Sunday, April 28, 2019

N291DR 0.6 Airball data gathering flight

Quick data gathering flight for an Airball test. Took off and straight out departure from rwy 13L, climbed to 5,500' and did a couple stalls, then burned altitude like crazy to 3,500' in a steep turning slip and overflew UTC, bumpy downwind 13L again, and a landing where I was on centerline and straight, but sort of flat so I got some tailwheel shimmy. Overall okay but I could really have done a better job with the flare.

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

N291DR 1.6 Practice flight to E16

I had some time in the afternoon. It was a hot day. There was a towering cumulus cloud over the Calaveras Reservoir, but otherwise the sky was clear. The METARs and TAFs showed normal afternoon winds, but I expected it would be bumpy due to the convective activity. I decided this was a good time to face my fear of flying during bumpy weather.

I'll say I got about 6 landings in today.

As predicted, the area around E16 was quite bumpy indeed. At no time did I go zero-G and stuff did not float around the cockpit, but keeping the airplane wings-level and coordinated required constant work.

The AWOS reported winds favoring runway 14, but for some reason people were using runway 32. I asked about that and someone in the pattern reported the winds were "calm". Hm. So I followed everyone and tried one landing on 32, but it was really bumpy so I went around. The next time I did an okay wheel landing. By that time the runway 32 fans had departed, and the windsock clearly favored 14, so I announced profusely that we were switching over and from that point on, we were doing 14 patterns.

Over the several landings I did, I got significantly more comfortable controlling the plane in the bumps. As my CFI told me a couple days ago, once you are near the ground, the wind can't go up or down and so it just stays horizontal. :)

I had a bit of trouble maintaining pattern altitude -- I would over-climb by maybe 200 feet every time. My speed control was also not great. Mostly, I was just very nervous and trying to keep up my speed so as not to stall. I know I was very, very far away from stalling, but for some reason this is where my nervousness went.

Another thing is that I was a bit ground-shy, especially when turning base and final, so I ended up high on most of my patterns, and had to chop-and-drop with full flaps to make the runway. On the other hand, it's pretty amazing how much the RANS Coyote can burn energy with flaps down.

As my CFI predicted, once near the ground, things always got really quiet. I could just keep ratcheting the stick back, and float over the runway, and if I caught a tiny gust and floated up I would just be patient and let the plane float back down a bit, and eventually I would make this super gentle 3-pointer at bicycle speed. Doing this several times really improved my confidence.

By the time I was done and heading home, I was just riding the bumps without worry, and also therefore doing a better job of maintaining positive control over my altitude and heading.

    *   *   *

I commute to work by riding my skinny-tired bike to the bus station. At the station, there is a large patch of smooth gravel pebbles. I have made a point of riding over these for the past year and a half, at least, twice a day, 5 days a week. I started out super scared of falling, and over-controlling and wiggling around. Now it's a non-event.

I hope I eventually get to that point with flying in rough air. I may or may not want to take my hapless pax on roller coaster rides, but just for safety, I think this is something I need to be able to do comfortably.

Sunday, April 21, 2019

N291DR 1.4 practice flight to 1Q4 and back

Today it was a hot day over the Central Valley, and I knew it would be bumpy. I wanted to go to 1Q4 (New Jerusalem) to try to do some landings, so I would be ready if I ever had to do an emergency landing in some arbitrary conditions.

On the way there, I did a practice emergency glide at our best glide speed of 52 kias. The wind was blowing across -- GPS speed and IAS agreed pretty well -- so I got a pretty good idea of my glide ratio. With the engine idling, solo, I had about 2.5 "fingers" of glide, when I held my hand up to the horizon. 2 "fingers" was a stretch; 3 "fingers" was easy.

Landing at 1Q4 honestly did not seem safe. It was really bumpy in roll and yaw, which was much more scary than just normal lift and sink.

I flew back to a gusty but safe crosswind 3-point landing at KRHV.

Saturday, April 13, 2019

N291DR 1.5 Practice flight to E16 and Airball flight

Now with an actual antenna installed, I took off to do a data gathering flight with Airball. Things went fairly well, except that I think my altitude math was way off. Oh well.

More interestingly for this blog, though, I did lots of takeoffs and landings at E16 with a decently strong (but steady) left crosswind.

At first, there was a yellow gyrocopter in the pattern:
Gyro: Black and yellow copter entering right crosswind behind Cessna...
Me: Hey, I ain't no Cessna!
Gyro: Sorry.
Me: Ha ha!
Later:
Me: Experimental 291DR abeam the numbers for short approach Runway 30.
Gyro: Hey I'll show you a short approach!!!
Me: Ha ha!
I did a bunch of crosswind wheel landings and seemed to get mostly okay at "unicycling" the plane on the upwind wheel. I still need some more practice but I'm definitely better than I was. It was very confidence inspiring to do this again and again and become more comfortable.

On my landing at KRHV, which was a pretty straightforward straight-in, I used full flaps and came in at 50 kias for a very short rollout. I need to become comfortable with that kind of approach so I can master true short-field landings.


N291DR 0.7 Intro flight for friend's son

I took our friend's son up for his first ever flight in a small airplane. He was worried about airsickness, but he actually did pretty well. We took off from KRHV and went South, and I got up to 5,500' so he could check out the Bay Area from high altitude and see all the sights.

N291DR 0.9 Solo flight with Airball

Quick solo flight to try out Airball. Because I am a doofus, I forgot the antenna on the receiver unit and so I had bad reception. I got to tool around a bit and have fun though, so yay.

N291DR 2.6 Flight to Columbia with Melissa

A quick morning jaunt to Columbia (O22) with Melissa! Now that I co-own an airplane, and the marginal cost of each additional hour is really quite reasonable, doing 2.6 hours of flight is a "quick morning jaunt" rather than the entirety of my flying for a whole month!

The trip there and back was uneventful. Melissa got some stick time and did well, for a newbie. The landing at O22 was interesting, with all the winds around the mountains, but I managed a soft 3-point landing. The takeoff at 3,000 feet density altitude was not as zippy as I'm used to, but I still had a pretty healthy climb and it was also pretty uneventful.