N712MF 1.9 Harry

This was an attempt to get "checked out" on the Evektor SportStars. As I previously mentioned, I was diagnosed with cancer and, while cured by surgery, am doing chemotherapy. I'm rather out of practice with flying in general.

We did a total of 7 landings, with Harry insisting I do a soft field landing his way (using power to cushion the descent during the flare) rather than the way I was taught (just coming in with enough energy, landing gently, and keeping the nosewheel off the ground then settling it down gently).

In general, this test/lesson did not go very happily, mostly because it became clear I was nowhere near ready for it as a test, and it took a while to convince Harry to switch into lesson mode. Oh well.

I learned something, though: More practice needed!

N2791E 0.8 Gina

I decided to try the Aeronca Champ at Aerodynamic Aviation (KRHV) this time, with a new instructor who will be codenamed "Gina" in this blog. This was also my first flight without paper charts, as I tried using software instead.

The flight

Gina talked to me about the idiosyncracies of the Champ, including the fact that the Continental engine likes to overheat; that it likes to get carb ice and requires carb heat below a certain RPM even on hot days; and the weirdness of the locking/castering Maule tailwheel assembly.

We went through the preflight with specific emphasis on how to handle a fabric airplane. The engine required a quart of oil, which meant we got pretty messy and greasy. We got a rechargeable battery from the office to power the radio.

Gina showed me how to hand prop, but I did not yet get to do the actual propping to start -- just practice with the priming. One of the things I was worried about was: When untying the plane after starting, how do I put myself into the right frame of mind so that I don't think of it as a "routine preflight" and walk into the prop? Luckily someone had already worried about this, and the answer is to have my hand touching the plane at all times and never go in front of the wing strut. This naturally limits my movement to safe areas, and should be achievable even after I've done this hundreds of times and it's become routine and I'm thinking of other stuff at the time.

During preflight, Gina was worried about the rudder cables being too loose, and decided to bring in the club owner to check things out. The owner said it was fine. I actually really appreciated Gina's willingness to be both the instructor and student when appropriate -- rather than trying to pretend to be a know-it-all. I think this style fits my own personality far better.

We taxied off, with me doing more or less ok with the taxi (because the Flycatcher was not easy to taxi at low speeds, so I am used to struggling!). I ended up at the hold short line with the tailwheel locked because I got too close to it, and the heel brakes are sort of hard to get used to, but Gina rescued me and we survived.

Takeoff was less scary than I thought, even though I had a bit of trouble maintaining centerline with all the stuff that was going on and we ended up with the side-to-side rocking motion that Gina warned me would happen. We clawed into the air as fast as our 85 galloping horses could take us, and departed downwind towards the practice area.

Once there, we did some turns, which went mostly okay, but I could see by the ball that I was not coordinated. We also did stalls, which were surprisingly gentle in that plane.

On the way back, I did the approach and Gina did the landing with me following on the controls. We ballooned a little due to wind and did a 3-point landing. I taxied back without event.

Overall, this was a pretty cool vintage stick and rudder experience. The tachometer jangled about in turbulence, which meant I sort of had to estimate where my actual RPM was. I figured out that I should center the ball with rudder, and use aileron to set my bank angle (including zero if I want to be level). It was hard to do; I ended up uncoordinated all the time. I hope I can learn to feel coordinatoin in the "seat of my pants".

I'm pretty excited about this plane!

My EFB experiments

We got a 16GB iPad Mini 2 from my wife's mom, and I have an Android Nexus 6 phone. I put Garmin Pilot on both of the devices, and a trial of Foreflight on the iPad.

I very quickly found that Foreflight is way better. Our area is very urban and beset by stadium TFRs. Garmin Pilot just puts a 3nm circle around all stadiums, all the time. Foreflight actually goes and finds out what games are playing and gives you the data you really need. The briefing tool in Foreflight is very, very nice. And finally, Foreflight has a satellite map option for when you want to know what the area around the airport you're trying to find really looks like.

I think what I might do is use Foreflight on the iPad, and maybe use some free or cheap app on the Nexus as a backup. I could even just download the raster charts and PDF A/FD onto the phone and go that way, since it's just a backup after all.

That all said, during our flight today, I didn't touch any of my tech. Gina was navigating and pointing out landmarks, and I was working hard enough to fly!

N188EV 1.4 Frank

My family and I bought a house in San Jose, so I joined AeroDynamic Aviation at KRHV.

I also had a rather weird experience with colon cancer, for which I had surgery and am now getting chemo, so I didn't fly for quite a while. I'm considered treated -- no evidence of disease (NED) post surgery -- so I'm doing quite well.

While I do the chemo, which started about 3 weeks ago and lasts for 6 months, I may or may not be able to maintain what I consider adequate currency, so my time may be solely dual. But it's still nice to get in the air.

In any case, I needed dual to check out on a new plane, an Evektor SportStar. With that in mind, I scheduled a lesson with one of the CFIs at AeroDynamic.

The preflight was interesting primarily because of the differences of the Rotax from what I'm used to. Of course this was also interesting because I'm a big fan of experimental aircraft and hope to put a Rotax into something I build some day!

Per the instructions, since this was the first flight of the day, we undid a bunch of 1/4-turn fasteners and took off the top cowl, to check the coolant level and the general health of things. I've been reading the maintenance manuals for the Rotax 912, so I was happy to see all the little parts I'd been reading about. Nifty!

We took off towards E16, did a few takeoffs and landings, did some air work, then returned to KRHV.

I was definitely out of practice -- especially with the radio, where I felt like a 10-hour student again, having trouble keeping up the pace. I got better as the flight progressed.

Taxiing was way easier than the Flycatcher on account of the directly steered nosewheel and the lack of huge springs on the rudder pedals (!).

Takeoff was uneventful. During the trip to E16, Frank pointed out the local landmarks and their relation to the boundaries of the KSJC Class C. He also suggested I get myself Foreflight and an iPad! The SportStar does not have the fancy Garmin glass that the Flycatcher did; it has a tiny handheld GPS in a dock, but that's all but invisible in the sunlight.

I quickly learned that I had failed to fully brief my approach into E16 -- another thing that I would not have overlooked when I was more current. Fortunately Frank knew the frequencies and runways and talked me through it.

At E16, where I had to call out all my maneuvers, my radio green-ness was again very evident, with me confusing crosswind for base at some point, and sounding slow and unsure. Frank was not too worried though.

I had one drop-in landing; the others were fairly good. I got used to the huge drag that the SportStar's split flaps create!

On the way back, I did steep turns which Frank called "perfect". We also did slow flight with and without flaps, and stalls. All seemed fairly standard. I tried holding the plane in a stall with a "falling leaf" maneuver, but that just resulted in more and more pronounced rolls, which Frank said just get worse and worse. Otherwise, the plane really didn't have a stall "break" and was pretty docile. The stall horn -- bless its heart -- apparently goes on at some ridiculously high IAS, so it's basically useless and kept switched off.

On my landing back at KRHV, I was slipping against a very light crosswind, but as the wind changed when I was close to the ground, for some reason I got into a little yaw PIO and fishtailed across the runway in a most ungainly way. I will chalk that up to my rudder legs being a bit too violent, from all these hours of working against the springs in the Flycatcher -- but that's a habit I need to lose.

Overall, Frank said he liked that I did "attitude flying," asked me who my instructor was (that would be Bob), and said the instructor did a good job! :)

I did not consider today a completed type "checkout". Frank was ready to call it a checkout if I had filled out the form, but after the fishy landing, he seemed more skeptical. Good choice, I am too. I would like at least one more lesson of intense takeoffs and landings before being happy to solo in the thing.

N162HG 1.9 Practice flight near KLVK

We've had an insane El Niño season in California, and the weather has been solid IMC for weeks and weeks. We need the water, but still. Yeesh. :)

Anyway, today was VMC so I played hookey from work and went on a practice flight.

As I did a normal takeoff from KPAO, the plane felt weird. Like, just not the usual. And I looked down and had this feeling like, omg, I'm flying in this thing -- are you quite sure that this is safe? Should this not be a job for, like, the professionals?

I motored off to the area SouthEast of KLVK and did a bunch of air work: steep turns, slow flight with and without flaps, steep turns, stalls in landing configuration. I also selected a field and road and did rectangular patterns, turns about a point, and S-turns on a road.

The air work was okay, even though my steep turns got worse as time went by. The ground reference work was passable, but the S-turns, traditionally my weakest ground reference maneuver, were sort of all over the place.

I returned to KPAO and did one normal landing, one short field takeoff, one short field landing (a bit low but passable), one soft field takeoff, and another short field landing (was sent to the higher-AGL pattern side, so my descent was a bit steeper and it worked better).

By the time I was back, things were back to normal and I was feeling like I knew how to fly planes again. But wow, man -- 5 weeks is all it took! Says something about currency.

While doing my ground reference maneuvers, I was tuned to 121.5. Someone called in going, "2TA Palo Alto Tower, can you read me?" I tried to be helpful and replied, "2TA this is Guard". They repeated what they said. I again tried to be helpful going, "2TA you are on Guard frequency, 121.5". Then someone piped in and said, "He knows, that's why he's using it!" I wasn't sure what to make of that but I figured I'd stay out of it. There were no more calls to Guard.

Usually if I were calling Palo Alto on Guard frequency, I'd say so -- which is why I thought the other pilot had forgotten to retune their radio (something I have totally done myself) and was trying to help. Oh well. Hope they got it sorted out eventually.

N162HG 1.4 Bay Tour with Rick

My father-in-law Rick was visiting, and he's an instrument rated pilot. This was my chance to show off my new-found flying skills, and give him a bit of a tour around the Bay.

We departed KPAO, flew towards KHAF, then went North, over the Golden Gate bridge, though the Oakland Class C and over the KOAK Rwy 28 numbers, and back to KPAO.

Rick enjoyed it quite a bit, and was sight-seeing the whole way. He complimented my flying!

N162HG 2.3 Flight over the coast with Alex

I have promised a flight to our son's outdoor ed instructor Alex since before I got my license. Now she's leaving to travel to South America, so we figured we'd better do it soon.

We started at 9am today at the flying club with an extensive "how airplanes fly" briefing. We talked about lift, parasite and induced drag, the power curve, balance, and stability -- the basic longitudinal dynamics of the aircraft. Starting from a set of pre-made foam model airplane wings and a cheesy arrow made out of some square dowel, cardstock fins and a weight taped to the front, we demonstrated their stability characteristics individually, then rubber banded them together to make an glider we could fly around the ramp.

I took Alex along on the pre-flight walk-around, then we buttoned in, got a pax briefing, and we were off.

We departed Left Dumbarton towards San Gregorio, then flew down and up the coast. We overflew KHAF (but did not land, due to a 10kt direct crosswind I didn't want to mess with). Instead, we flew over the Crystal Springs reservoir, down over Highway 280 almost to the Hwy 17 intersection, then back up. I called into KPAO from the intersection of Hwy 280 and Hwy 85, got a straight in, and did a normal landing. I then did one more lap around the pattern to show Alex a short field takeoff and landing, then we parked and were off.

During the flight, we did a lot of sight-seeing around the coast and the landmarks of Santa Cruz, and I performed some maneuvers to demonstrate to Alex the things we had learned about earlier. I had never done these "experiments" in such a controlled fashion before, and I developed a new-found respect for the Flycatcher. Trimmed for level flight at 95 kias, cutting power resulted in the least unsurprising thing possible -- a descent at 95 kias. Firewalling the throttle resulted in a gentle climb at -- guess what? -- 95 kias. Effing textbook! Pulling back the stick -- which as I noted was the "fast/slow" control not the "up/down" control -- slowed us down to 70 kias, and just as the power curve predicted, we climbed faster! Getting this performance of course requires that Cessna carefully design all the various and sundry second- and third-order effects to cancel out, but the result is very easily "explainable" via the first-order theory.

N162HG 3.0 Training at New Jerusalem

Training flight to brush up on my student-pilot exercises, so my skills don't rust too much. The goal was to fly to New Jerusalem Airport (1Q4) and do takeoff and landing practice, and do some air work around the area.

* Took off uneventfully from KPAO, normal departure and found 1Q4.
* Normal landing.
* Short takeoff, squirrelly.
* Short landing, had too much energy.
* Short takeoff, okay.
* Short landing, a lawn-mowing experience: approach too shallow.
* Short takeoff, forgot to raise flaps after takeoff!
* Short landing, okay.
* Short takeoff, good.
* Short landing at KPAO, okay but too much float.

I went to the area North of the field and did some ground reference maneuvers (rectangular patterns, turns around a point, and S-turns on a road). There was not much wind, so/but I did more or less okay. I did not feel as stressed-out about these as I was during my student pilot days, partly because I was far, far away from any obstacles out in the Central Valley fields, and could plan whatever approach to my patterns at will.

I then climbed and did air work.

First I did some stalls, which were uneventful. I tend to let go of the stick a bit early, just about as soon as I feel even the slightest "break" -- so they were particularly gentle. I don't really want to do overly "deep" stalls until I've gotten some experience in a Citabria with a CFI recovering from actual spins, just in case. So I think discretion is the better part of valor under the circumstances.

I then did slow flight, and was happy that I could trim the plane almost "hands off" to fly with flaps with the stall horn blaring, then do a super-gentle 360 turn in either direction.

Afterwards, I needed to orient myself to return home. I had brought my Nexus 9 tablet running Garmin Pilot, but it was not charging properly and ran out of battery. So out came my paper chart. I pointed myself at New Jerusalem, got a bearing, then at Tracy, and got another bearing, and plotted the intersection roughly, then figured out my bearing to the Altamont Pass. I pointed the nose in that direction and, lo and behold, there it was in a few minutes. Perfect!

Once home, KPAO was a zoo. There were like 8 airplanes waiting to land.

Tower asked me to do a 360 just as I was about to join the right downwind for Rwy 31, and I followed the instructions literally, right away. This sort of put me circling within the limits of the normal pattern. And indeed -- as I finished my turn, there was a Cessna sailing over my head, uncomfortably close! Mental note: Regardless of what the controller says, take responsibility for moving away from traffic! Next time, if I'm asked to do a 360 near the downwind, I'll ovalize it to move away from the downwind leg, then return with trepidation as though I were almost on a 45.

I took one shot at landing, but was asked to go around due to faster traffic behind. I got sent all the way down to the auto bridge, and all the way back to Moffett Hangar One. Finally, the controller said, "Best speed to the airport please!" I put the pedal to the metal until the last possible minute, flying at around 110 knots indicated (this is practically supersonic, to a Flycatcher), then at the last minute ditched flaps and made a short approach to a point just shy of the first taxiway, plopped it down, then turned off the runway immediately. As I turned, I could see a big twin coming down behind me....

Overall, I think this was a good "skills refresher". I only wish flying were less expensive so I could afford to do this sort of thing more often!