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.
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.
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