N188EV 0.9 Short practice flight

I'm taking a week's "staycation" so I decided to take another short practice flight and try some more maneuvers to say current.

I took off on a slightly but not horribly windy day. It was wicked hot out. I was baking under that canopy. But once in the air, things seemed okay.

I set myself up to fly alternately 4,500' and 5,500' (VFR cruising altitudes) up and down the area from VPUTC to Coyote Lake, watching for traffic, staying away from the flight path of the commercial heavies coming into KSJC, and monitoring Norcal on 120.1. All looked good.

At some point I pushed full power at 4,500' and -- lo and behold -- the engine would not reach its full RPM. Now in hindsight of course I know this was due to the density altitude, but at that moment for some reason my brain told me that my engine was not making full power and I needed to high-tail it to my airport.

I was quite high over VPUTC at that point, and so I maintained altitude to a straight-in Rwy 31 Right. Once I felt I had the field made, I cut power and slipped in. I tried to go a little bit further than usual because the ATIS was reporting about 14 knots down the runway. Unfortunately, I had too much energy and was going to overshoot. Experience points. Next time be aware of this sight picture and remember, "too much energy".

There were not too many people around so tower gave me 31L or 31R at my option. I asked to make an abbreviated pattern and was told I could maneuver as needed. I did a 360 over the field and came in for an uneventful landing. However, during the 360, I needed power to make a nice wide-open pattern. Again experience points: Next time, if you are going to do this maneuver, judge early if you need to do a 360 rather than figure it out at the last minute.

I could probably have made a tighter 360 and landed without power, but at that point I had power -- I was not in an emergency -- so there was no reason to do anything excessively weird. I was still near a reasonable pattern altitude and so I chose not to do any heroics.

All in all, this was an interesting experience of actually being a little bit scared in the airplane, and seeing how I reacted. I have a book about Engine Out Survival Tactics, and I read it through and it recommends learning your airplane's glide performance and rehearsing a specific maneuver, including target altitudes AGL at various points. I can see now how this would have been really useful. I'm motivated to practice this more (within the bounds of safety -- no sense creating an emergency just to practice emergencies...).

And about failing to realize that my engine does not make full RPM at 4,500' on a hot day? I feel very dumb.

N188EV 1.6 Short practice and intro trip with Bobby

I went for another short practice flight with the son of some friends of ours -- he is 12 years old and is quite talented with anything vehicle related. For example, he just hopped onto my wife's Tour Easy recumbent bike and started riding around as though there were nothing to it.

We flew from KRHV South down to Coyote Lake at 3500', then got the ATIS from E16 and decided not to land there. We dipped down to 2500' and crossed the Coyote Valley. We saw it was foggy around the coast so we turned round and came back the way we came, climbing again over Coyote Lake. We then called in and made a straight-in into KRHV again.

The E16 ATIS was reporting, if I recall correctly, 14G16. Not horrible, but it was a slightly bumpy day and I didn't want to make harrowing bumpy approaches that test my comfort level while I had a brand-new pax with me. I would be distracted, and there would be too much mental pressure to "succeed" rather than back off if I didn't like things. So I decided to just fly today.

I demonstrated some maneuvers to Bobby, like why we have a rudder and what a steep turn looks like, and he seemed excited about it. I told him (and his parents) to get an intro lesson with a CFI so he could get the experience of actually being on the controls.

For our landing, I was at 3,500' and was given a straight-in. As usual, I tried to teach myself how to glide in. I judged where I could cut my power then did so and tried to maintain VG (59 kias) and remain perfectly coordinated. I ended up not having enough energy, and that doesn't surprise me -- we had about a 14 or so knot wind blowing down the runway. So let that be a lesson to me about my glide performance with a headwind. :) I added power and came in on a fairly normal approach path for the last bit.

N712MF 1.5 Short practice flight

I've been very busy with my work on http://airball.aero/ (including data gathering flights with other folks) so -- ironically -- I've been too deeply embedded in the flying world to fly solo. Well that needs fixing. I went out solo today to just get some practice.

It was eventful.

First was the springus problem. The Rotax has two springs that go from the carbs to the rubber doohickeys that attach the manifold pressure equalization tube to the intake manifolds. It's not clear why they are there. But one was loose. The mechanics came over, said yeah, we have no idea why this thing is here either, but if it's there it oughta be on properly, and tightened the thing.

Next came the taxi debacle. KRHV is being resurfaced, so it was all orange cones and weird taxi instructions. At some point I ended up "lost" and asked for progressive instructions and was making U-turns all around the ramp. They were patient.

After that was the carb heat mystery. I added carb heat on runup but nothing happened, and the knob seemed surprisingly smooth. I taxied back and popped the cowl and the little mechanical things were indeed mechanicking, and the mechanics told me that if that's going on, then it's working. So I guess I just had a very low carb heat RPM drop day.

Off I launched. It was blowing 13 knots down the runway, so not much crosswind but bumpy. I bumped off to E16 and tried a landing, which went okay but was scary due to the bumps. I tried another one and decided to say screw it and go around.

I then came back to KRHV and had an uneventful landing.

All in all, my feeling is that I have allowed myself to get a bit rusty and therefore need quite a bit more serious training to get comfortable again.