Monday, May 16, 2011

Pearson Field video

USD Media produced this great video about historic Pearson Field, the fabulous facility that I fly out of.

Flight Ten: Best Glide & Power-off Landings

Todays emphasis was on best glide speed and performing power-off landings. This is a continuation of emergency procedures we began during Flight Eight. As Theresa is describing this in context...which is an engine failure...she starts relating things to how many more seconds in the air certain decisions give you...and in the back of my head I'm thinking "Oh man...shit just got real."

Best Glide Ratio
The Cessna 150 has a glide ratio of 1:7 - for every 1,000 feet of altitude lost you can glide for 7,000 feet or about a mile and a third. So if the engine dies at 1,000 feet you will be landing within that distance and you only have a few seconds to make the good decisions needed for that desired safe landing. Best glide for the C-150 is 70 MPH, which gives you the maximum lift for the least amount of drag. What's cool about this is you can trim the aircraft so that it descends at best glide with no hands on the yoke, giving you less to do while making your other time critical choices.

We headed out to the practice area and I performed a few landing configuration into a stall runs, first with power and flaps and then without either one. We jammed back to Pearson at 125 MPH and had time for three power-off landings.

Theresa did the first one to show me what to expect, however she came in a little too low and we aborted and went around. Then it was my turn and when I came around I was too high and I had to recover...that's when the unexpected (to me) happened. We were in a no power, best glide configuration meaning the trim was pitched way up but our nose is down. As soon as I added full power - the trim setting caused the planes nose to pitch up wildly. I had to push forward on the yoke really hard...it was a little scary...all I could think of for a second was this video. Theresa later told me, that's just how it is...and why in a real emergency, you shut-off the failed engine to ensure it doesn't suddenly restart while you are configured for best glide and just a few hundred feet in the air. Anyway, you just gotta muscle it out.

The final time around, killed the power, configured for best glide and turned towards the runway. Everything went really smoothly and I came in for a great landing, even if it was a little long and we had to taxi all the way to the end of the runway before we could exit.

Continuing with the Top Gun theme: "I feel the need...the need for best glide speed!"

Hours of flight logged this lesson: 1.1 Dual Received (DR)
Cost of this lesson: $143.11

Monday, May 9, 2011

Flight Nine: Patterns & Landings

The practice area north of Pearson field was socked in with clouds, but with a 4,000 ft ceiling over the field and low to moderate winds, we were able to spend the flight in the pattern and conduct 6 landings.

Having been three weeks since my last flight, I had lost some of the "feel" for the plane in flight and was not flying very smoothly at first and was very tense. This resulted in two flubbed landings, where Theresa needed to take over and land cause my approach was so off. The next two times around were not much better, but instead of taking over, Theresa had me perform the go-around maneuver. Now we've been up almost an hour and I had yet to land the plane by myself...and I'm feeling frustrated and nervous. So I willed myself to be calm and tried again.

The fifth attempt went great...set up went well, feeling in control the whole time, not too fast, not too high. A nice, main wheels first landing, on target and short enough to leave the runway at the first taxi way. We taxied around for one last take-off and landing in the pattern. Now that I had done something right...my confidence was way up and the my final approach for the day was really good and the landing was even better than the previous attempt.

This is when the Top Gun sound track starts playing in my head "...highway to the danger zone!"

In our debrief, we concluded that it would be better (after a long break) for me to fly out of the pattern at least once after take-off, so I can get acclimatized to flying again, before jumping into complicated maneuvers like landing in the pattern.

Looking forward to getting up again next week.

Hours of flight logged this lesson: 1.2 Dual Received (DR)
Cost of this lesson: $149.81