcome to the world of flying!

After this there’s not really such a thing as a “typical flight”. I might be flinging it around the circuit ad infinitum, or heading out to the practice area to do some upper airwork. Even if I am doing the circuit to death thing, there’s not even really such a thing as standard circuit in my neck of the woods. It’s more of a fly around a vaguely rectangular course while ATC allegedly try not to bounce you into anything.

Let’s fast forward to the landing then. I set up on final approach trimming my speed for around 65 knots. Speed is actually determined by how nose high you are, your power controls your altitude*. I do my best to line it up along the centre line. I usually fail miserably. Bob offers helpful advice like “bring her to the right a bit, no, the other right!”

As we cross the threshold I chop the power back and once again pray to the deity-du-jour. At a predetermined point I bring the nose up to the horizon (the flare) and wait for the plane to sink downwards rapidly. Now I bring the control column back (not too much) trying to keep the plane off the runway as long as possible (the hold-off). If I don’t reckon that the touchdown is going to happen in the first 1/3rd of the runway (1/2 if Bob is feeling generous or is bored with me not being able to get the damn thing down already) we power up and go around for another bash at it.

Once we’ve touched down, I extricate my head from the interior roof of the plane and recover my headset from where the impact has knocked it clean off and figure out just what I need to do to get this thing back on the centreline and slowed down.

Well we’re on the ground now, so that seems like a good place to break and wait for the final installment.

                             

* yes to anyone not involved in flying this sounds messed up, and let’s face it, it is!