How to Slow an Arrow

After working with R on Saturday, I decided to do a little Arrow practice in the pattern on Sunday. Husband came with me and sat right seat for the flight(s). He had with M and I on a previous pattern flight-- but only in the backseat where there are no headset jacks. So this was still pretty new to him. It was also my first time to fly the Arrow without an instructor.

We were focusing on soft field operations. I felt good about short field, but wanted to make sure I had the softs down. The first two take offs and landings went pretty well. I felt reasonably good about my control of the airplane-- and then takeoffs and landings were both within tolerances. Given that I had a volleyball game and needed to leave the airport soon, we decided to do one last circuit-- and this time I'd do a power off 180 just to make sure I was polished on those.

As we came abeam the first stripe, things looked good. No one was in front of me though it had previously been busy in the pattern, so I could do the landing as planned. Unfortunately, with the stiff headwind, I didn't turn quickly enough toward the runway, and put in flaps too early. We weren't going to make it. I did the "smart" thing and applied full power for a go around. No problems. I'm good with go arounds, though it does get my blood pumping. Little did I know just how good I'd become with go arounds before we were finished!

Coming back around for a second try, we ended up as number 3 on downwind. No worries-- I've been there before. But... this isn't my nice slow Cessna. Before I knew it, I was creeping up on the guy in front of me. So I powered back, and even threw in a notch of flaps to slow myself down. What I didn't count on was that this guy insisted on going to the end of the earth and back before turning base! Seriously-- I'm pretty sure he went close to the edge of the Bravo airspace! I didn't want to keep going and bust the Bravo myself... but it didn't seem like a good idea to do a 360-- there were too many other planes in the pattern, and too much crazy airspace around. So I decided to slow it as much as I could and turn almost immediately after him. All should have still worked out-- he landed at the very beginning of the runway. I saw him miss the first turnoff... but no big deal, he'll get the second. Then he missed the second! And he's going pretty slowly! My forehead is now starting to perspire a bit and I'm biting my lip. He finally started to turn at the third turnoff, but I was way too close. I'd already made the decision to go around a second time.

I thought for sure we'd get down the next time around. I knew to power back to try not to get too fast. But someone had slipped into the pattern just ahead of us, and yet again, I found myself needing to go around. By this time, Husband was trying to give pointers. I was just trying to stay calm and to be disciplined in doing my before landing checks. Definitely the time when it would be easy to make a mistake. After this, I powered way back. From the beginning of downwind. And luckily, though there was again traffic in front of us, I had plenty of room. And so we finally made it on the ground-- after three go arounds. If nothing else, I felt far more familiar with the airplane. Almost like it was an initiation rite or something. Fun times.

Stage Check... Part 2-- and Three Airplanes!

In my last post, I mentioned that I needed to finish the complex portion of my stage check prior to taking my commercial checkride on Monday. So I arranged to fly with one of the higher ups from our flight school on Saturday. But first-- I flew two other aircraft!

For me, this is sort of a big deal. I have roughly 315 hours in our Cessna 172... and about 12 hours in the Arrow (to get my commercial) and about 2.5 hours in other Cessnas. So I still get pretty excited to fly other aircraft. Saturday morning, after a particularly draining session with our trainer at the gym, Husband and I went out to the airport. Our plan was for me to demonstrate the commercial maneuvers to Husband (he'd not seen them before), land at MRB to get an oil change, and then I'd fly another plane back to JYO in time for my stage check. After taking a few looks at the weather, we launched into cloudy skies and headed over the ridge.

I started out by demo'ing the "steep" steep turns (i.e. 50 degrees +/-5) required for commercial. It was fun to see Husband's reaction. I've been practicing these since September (lots of delays!), so I've kind of forgotten the thrill that you have the first time you go beyond normal 45-degree steep turns. Next, I did a few chandelles (basically, a climbing turn where you start at cruise airspeed, and end up about 10 knots above a stall). Again-- he was fascinated. Then we did a couple of lazy 8s. This is the maneuver I've struggled the most with-- today was no exception. Not knowing the maneuver, he was also excited by these, though I was pretty disappointed with my performance. I did one set not quite to PTS, and one set that was just inside of standards- but neither were great. Finally, I finished up with a few 8s on pylons. By this time, we needed to boogie on over to MRB to drop off our plane and pick up the other.

The other plane was a 172-R (ours is a 172-S)... and was of course steam gauges. I felt somewhat daring-- this was the first time I flew a steam gauge all by myself (I was almost surprised that this was approved-- but then again, it is almost just like our plane, except for the gauges-- so I wasn't worried about doing a short, very familiar trip in the plane by myself). I preflighted thoroughly-- the plane had just had a 100 hour, I think... and called for permission to depart. As I climbed, I felt my stomach tighten just a little, but as I began to fly my way back to JYO, I relaxed a little. As a private student I had problems with navigation -- but as I've gained flying hours, my navigation skills have significantly improved-- and not just when using the fancy screens. Soon, I was approaching JYO and talking to another plane who was right off my wing. I let him know I'd slow down and let him go in front and sequence myself in behind. I never can understand when people know there's another plane right next to them and yet don't take proactive steps to sort our the sequence prior to entering the tiny little maneuvering area around the Leesburg airport.

On the ground, I had to get help from the line guy to push the plane back in place. At first I wondered if there was something wrong, but then I realized it was just pushing it uphill! Wow- that makes a big difference! I then hurried over to meet R, who was giving me part two of the stage check. I was a little nervous about this as I knew he is big into systems-- and I am not the most mechanical person. But he soon put me at ease and I really enjoyed the time we spent going through the electrical, propeller, landing gear, and other systems of the two planes (our plane and the Arrow). I looked at my watch as we finished the oral portion and was shocked to see we spent over two hours talking-- and this was in addition to the hour I'd spent with the head of the flight school. I then went and preflighted the Arrow for the flight portion of the stage check.

As I finished, R came out and did a walk around with me, pointing out a few more things that I didn't know about the aircraft (and a few things that I did). I'm always worried that I don't know enough about preflighting an airplane-- preflighting is usually something your instructor goes over only at the very beginning-- and then you're on your own. The problem is that as you learn to fly a given aircraft, your understanding of what is important changes as well-- but typically, we don't get an updated lesson on preflighting from an instructor. So I was happy to do this walk around with R to update my knowledge of the plane.

Instead of just a few times around the pattern, R had let me know to plan to fly over to OKV and back for a landing or two. Given that it had been a while since I had flown the plane out of the pattern, this made me a little nervous. But it was actually fine. My biggest problem was that I mixed up in my head which runway was 32 and which was 14. I knew we needed to land 32 given the winds... but for some reason I completely spaced and turned them around in my mind. A little prompting from R, and I realized my mistake, but it meant I ended up flying upwind, crosswind, and then downwind for my approach. 'Doh! You would think after the 30 or so times I did approaches into OKV during my instrument training that I would know which side is which without even thinking... but then, I guess that whole not thinking thing is what got me in trouble (as I do know how to identify the runway direction).

I think we did a shortfield landing-- though maybe it was a power off 1800 (I was so tired by this point that things are a little blury), and then headed back to JYO. Before we returned, though, we did an emergency gear extension and R had me turn the master off completely (yes, we were outside the Mode C ring). I've never flown an airplane without any power before (it always seems too risky to do in our plane because so much is controlled by the G1000). It was very strange... and for some reason, seemed very quiet. I'm not sure if this is because the Arrow's radios tend to hum and squeal when they're on-- or if it was my senses confusing the fact that the screens were all black and colorless (i.e. quiet) with the auditory condition. In any case, I was happy to have the power back on and let my breathing return to normal.

Back at JYO, we did a softfield landing-- apparently the examiner has recently failed a commercial student for not being able to properly do a softfield. That may have been my first time to do a softfield landing in the Arrow. It wasn't horrible, but given how much heavier the Arrow is than our plane, I didn't do a great job in keeping the nose up. So R recommended a little soft/short practice to make sure I could do them well. More on that in another post. Other than that, he signed me off to do the checkride. Woo hoo!

Breaking the Blog-O-Pause

Whew. It's been a really long time since I blogged. I can tell because I'd never accessed my blog from the computer I'm using now! I have flown somewhat regularly since I last blogged... but lots has been going on in my life outside of flying.

In January, I left the company I'd worked with for over 5 years-- which of course brought with it all sorts of emotions. In the end, I'm happy to have left-- and am close to lining up (I hope!) some new work. Hopefully I'm not jinxing myself with that cryptic comment! So over the past few weeks, I've had a little time to do some fun things-- like a quick trip down in the plane to NC to see Mom and attend a UNC/Duke women's basketball game (awesome!). I used that trip to get the last couple of solo night hours that I needed for my commercial rating. I was worried that I might be nervous about the 2 hours by myself in the dark, but it was actually pretty fun. It was a beautiful night, and once I passed over the front line in central VA, the winds became more favorable and I zipped on down to Chapel Hill. Mom, Dad, and I had fun tromping around UNC, and then Mom and I screamed our best for the Tarheels during the game-- which was at the famous Dean Dome. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and had an uneventful trip back-- that included a few minutes of actual instrument before I broke through to a pretty blue sky. The only fly in the ointment is that the XM radio is not working right in the plane. It is definitely getting the signal and the information (I can even see on the screen what song is playing), but no sound. If anyone has any ideas as to what it could be, let me know!

I also took a trip to Texas to see my childhood best friends and my brother and his family. It was pretty cool to just take off during the week for something fun like that! I met up with 3 of my closest friends (see picture below) for some good Mexican food (yummy!). There are advantages to being older-- one of which is that we can enjoy a few margaritas along with our traditional fajitas! I can't even begin to think how many fajitas we've shared together over a lifetime of memories! It was fun to hang out with Brother and his family. They have three kids (#4 is on the way!) who are just too cute. I had a great time coloring, making cookies, watching movies, and generally being "Aunt Head in the Clouds"! Of course, my trip coincided with an ice storm in Texas and one in the northeast, so I also got to experience the joys of delayed commercial flights!

Speaking of commercial flights, I am scheduled to take my commercial checkride on Monday! Hopefully the weather and the airplanes will cooperate with this plan. Oh-- and I still have to finish the stage check needed to take the checkride. I've done the basic oral and the basic commercial maneuvers-- but got winded out before we could do the complex oral and flying (i.e. complex time in the Piper Arrow that I fly). I'm scheduled to do both of those tomorrow, and I'm hoping things go better with those than they did on Wednesday when I did the first half. For whatever reason, I found myself completely unable to think clearly or communicate well during the oral portion of my stage check with the head of my flight school. He asked questions that I definitely know the answer to, and I would either 1) not be able to understand (at all) the question that he was asking, or 2) my mind would go completely blank. It was humiliating-- especially because I know better! After going back over things in my head, I think I just got a bad case of nerves. I screwed up in my flight planning and didn't have the correct charts at home the night before. So I had to scramble that morning to finish out the planning. I never did feel together and prepared, and it showed.

Luckily, I pulled things together when we got in the plane and was able to fly pretty well. I stumbled a bit on the cross country navigation (it's been a while since I've navigated purely by visual waypoints with the timer, etc.!), though I managed to pull things back together. My weakest maneuver (no surprise here) was the lazy 8s... but I did *ok* on them. Several of my other maneuvers were spot on-- and I felt pretty good about the ride overall.

Holiday Travel- Part Two

When I left off in telling the tale of our holiday travels, we were overnighting in Greensboro, NC. The next day, we did an early morning weather briefing and developed a plan for the day. Our main concern were the pretty high surface winds along our route. We found, though, that we could go a little more south to Athens, GA, and then go west from there and avoid the worst of the winds. After about an hour of flight planning, including a long phone call with a briefer and making sure we had all the necessary-- both IFR and VFR, just in case-- we departed GSO off the same runway on which we had arrived (and in front of a US Airways jet).

On departure, we almost immediately entered the clouds... and then popped up above them. The cool thing was that as we climbed above the clouds, we saw towers poking up through the clouds so that you could just see the tops of them. Cool looking-- but scary to think about those towers lurking just below that you couldn't see!


After about three hours of flying-- with a a fair amount of turbulence and a little actual instrument thrown in for good measure, we landed in Athens to refuel and do another weather check. On landing, the winds were gusting up to 23 knots-- at about 30 degrees to the runway. We checked in with a briefer to get a picture of what was happening with the cold front. After some consultation, we decided we could continue on and filed appropriately.

With Husband flying, we departed Athens, quickly being cleared and climbing to 4000'-- and approaching Atlanta. The turbulence was awful. We were being bounced up and down and sideways. Husband was having difficulty keeping us in a climb-- and at times couldn't even maintain altitude. As we discussed what to do between the bumps, we asked ATC for any pireps on the bumps ahead. The news was not good-- pilots in airplanes bigger than ours were reporting moderate to severe turbulence all along the path in front of us. To make matters worse, our ETE (estimated time en route) to Dallas (we had gone ahead and put in DFW as our destination as we new we'd have to likely make some diversions, etc) on the PFD now read 9:33-- 3 minutes MORE than it had read when we left GSO that morning. Though we knew that number would come down some once we were able to increase to a reasonable cruise speed, it was still a very LONG way to Texas. That, combined with the unrelenting turbulence was enough to make Husband to declare (and me agree) that we needed to land.

Though there was an airport right off the nose, we decided to turn back to Athens as it offered a nice, clean FBO and friendly staff. We also had seen how close the town was to the airport as we departed earlier. So, we asked ATC to return to Athens. The tower controller seemed a little surprised to hear us back on frequency-- and kindly asked if we had any mechanical problem or needed any assistance. We told her no, we just found conditions to be too much for our taste. Husband then battled the same high and gusty surface winds for a fine landing back in Athens.

I have to say-- if you're going to get stuck somewhere, that was a pretty good place. We found a nice little inn right on the edge of downtown. We took a taxi there and a hotel shuttle back the next day. The town itself had awesome restaurants and great little shops-- and was almost empty as the university community was gone for the holiday break. We had fun exploring-- and finished up some last minute shopping for our family.

We also called my family and let them know we would not be seeing them in Texas for Christmas. They were not surprised as they had been watching the weather and figured we'd need to call off our trip. We also called Husband's brother and asked if we could come crash with him the next day. He graciously said yes, so the next day, after Husband finished a few work calls, we set out for Chattanooga.

This leg helped restore our faith in general aviation flying. After all the clouds, icing, bumps, and headwinds of the last few days, this day gave us the gift of beautiful blue skies, low winds, and a calm ride. We had a short 1 hour hop over to Chattanooga and after getting sequenced in behind a few planes practicing instrument approaches, we landed without further issue. We had a great time in Chattanooga with Husband's brother and sister-in-law. I especially enjoyed touring the organic farm that J manages. Unfortunately, the weather got bad again and we were not able to depart for Nashville where we were all spending Christmas. After waiting it out one day, we decided to cry "uncle" and rent a car to drive to Nashville the next. Of course, the weather promptly and unexpectedly cleared up as soon as we arrived in Nashville.

After lots of fun with Husband's mom, brothers, sisters-in-laws, niece, and nephew, we drove back to Chattanooga for the flight home. I got the pleasure of this leg as Husband was not night current. We had a nice flight home and landed just behind a couple of friends (fellow students) from our flight school. Our long adventure was over-- and we had never made it to Texas. But we did both get to practice our actual instrument flying skills-- and I even made an approach in instrument conditions. We had encountered and survived an icing encounter, and probably doubled our experience of flying IFR with ATC. Finally-- we definitely deepened both our knowledge and our questions about flying in winter conditions.

Info for Pilots in the DC/Baltimore Area

Just wanted to post about an upcoming seminar on winter weather flying next Saturday on the Eastern Shore at the Kent Island Library. I think there's a shuttle of some sort from the Bay Bridge Airport over to the library, and then over to Hemingway's afterward for lunch.

Husband and I are planning to attend. If you're interested-- you can sign up through the Wings (FAASTeam) website. I saw Susan Parsons presentation on decision making at a 99s (women pilots) regional conferences-- and it was really good!

Actual, Icing, and Diversions... Oh My!

What a day! First of all- thanks for all the well-wishes on the instrument ratings. Husband and I really tried to put them to good use today. Of course, 9 hours after leaving home, we had only made it 220 nautical miles from home!

We started by trying to depart JYO on an IFR plan. Our intended destination for the day was Nashville. Because of the weather, we had opted to try for the "southern route" as opposed to the "western route". Unfortunately, about 3000 feet up off of JYO, we entered a cloud (not the bad part) at -1 degree C (the bad part). We pretty quickly started to pick up ice. We asked to descend-- but we still had the ice, and were still in and out of the clouds. So, before we even reached Upperville, we turned back for Leesburg. I could tell there was a tiny amount of performance degradation-- it seemed to take a little more power to maintain airspeed, particularly in turns. However, we were able to maintain altitude and airspeed without any problems. Once safely on the ground, it was interesting to see the ice caked on the leading edges. We couldn't have been in the clouds more than about 5 minutes total, and yet we picked up a pretty significant amount. Enough that it didn't come off on its own. We ended up having to put it in a warm hangar to get the ice off.

For our second try, we decided to try flying under the cloud layer. We knew the clouds were pretty low, but we also knew that if we could make it down just a little farther south, the freezing level was significantly higher and we'd be able to go IFR. So we started out (with a warm, dry airplane) VFR, heading south, generally toward Richmond. Around Warrenton, the clouds lowered a bit more, and we made a cautionary landing at Warrenton. We didn't even get out of the plane at this stop-- we just wanted to be able to fully focus on the weather maps on the G1000. We took off again soon, and made it down to Mecklenburg, VA. We had been headed toward Chapel Hill... but saw that we were headed into some pretty heavy precip and wanted to reassess, and get on an IFR plan before going further.

After refueling and some serious map reading, we headed out again- on an IFR plan-- this time, for Greenville, SC. We didn't make it that far though, this time, we got up to 6,000 feet. Initially, we were flying nicely between the layers. Just before GSO, though, the layers closed in, and it became very turbulent. I was flying-- or rather-- the autopilot was flying. The turbulence was enough that I had my fingers posed over the off switch on the AP and the kill switch on the yoke. We were getting bounced around like crazy. It was also raining, we were in and out of clouds-- mostly in... and it was getting dark. This was officially no longer fun. In fact, I was afraid of the turbulence for the first time in a while. We talked to ATC to see if it would get better at 8000... but it didn't seem like it would. We also saw on Nexrad that we'd be in and out of this same stuff all the way to Greenville. So we called uncle and asked ATC to divert to Greensboro. The controller was great. She immediately descended us, gave us vectors right to the ILS, and even read us the weather. Husband gave me a rolling briefing, and I managed to fly the ILS pretty well, all things considered. When we broke out at about 1800-1900 feet AGL, I was dead centered on glide slope and the localizer. Instructor would have been proud! The guys at Landmark were great. I think 4 of them met our plane. They got us unloaded, refueled, and brought a van right to the planeside for the short ride to a hotel. After a good dinner at Ruby Tuesdays (gotta love that it was right in the parking lot), we (all three of us-- including the dog!) are snuggled in bed for the night safe and sound. We have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but we'll figure that out in the morning.

Some interesting things for today: Our (my) first actual IMC after getting my ticket. My first icing encounter.

Some cool things from today: Breaking out between layers-- and even getting a glimpse of sunshine for the first time. Wow. Words can't even describe-- although I did cry out "with glee" and giggle hysterically. Also- the woman at Landmark called over to the hotel to make sure Flyer (our dog) would be welcome. Her question to the hotel staff: "Do y'all house animals over there?" I also laughed long and hysterically at this. It was the perfect antidote for a long and stressful day!

Husband is Instrument Rated!

After a discontinuance due to weather two weeks back, Husband is finally instrument rated! Congratulations, Husband!

We had a great (non-flying) Thanksgiving trip to New York. The insane traffic (7 hours from DC to NYC) reminded us that we bought an airplane, learned to fly, and got our instrument ratings so that we wouldn't have to do these drives. Somehow, given the weak economy, and our seemingly flexible schedules, we (okay, I) decided that we should drive instead of fly. Lesson learned, though. Flying far beats the agony of driving.

I'll get around to posting something substantive again soon. I haven't been flying since before Thanksgiving due to a cold that just won't go away. I'm hoping to be back in flying form by the end of the week, though.

Flap hard...