What I Did Last Summer
by JimH
Dedicated to Mike (as the Falls fall) Noe
When I began to learn how to fly, I didn’t think much about what it might be like to solo. It seemed unlikely that I would continue with the lessons long enough to get to that point. As I progressed from one stage to the next, there were so many details to learn that I didn’t think about the future.
After about 30 hours of lessons, my instructor began to talk about “pushing me from the nest”. I was still having a lot of trouble landing. I had trouble coordinating the feet and the hands. For those who’ve never experienced this, the feet are used to move two pedals that resemble a pair of brake pedals. They control the rudder (a tab at the back of the vertical part of the tail) in the air and the rudder and nose wheel on the ground. When you push your left foot forward, the plane wants to turn left. The pedals also have a top portion that is a brake so when you want to brake, you must slide your feet up on the pedal and push.
Your hands are on the “yoke” which moves forward and back to pitch the plane’s nose down or up. It does this by wagging the horizontal part of the tail, the stabilator on my plane (a 25 year old Piper Warrior). The yoke also rotates like a steering wheel. This rotation moves the ailerons, the big tabs at the back of each wing, up and down, which tilts the plane to the left or right. It is a big disappointment when you’re trying to steer the plane down the runway and nothing happens when you turn the “steering wheel”.
When you add up the four ways the yoke can move and the two foot pedals doing two different things, you can imagine that this is intimidating to learn. It’s tougher still when you try to steer the plane with the wrong control. In my case, I finally discovered that I was trying to steer on the ground while my feet were still up on the brakes and not down where they should be.
In the beginning it feels like you’re trying to parallel park by aiming at a parking space while you’re still backing in reverse at 70 miles per hour and timing the release of the gas to allow you to roll to a dead stop without touching the brakes as you enter the parking space and make the final turn. It’s probably as much fun to watch for the instructor as it would be for a high school driving teacher trying to teach the 70 MPH parking method to a 15 year old kid.
Once I finally was able to get the plane on the ground safely (that’s not to say “land the plane”) it hit me that the next step would be a solo. I had to admit it scared me. I began to wake up at night and think about it. When I was driving, it made my hands sweat to think about the solo. After that, each time I flew, I thought “I’d better get this landing thing right because this may be the day that he steps out of the plane and tells me to go back for a couple more takeoffs and landings.”
This went on for an agonizingly long period – three weeks at least. Then one day the instructor gave me an exam to take. I could take it home and use the book to do it, but I had to get it completely right, no mistakes, before I could solo. I paid very close attention to this test. I knew a single wrong answer could do me in, even if it wasn’t caught.
I should describe the landing itself and what goes through your head. If you’re coming from a point away from the airport, you must dial in the radio frequency of the weather report to learn the wind direction, speed, and runways in use. You then make a call 10 miles out. “Flying Cloud Tower, this is Warrior 2240 Golf (for the letter G) 10 miles southwest, inbound for landing with Mike.” In this case, the Mike is for the letter M and it’s the particular weather report you just listened to. The tower will say, “Warrior 2240 Golf, runway 28 Left, report when three miles out. You go through a similar routine when you’re three miles out.
By this time, you’ve done your checklist for descent. The critical items can be remembered from the pseudo word, BCGUMPS. Booster pump for the fuel, Carburetor heat on and off, Gas level and pressure, Undercarriage (on a Warrior the wheels are always down but it’s good to think about anyway because you might need it some day), Mixture (gas and air), Primer in and locked, and Seat belts fastened.
As you do this, you’re descending from cruising altitude to the “pattern altitude” – usually 1000 feet above the airport. You enter it at the mid-point of the downwind leg, parallel to the runway you’ve been cleared to land on. You’re doing 90 knots (about 100 MPH) about a mile out at this time and you can see the runway well. When you pass the “numbers” where you will touch down, you pitch the airplane forward, reduce the power considerably, and put in the first “notch” of flaps (10 degrees on the Warrior). In less than a minute, at the point when the runway is at about a 45 degree angle out your back window, you make a ninety degree turn to the “base leg”, still maintaining the rate of descent. You put in a second notch of flaps (25 degrees) and check your speed and altitude. The final turn hopefully puts you in line with the runway, headed back into the wind. You put in the final notch of flaps (40 degrees).
On this final leg, there are a lot of things that can happen, but you hope you’re in line with the runway. You may need to “crab” into the wind (point the nose to one side) in order to stay in line with the runway.
It is a strong sensation the first few times you do this because it looks like you are going to fly the plane into the ground and you’re keenly aware that it could be done. The runway looks small. It looks hard. There are often several planes waiting to take off exactly where they can watch you bounce down.
The feel of the plane’s controls have also changed with the introduction of flaps and the much slower speed. Everything is “mushy”. You don’t get an immediate response and so the tendency is to oversteer. If you do this, you come down out of the air with your tail wagging and your wings bobbing left and right. It’s not pretty, but it’s not easy to do otherwise until you get a really good feel for how the plane will behave in slow flight. Once you have it, you learn to make small adjustments and the movement is much more graceful.
It is critical at this point that you have the plane under good control. It must be in line with the runway. You must not be moving around too much. You must have the speed at about 70 knots when you’re pointed straight at the numbers, then 63 knots as you pass over the numbers. As you pass over this “threshold” where the numbers are, you ease the power out and you pull the yoke smoothly back so the plane “flares” (level attitude) and you let the plane settle on the main wheels. If you do it right, you’re still pulling the yoke back as this happens and the plane’s lift is gone as it touches. This is called a “full stall landing”. I can’t do it, but I’ve seen it done.
This whole process of the final leg to the chirp of the tires touching the runway feels like it takes about ten minutes because there are so many things going on. But you aren’t done yet. You must keep the nose up and use your feet to keep the plane centered on the runway because you’re still doing about 50 knots and you don’t want any grass in the wheel fairings when you park the plane.
Bigger picture here:
http://www.jriver.com/~jriver/2004/flying/DSC00051.JPG
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Topic: OT -- way OT (Read 3375 times)