A work buddy of mine worked as a software engineer at Rockwell-Collins and was always interested in aviation stuff. Once, we drove back together from a company offsite and we talked about airplane stuff all the way. I had long promised I'd get him in the air, and with my family out of town, this was the time.
We spent a bunch of time talking about the briefing and preflight, with me showing him the various airspaces, how we check the weather, what a briefing looks like, and all that. Then we preflighted, got the airplane gassed up a bit, and took off.
I have been reading more about Rotax engines and have been watching the temperatures more closely. They went into the yellow zone (very far from red, but still) on climbout, so I made sure to give the engine some time to cool at level flight before continuing my ascent.
We did a tiny bit of maneuvering over Lake Del Valle, including an awkward time when Michael's headset volume was accidentally turned down so we spent a while trying to figure out why he could not hear me. There are several squelch and volume knobs everywhere so we had to diddle each one.
We landed un-eventfully at KLVK. I planned a glide into Runway 25 Left, and I had maybe a bit of excess energy but was able to burn it by applying full flaps. I ended up doing what I intended to do, which was to arrive at my flare near the numbers at my standard landing speed of 60 knots, then flare till a full stall landing.
We were given taxi instructions which I flubbed (and I am very embarrassed about this) -- we ended up on a dead end because I missed a taxiway. We tried to do a 180 turn but failed, so I asked for permission to shut down and turn the plane around and they said ok. What shame. Finally I got around and they asked me to expedite crossing runway 25 Left and Right, which I did ... expeditiously. As I careened across the runways and zoomed into a taxiway, they noted to me, "2 Mike Foxtrot authorized to resume normal taxi". Right. As in, slow it down a little. Roger. Thank goodness for understanding controllers.
Lessons from this experience are (I use Foreflight):
We spent a bunch of time talking about the briefing and preflight, with me showing him the various airspaces, how we check the weather, what a briefing looks like, and all that. Then we preflighted, got the airplane gassed up a bit, and took off.
I have been reading more about Rotax engines and have been watching the temperatures more closely. They went into the yellow zone (very far from red, but still) on climbout, so I made sure to give the engine some time to cool at level flight before continuing my ascent.
We did a tiny bit of maneuvering over Lake Del Valle, including an awkward time when Michael's headset volume was accidentally turned down so we spent a while trying to figure out why he could not hear me. There are several squelch and volume knobs everywhere so we had to diddle each one.
We landed un-eventfully at KLVK. I planned a glide into Runway 25 Left, and I had maybe a bit of excess energy but was able to burn it by applying full flaps. I ended up doing what I intended to do, which was to arrive at my flare near the numbers at my standard landing speed of 60 knots, then flare till a full stall landing.
We were given taxi instructions which I flubbed (and I am very embarrassed about this) -- we ended up on a dead end because I missed a taxiway. We tried to do a 180 turn but failed, so I asked for permission to shut down and turn the plane around and they said ok. What shame. Finally I got around and they asked me to expedite crossing runway 25 Left and Right, which I did ... expeditiously. As I careened across the runways and zoomed into a taxiway, they noted to me, "2 Mike Foxtrot authorized to resume normal taxi". Right. As in, slow it down a little. Roger. Thank goodness for understanding controllers.
Lessons from this experience are (I use Foreflight):
- I think I am too accustomed to flying into very familiar airports so once I'm landed I'm like, "job done!" and I pay insufficient attention to airport "driving directions".
- I need to mount the iPad where it's visible all the time, rather than having it handheld and putting it in the pouch when not being used. I recently removed the RAM mounting ball from it to take it on a trip but I have one of these on order so I should be ok soon....
- Study runway diagrams of airports before going there.
- Use the taxi diagram.
- KLVK has one short and one long runway. If you are used to KRHV, where there are two runways of the same length, you will be confused. Don't.
We had lunch at Beeb's and then took back off departing Southbound.
Once again, I gave the engine some cooling time then climbed to 4,500' MSL to demonstrate some maneuvers to Michael. The air was smooth, so I showed him turns with and without rudder to illustrate adverse yaw, and did some steep turns. We also checked out the Del Valle reservoir, which is pretty. Then we came back to KRHV.
My descent and landing into KRHV was uneventful. I did another full-stall landing with minimal drift and landed quite well.
I should add: While at KOSH, I spent a while using the Redbird crosswind simulator:
It has been a HUGE help in teaching me the right sorts of control inputs to use when landing!
