David, husband of Caryn (see previous), wanted in on the action too. The plane was already booked starting at 10am so we planned for an early morning sortie.
I planned a flight down the Coyote Valley to Gilroy, then cutting over to Watsonville, a few landings there, then off to see if we can find Bonny Doon in the woods, then returning via the Lexington reservoir, crossing midfield at San Jose, and landing back at Reid-Hillview.
The Wx was pretty much perfect, with a big low-pressure trough sitting offshore drawing air from the land out to sea and keeping the moisture at bay. Even then, we had a relative humidity of 40%. At the cold temperatures in the morning -- temperature 4°C and dewpoint 0°C, carb icing was a concern. I printed out a carb icing risk chart and put it in my kneeboard and planned to use carb heat aggressively.
When we got there, the poor plane was covered in frost! No flying with frost on the upper wing surface, lower elevator surface, or canopy of course! So we moved it out into the sun and waited for it to thaw. Meanwhile, we preflighted. It had plenty of fuel so we didn't need to refuel.
Eventually, by 8:45am or so, it had thawed enough to be flyable -- but there goes the ambitious flight plan and the early start. :) So we decided to just launch, go to San Martin, and come back.
Things went as planned. I used carb heat all the time except when using climb power. I sure miss the carb temperature gage that I had in the C162 Flycatcher way back when!
I did one short approach to Rwy 32 at San Martin. It went okay -- I landed just barely on the threshold and was rounding out before my flare, while my intention is to maintain approach speed all the way to the flare. Winds were calm and the landing was pretty soft.
Pressed for time, we took off again and made a beeline for Reid-Hillview. I got the usual straight in for Rwy 31 right. From about 3,500 feet, I entered a long glide at 59 knots, and ended up with a reasonable amount of energy over the mall. At that point, "cash it in", full flaps, nose down, and approach speed to the flare. That was a reasonable simulation of an engine-out approach and I think it went well.
I planned a flight down the Coyote Valley to Gilroy, then cutting over to Watsonville, a few landings there, then off to see if we can find Bonny Doon in the woods, then returning via the Lexington reservoir, crossing midfield at San Jose, and landing back at Reid-Hillview.
The Wx was pretty much perfect, with a big low-pressure trough sitting offshore drawing air from the land out to sea and keeping the moisture at bay. Even then, we had a relative humidity of 40%. At the cold temperatures in the morning -- temperature 4°C and dewpoint 0°C, carb icing was a concern. I printed out a carb icing risk chart and put it in my kneeboard and planned to use carb heat aggressively.
When we got there, the poor plane was covered in frost! No flying with frost on the upper wing surface, lower elevator surface, or canopy of course! So we moved it out into the sun and waited for it to thaw. Meanwhile, we preflighted. It had plenty of fuel so we didn't need to refuel.
Eventually, by 8:45am or so, it had thawed enough to be flyable -- but there goes the ambitious flight plan and the early start. :) So we decided to just launch, go to San Martin, and come back.
Things went as planned. I used carb heat all the time except when using climb power. I sure miss the carb temperature gage that I had in the C162 Flycatcher way back when!
I did one short approach to Rwy 32 at San Martin. It went okay -- I landed just barely on the threshold and was rounding out before my flare, while my intention is to maintain approach speed all the way to the flare. Winds were calm and the landing was pretty soft.
Pressed for time, we took off again and made a beeline for Reid-Hillview. I got the usual straight in for Rwy 31 right. From about 3,500 feet, I entered a long glide at 59 knots, and ended up with a reasonable amount of energy over the mall. At that point, "cash it in", full flaps, nose down, and approach speed to the flare. That was a reasonable simulation of an engine-out approach and I think it went well.
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