More Maneuvers

September 9, 2012

Today was a special day... my birthday! What better way to celebrate than by flying?

I met with my CFI for the day, Ryan. The agenda involved learning a new commercial flight maneuver and practicing the ones I learned the previous lesson. After a soft field takeoff, we go out to the practice area and set up. First up, 50 degree steep turns. I'm still too timid to bank the plane that much when I'm only used to 20 degree for my instrument training. Oh well, here we go! I turn the yoke to the left and watch the horizon move sideways. "Keep turning," Ryan says. I read the instruments far too much (again, blaming instrument training). He decides that I just need to go back to my roots and "look outside the plane." I start a new turn and Ryan covers up the attitude indicator. Crap. I roll into a 50 degree turn and Ryan says to just hold it there, keeping my eyes on how the horizon looks at this attitude. I roll into a turn in the other direction. Turns out he was right, I did much better by just looking outside.

Now Ryan tells me to look down and close my eyes. He says to fly the airplane straight and level just based on my senses without sight. Alright, no big deal... I've done this before. Then he throws in a curve ball, "now turn to your left." "What?!?!" I say. I do as I'm told... this is much harder. I hear the pitch of the engine changing and based off the tone, I correct my pitch attitude of the plane (climb/descend). Now I'm asked to turn to the right. This one was much more interesting. I hear the engine's tone change again, I know that I'm gaining speed, which means I'm descending. I try to pull up, but it feels as though someone (Ryan) is pushing the yoke down. I almost asked if he was messing with me. I don't want to pull up too much because I don't want to stall the plane. Ryan tells me to open my eyes and recover. I was in a fairly steep left turning descent, and I was the only one to blame for it. Wow! Gotta love spatial disorientation...

Next up was review of Chandelles. First time around I had the concept right, but didn't get the airspeed slow enough. Lets try again... getting better. Now one in the other direction... not bad. After a couple more we were both satisfied.

Now we climb up to 4000ft and try my hand at a new maneuver, Steep Spirals.

airplanegroundschools.com

The goal is to complete three 360 degree turns around a point on the ground, and finish at least 1000ft AGL (above ground level) all while having your power at idle... gliding. Here we go! I pull the power out, turn carb heat on, drop my airspeed to 65 knots (best glide speed), and start my turn around the point. This is fun! After each complete 360 degree turn, we rev the engine just to keep it warm, then pull it back out to idle. I finish all three turns with over 1500ft to spare. Nice!

The end of the Steep Spirals maneuver altitude set us up almost perfectly to jump right into Eights on Pylons. I need to be at 700ft AGL for this, so we descend just a bit more, then pick our two points. I fly in between the points, then make a turn to the left and circle the first point. Now onto the second point... I circle it, then move back to the first point. If you were standing on the ground looking up, it'd appear that I was flying a figure 8.

We feel that was enough practice for the day, so I fly us back to the airport. The only thing left is to try and perform a better Power off 180. I get us on downwind, this time closer to the runway. Once abeam the runway number, I pull the power to idle and make my initial turn in. This time I wasn't short of making the runway, I was actually a bit too high. But no problem, I'll just glide the plane in ground effect until it's ready to touch down. After a nice landing, we look at the time and see that we still have a half hour before having to turn the plane in. Lets go again!

This time, we got stuck behind another plane in the pattern and couldn't do the Power Off 180, so a normal landing it was... sort-of. Ryan asked me to gently touch down with the main wheels, but keep the nose wheel off the ground (like a soft field landing) and to see how long I could do a wheely down the runway. I made it about half way, haha. 

We takeoff one last time with a short field takeoff, and this time around I was clear to do the maneuver. Power to idle, carb heat on, airspeed to 65kts, turn onto base, drop flaps, turn onto final, stay at 65, drop remaining flaps, and keep gliding. Still to high, but I just glide it in like the first time. Not as good, but good enough.

We taxi back to the hanger and call it a day. 

Next on the schedule is some cross country time building. I need 50 hours for Commercial and I only have 22 hours. Time to say hi to some new airports!