I signed up for a mountain checkout at my FBO. They signed me up with a new-to-me CFI and a C172RG "Cutlass". I was to show up at 8am on Sunday, bright eyed and bushy tailed.
I got the POH for the aircraft, and visited it once to see what it looked like. I was thinking of doing a full VFR flight plan but I was pretty busy yesterday. Anyway, much of the training is about planning so that was not an issue.
We spoke a lot about the various effects we need to worry about in mountain flying, including optical illusions and weather, but the most important of course was aircraft performance. We wrote down the book numbers for KRHV, KPVF (Placerville) and KTRK (Truckee).
We then departed on a KRHV KPVF KTRK KRHV flight.
Much of the work of the flight was about getting used to the complex airplane, and learning how to mess with mixture / prop / throttle controls and control manifold pressure and RPM rather than just having a simple "gas pedal" to shove.
The CFI taught me to set the pitch to a known quantity, then accept the performance the airplane gives me. This is to avoid chasing a climb rate and ending up in a stall, or worse. This is great advice -- I would only add that a more ideal metric would be, not pitch, but rather AoA. But in the absence of a reliable AoA gage, this will do.
For our landing in KPVF, I made the standard mistake of coming in too high because of the angle of the runway and the fact that it's on a plateau. One newbie illusion confirmed. :) We taxied back and took off right away. That was uneventful.
We then flew to KTRK, in the process going over a bunch of ridge lines that I swore up and down we would never make it over. Then we descended and landed, in some rather nasty turbulence, but overall without too much fuss. I was expecting a scary feeling of careening down the runway (high density altitude means high true airspeed, right?) but for the most part that was not a thing.
We shut down at KTRK, gawked at the zillion-dollar jets, tried to go to the cafe and failed (it was closed), then got back in and got ready to depart.
The rotation was really the most important lesson. It took all of 5 seconds, but it was interesting. I am used to rotating and getting this burst of speed and a leap into the air, from which vantage point I can correct my heading for the prevailing crosswind and get going. Instead, the airplane wheezed into the air and I was caught drifting off to the side, dangerously close to the taxi lights. At that low height, I felt like I didn't want to bank too much, but there we were. My CFI was on the controls with me and we got fixed up, but it was really eye-opening.
We circled once around KTRK for climb, during which we went from +1,000 FPM to zero to (my CFI noticed, I did not) about -200 FPM. Finally we had enough power to get over the ridges and we made an uneventful return to KRHV.
In the process, my CFI taught me a bit more about the ethos of flying for performance and range, not just "managing to get into the air". For example, he had me reduce my altitude and get less of a headwind, and we ended up getting back faster. Very nifty.
Overall I'd say the main lessons are:
1. Plan plan plan plan plan, then plan some more. Leave nothing to chance.
2. Take baby steps starting from airports like O22 (Columbia) and expand my envelope slowly.
I got the POH for the aircraft, and visited it once to see what it looked like. I was thinking of doing a full VFR flight plan but I was pretty busy yesterday. Anyway, much of the training is about planning so that was not an issue.
We spoke a lot about the various effects we need to worry about in mountain flying, including optical illusions and weather, but the most important of course was aircraft performance. We wrote down the book numbers for KRHV, KPVF (Placerville) and KTRK (Truckee).
We then departed on a KRHV KPVF KTRK KRHV flight.
Much of the work of the flight was about getting used to the complex airplane, and learning how to mess with mixture / prop / throttle controls and control manifold pressure and RPM rather than just having a simple "gas pedal" to shove.
The CFI taught me to set the pitch to a known quantity, then accept the performance the airplane gives me. This is to avoid chasing a climb rate and ending up in a stall, or worse. This is great advice -- I would only add that a more ideal metric would be, not pitch, but rather AoA. But in the absence of a reliable AoA gage, this will do.
For our landing in KPVF, I made the standard mistake of coming in too high because of the angle of the runway and the fact that it's on a plateau. One newbie illusion confirmed. :) We taxied back and took off right away. That was uneventful.
We then flew to KTRK, in the process going over a bunch of ridge lines that I swore up and down we would never make it over. Then we descended and landed, in some rather nasty turbulence, but overall without too much fuss. I was expecting a scary feeling of careening down the runway (high density altitude means high true airspeed, right?) but for the most part that was not a thing.
We shut down at KTRK, gawked at the zillion-dollar jets, tried to go to the cafe and failed (it was closed), then got back in and got ready to depart.
The rotation was really the most important lesson. It took all of 5 seconds, but it was interesting. I am used to rotating and getting this burst of speed and a leap into the air, from which vantage point I can correct my heading for the prevailing crosswind and get going. Instead, the airplane wheezed into the air and I was caught drifting off to the side, dangerously close to the taxi lights. At that low height, I felt like I didn't want to bank too much, but there we were. My CFI was on the controls with me and we got fixed up, but it was really eye-opening.
We circled once around KTRK for climb, during which we went from +1,000 FPM to zero to (my CFI noticed, I did not) about -200 FPM. Finally we had enough power to get over the ridges and we made an uneventful return to KRHV.
In the process, my CFI taught me a bit more about the ethos of flying for performance and range, not just "managing to get into the air". For example, he had me reduce my altitude and get less of a headwind, and we ended up getting back faster. Very nifty.
Overall I'd say the main lessons are:
1. Plan plan plan plan plan, then plan some more. Leave nothing to chance.
2. Take baby steps starting from airports like O22 (Columbia) and expand my envelope slowly.
Not sure I agree with setting pitch and holding it for long extended climbs in a normally aspirated aircraft. I would pitch for a good speed (Something above Vy that gives you enough cooling of your CHTs) and try to hold that speed. Setting either a const Vertical speed, constant pitch or const AoA will eventually get you to stall the aircraft once your engine gets too anemic. I am looking to eventually upgrade my autopilot to one with a “const IAS” feature for exactly that reason. Set a good airspeed that you know cools the engine well enough (“cruise climb”), give it full power, accept the vertical speed you get and - without a turbo - lean the mixture every 1000’ to stay about 150F rich of peak.
ReplyDeleteJust my 2c, Johannes
Thank you, that's a great point. I will try these various techniques when I start practicing! I think the technique my CFI was teaching me was intended to keep me from the VSI panic killer by any means possible, and to teach me to "accept" a lower nose sight picture than I'm used to. In other words, he probably figures that by the time I'm reliably optimizing what you are talking about, I'm ahead of the game. :) But again, thank you -- I'll try all of these!
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