N188EV 2.0 Practice flight

We've been having a YUUGE amount of rain here in California lately, so it hasn't been flying weather. Today, though, it was nice. I rode my bike out to the airport, picking up some banh mi from the local Vietnamese place on the way.

I took off from KRHV with a downwind departure, flew around doing some air work, did 4 landings at E16, did a bit more air work, then came back. Pretty simple.

Of course I felt very "wobbly" at first -- as I usually do. I did some steep turns and was barely within PTS standards, and felt pretty weird doing stalls and slow flight. But eventually I got more confident and things got better.

E16 was pretty busy with people practicing, but it was not too bad.

On my way back my steep turns were much better and I was much more confident.

N712MF 1.3 closed traffic at KRHV

Today I did some closed pattern work just to get my landings straight. After talking with CFI friends, I had three tips to try out:

• Put a piece of tape on the canopy to mark "straight ahead";
• After a stabilized approach, pull power to idle SLOWLY so I can keep up with the compensation required; and
• Don't bother using full flaps on the SportStar -- that's like dragging a barn door and does not add lift, so does not appreciably reduce landing speed.

7 takeoffs, 1 of them soft field (went okay, could be more precise on "hovering" closer to the ground) and 2 short field (also went okay, could be more precise on speeds but acceptable).

1 go-around requested by tower. I was asked to follow a Cessna on final. I followed a very similar Cessna, also on final, that I later realized was actually on the parallel runway! I ended up following my actual #1 traffic too close and was asked to go around.

7 landings (isn't it nice that it's the same as the number of takeoffs?), 3 of them attempts at short field. The short ones were mixed: 1 was really good, and the other 2 were iffy (landed too long). For all my landings, however, I had a good flare, with good control over my flare height, and they were all full-stall landings in the proper nose-high attitude.

The tape on the canopy was really helpful. Here is what I did:

1. During preflight, sighted down from the tail to figure out what was directly ahead of the plane;
2. When inside, with my head at my comfortable position, closed my left eye and lined up the tape with the "straight ahead" object with my right eye;
3. With both eyes open, and focused far away, I could see two images of the tape -- and the LEFT image, which is the one seen by my RIGHT eye, was my aiming point.

This really helped with taxi, but also with runway alignment during takeoff and landing.

N712MF 1.7 Melissa to KHAF

Took Melissa out today. The plan was to go to KHAF.

Melissa  helped me by reading out my preflight as I did it, and remarked on how much work it was. :) We had enough fuel in the plane so we skipped the fueling part, which got us out of there quicker.

Outbound, asked for a KSJC transition. All was as expected, and we were off via the OSI VOR down to the coast, and then to KHAF.

The approach to KHAF was very, very bumpy. OMG.

My first pattern was way offset to the left, so I went around. But wow I was like going almost sideways -- so. much. wind.

My second time around, I was lined up. Crabbing on final, flaps on the second notch, not full flaps. Turned the crab into a forward slip. All went well.

I was on top of the runway, cut power, and started settling. But (a) I failed to put the nose down then arrest the descent with a flare; and (b) the wind died down near the surface so I started sliding sideways and failed to relieve the slip to compensate. Result: I slammed down on one gear leg.

Melissa was filming with her phone; her phone fell into her lap and she squawked!

I took off again, doing a pretty good crosswind takeoff, but there were already too many planes buzzing around the airport. With the high traffic, the bumpy air, the crosswind, and being rattled from my bumpy landing, I decided to call it a day before something really bad happened.

On the way home, we went via the Crystal Springs reservoir and again asked for a KSJC transition. At some point I thought they were telling *me* to reverse course and go via Hwy 85 to Hwy 280, so I did a 360 while we figured things out and I sort of spluttered on the radio. Embarrassing, maybe, but  I did do the safe thing, and they just clarified I was cleared to cross KSJC midfield.

Coming into KRHV, I had to slip to get to pattern altitude in time -- better planning would have helped, but it was no big issue.

My landing into KRHV was a greaser. :)

Braking was hard -- I keep fishtailing in hard braking due to the differential brakes on the SportStars. I made it off the runway and was told by Tower to taxi, which was sort of unexpected so I kept barrelling on and forgot to do my post-landing checklist. Which meant I was, for the first bit, taxiing with flaps.

As I taxied, I blazed past Battelle Rachmian, one of the AeroDynamic Aviation CFIs, who must have noticed me taxiing with flaps down but bless her soul, later at the FBO, she didn't say anything. She was sitting on the ground -- at first, Melissa and I were like, who is this random person? She motioned towards her handheld radio -- she was solo-ing a student.

Overall, things went well, but I need to figure this out:

1. In the SportStars, full flaps is like flying with a barn door sideways. What is my procedure for using them, if any? If I do it too late in the approach, I de-stabilize myself. If I do it too early, I end up coming in with really high power dragging a barn door behind me, which doesn't feel right.

2. Cutting power and rounding out. I have had trouble with this since the days of the Flycatcher. I need to learn to cut power slowly, starting earlier, and to compensate by dropping the nose (keeping the speed at target) then flaring when near the ground. Alternatively I need to figure out some other trajectory where I maybe come in high, then cut power when the field is made and have a stabilized descent all the way to the ground. Whatever I do, I need to have a more consistent procedure for this.

N188EV 1.4 flight with Aden

Flight from KRHV down South over the valley then curving East towards the San Luis Reservoir, then back again. Sight seeing and hanging out. Not eventful but fun!

N712MF 2.2 Flight over the coast with Melissa

This was my first passenger flight in a long, long time.We went South towards E16, turned West towards Watsonville, and flew up the coast to the Pigeon Point lighthouse. Melissa saw a pod of whales breaching! (We observed them from the safe 2000'-plus altitude over the ocean as required by the fact that this section of coastal sea is a national wildlife preserve.)

On our way back we passed over Bonny Doon airport (a private airfield tucked away in the mountains Northeast of Santa Cruz), then returned to KRHV via E16.

In this flight I tried a couple of things -- some okay, some which I could have done better.

I wanted to experience flying higher, so I climbed to 8500' on the Westbound leg and 7500' when coming back Eastbound (East is odd, West is even odder). The altitude on the return leg was also due to the fact that we flew over the mountains, so I wanted to give myself the glide range to get to the Watsonville lowlands or to the valley around Gilroy should my engine fail.

This meant that I crossed the approach corridor of the KSJC Rwy 30 approach at a rather high altitude, so I was not below all the heavy traffic. But I was aware of that, made sure to squawk VFR and listen to Norcal Approach, and watched for traffic very carefully. At one time I heard myself mentioned, but that was when they were talking to a parachute drop over San Martin (E16). I think I did fine, but next time I'm just going to save myself the workload and maybe cross lower. And maybe also next time I'll get actual flight following if I want to do this; it would add an extra margin of safety.

Another thing is that I wanted to experience the effect of a glide from high altitude both as an aerodynamic curiosity but also to get an intuitive feel for how far the plane can glide, for future reference when (not if! -- we who fly reciprocating engines are destined to become glider pilots some day!) my engine fails. I did not do any formal measurements. But at idle throttle, near the best glide speed, from 8500' over the hills just East of E16, I could have glided all the way to the coastline with a bit of altitude to spare -- I stopped at around 2500' for safe ground clearance and in anticipation of staying clear of the wildlife preserve floor.

What I did not do (and was pointed out to me by the admin dude at AeroDynamic, who's also a pilot) is that I should have "cleared" the engine with a burst of throttle every little while to keep it from sputtering on me. Point noted. I do remember that my CFIs would always do that for me when practicing engine-out ops.

I practiced some steep turns while watching the whales, and got just a tiny little bit better at them, though I'm still not fully happy with how I'm doing and I need to practice more. I long for the day when I can turn (steeply or otherwise) and maintain altitude just visually, without having to watch my VSI.

My landing could have been better. The sight picture of the SportStar is different from the Flycatcher -- the panel and cowling are much more curved on top, so it's harder to nail down a "straight ahead" direction. So I was practicing keeping the nose straight, and there was a slight crosswind, and I was too focused on straightening the nose and forgot to dip my upwind wing, and I ended up being blown sideways and getting a bit of the wiggles. We walked away, and the airplane could even be used again, so no disaster -- but it just highlights that I need to work on this more.

N712MF 1.5 Solo pattern work

This was 8 landings, closed pattern around KRHV, and my first solo in a long time. I just wanted to get comfortable with the idea of (omg!!) flying a plane again! At the beginning I was noticeably nervous, but by the end, I was like, yeah, I got this. Even I can fly planes! Yay aviation!

I am trying to stick with N712MF (rather than alternating with N188EV) because, even though they are the same make/model, they have subtly different instruments. Probably not a huge deal, but I figure at my current experience level, learning to fly Just. One. Plane. with everything exactly the same from flight to flight could not hurt.

N712MF 1.5 Irene

More practice, same as before. Irene was hoping a more established club CFI would give me the final SportStar checkout, but unfortunately that CFI was not available for like 20 days in the future! Fortunately enough folks were around hangar flying that the relevant authorities could be consulted and figured out that, yeah, go ahead and check him out. So I am now good to fly the SportStars! Woot!