N712MF 1.6 Flight to the coast with Jocelyn

Flew to the coast with my friend Jocelyn -- her first ride in a truly "little" airplane.

We took off from KRHV and flew a left downwind 31L departuer. We did one landing at E16 then flew off to the coast and came back up following Highway 17, then through the KSJC Class C and back to KRHV.

One landing at E16, which was a normal (not short) approach. Worked out fine except I did a bit of a wiggle when a gust caught me in the middle of the runway.

The landing at KRHV was a short approach and it worked out fairly well. I did end up rounding out a bit earlier than I would like to, probably because I arrived with a bit too little energy. Still a pretty late round-out by any normal standards, but my goal is to arrive at 60 kias at the threshold (or as close as possible) then have a long flare. :)

I was hoping to fly over KSJC midfield but at some point they just said to proceed direct KRHV ;) -- but at least we ended up flying close to downtown San Jose which was cool.

N712MF 1.7 Practice flight to Byron

I showed up to fly N712MF today. It was open all day but I failed to make a reservation so it was taken when I got there. :) I ended up staying at the airport for a while working on the computer until it was back, then off I went.

I did 4 landings today.

I took off and went to Byron, did 3 short approaches, then returned to KRHV and did 1 more short approach.

One of the short approaches at Byron was pretty perfect -- arrived on speed, slowed down just right, and made the first turnoff. The others were with too much energy. I think I am setting myself up a bit too close to the runway, then turning in a sort of kinked way rather than in a single, smooth curve. But in all cases I made the second turnoff of the runway without trouble, and they were full stall landings with a complete flare and soft touchdown. On one landing I failed to account for a bit of crosswind and got blown across, but not more than a couple of feet.

I tried to do a better job of speed control on climbout, and noticed that I'm getting off speed simply because I'm failing to keep my eyes on the relationship between the nose and the horizon. Something to look at the next time I fly.

N712MF 2.0 Flight to KLVK with work buddy Michael

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):

1. 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".
2. 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....
3. Study runway diagrams of airports before going there.
4. Use the taxi diagram.
5. 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:

https://simulators.redbirdflight.com/products/xwind

It has been a HUGE help in teaching me the right sorts of control inputs to use when landing!

N712MF 2.2 Practice

I haven't flown solo for a while (despite having done LOTS of right seat time with my friend as we flow from KRNO to KOSH for Oshkosh, then KOSH KORD to drop me off for my flight ... that's a whole 'nother story). I planned to take a work buddy up the next day so I went out for some practice.

It was wicked turbulent. I started with some air work -- stalls and steep turns -- over the reservoirs South of KRHV. These went well.

I tried to do a landing at E16 and basically gave up. My first solo landing after a few weeks' hiatus was definitely not going to be that challenging -- not without the airplane being useable afterwards, that is. So I decided discretion is the best part of valor, did a go-around and went back to KRHV.

At KRHV, I was given runway 31 Right for repeated back-taxi and landing practice, and I did (let's say...) 8 landings in total, including the last one which was a short approach and went very well. Apart from one where I landed a bit flat, the remainder were full-stall landings with the mains touching down first and the nose gear coming down softly afterwards.

N616SF 4.0 Liam mountain checkout

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.

N188EV 0.9 Short practice flight

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.

N188EV 1.6 Short practice and intro trip with Bobby

I went for another short practice flight with the son of some friends of ours -- he is 12 years old and is quite talented with anything vehicle related. For example, he just hopped onto my wife's Tour Easy recumbent bike and started riding around as though there were nothing to it.

We flew from KRHV South down to Coyote Lake at 3500', then got the ATIS from E16 and decided not to land there. We dipped down to 2500' and crossed the Coyote Valley. We saw it was foggy around the coast so we turned round and came back the way we came, climbing again over Coyote Lake. We then called in and made a straight-in into KRHV again.

The E16 ATIS was reporting, if I recall correctly, 14G16. Not horrible, but it was a slightly bumpy day and I didn't want to make harrowing bumpy approaches that test my comfort level while I had a brand-new pax with me. I would be distracted, and there would be too much mental pressure to "succeed" rather than back off if I didn't like things. So I decided to just fly today.

I demonstrated some maneuvers to Bobby, like why we have a rudder and what a steep turn looks like, and he seemed excited about it. I told him (and his parents) to get an intro lesson with a CFI so he could get the experience of actually being on the controls.

For our landing, I was at 3,500' and was given a straight-in. As usual, I tried to teach myself how to glide in. I judged where I could cut my power then did so and tried to maintain VG (59 kias) and remain perfectly coordinated. I ended up not having enough energy, and that doesn't surprise me -- we had about a 14 or so knot wind blowing down the runway. So let that be a lesson to me about my glide performance with a headwind. :) I added power and came in on a fairly normal approach path for the last bit.