N291DR 2.6 Birthday flight with Melissa

As seems to be becoming the tradition, on my birthday, I went out for a flight with Melissa. 2 landings.

We took off and flew over to the Monterey Bay then up the coast, going as far as the Pigeon Point lighthouse before the clouds started looking rather thick and we decided not to press on. Going further would have meant either flying over the deck (what fun is that?) or flying quite low over the ocean (that area has a 2,000' floor per NOAA).

We went back and overflew the Monterey Bay Academy airport. The runway was closed, so we didn't try to land. It looks like an awesome place to go sometime, now that I've been cleared for grass strip landings by my CFI! :)

We landed in Watsonville and took a break, then got back up in the air and returned to KRHV.

N291DR 3.4 Mary

Epic training flight with my friend CFI (code named "Mary") to get up to snuff and learn grass field landings. Easily 10 full stop landings done.

We flew to Frasier Lake and did some landings, where I tried to learn short-field technique (full flaps, 45 kias approach). Our airplane glides and glides! In that configuration it will happily parachute down at a 400 fpm descent rate! It was VERY bumpy due to thermals from the nearby fields, so it scared the crap out of me. Also, the wind was strong enough that it was absolutely necessary to use proper taildragger control placement relative to the wind, and at some point when the wind was broadside to us on the ground, it was actually hard to turn the plane away from the wind and we thought we'd have to do a 270 into it to reposition. Overall I'm glad I had a chilled-out CFI with me to help.

We decided to go to E16 for some more practice.

At E16, we did a bunch more practice where I got used to true short approaches and doing slips to final. I had previously been really scared of slipping, thinking that it would lead to a stall/spin right away. This got me on track to manage my energy and by the time we were done, I was much more confident and doing a better job of energy management.

We went back to Frasier Lake (!!) where it was a bit calmer, and did a couple of landings. I felt much better now.

We then returned to RHV uneventfully.

N291DR 2.0 Bumpy Airball data gathering and general puttering around flight

Today I went up for a flight to gather data for Airball. 3 landings total.

I tried to figure out whether to go South or East, and decided on East based on clouds near the Monterey bay.

I rigged up Airball, a laptop and an accelerometer and off we went.

I departed to Calaveras and did some stalls and slow flight while remaining near zero lateral acceleration. I then proceeded to Byron for some landing practice.

Enroute to Byron, I passed under a large cloud and ended up getting some pretty massive lift and sink (later analysis revealed I went to -0.2g, not quite zero-g but close, and in the other direction I had some 2g updrafts).

Now thorougly scared out my wits, I observed some folks were landing on Rwy 23 and some on Rwy 30. It looked like the winds favored 30 so I took that.

Meanwhile of course "Elevator" (the parachute jump ship) was doing weird patterns and I had to worry about them. It's always like this at Byron -- it's bumpy and hard flying, and meanwhile people are trying to get me to think about their Very Special [tm] traffic pattern. Oh well. I think in this case Elevator just settled in behind me.

I did an okay landing -- good 3-point -- but meanwhile the wind had changed by the time I got near the ground and I was having a really strong left crosswind, so I ended up being blown across a bit. Nothing disastrous, but something to watch for the future.

I stopped and used the bathroom.

I took off again with the hopes of doing some takeoff and landing practice. Again Rwy 30 seemed favored. I came in for a landing with massive bumps, and then realized omg the wind has changed and it's favoring Rwy 23. I decided to get out of there and just go home. I'd had enough excitement for one day.

On the way back, of course I had to pass under the massive scary cloud, leading to some more fun and games and excitement, but again that went fine.

I did 2 landings at KRHV. Both were okay, decent flares, not much crosswind.

For some reason my tailwheel shimmies when I land, so I need to figure out why this is an issue.