Today started out fine, but ended in some frustration. I bought a new motorcycle tank/tail bag to double as a flight bag for now so that I can ride, carry my flight gear, and still have room to store my motorcycle gear at the airport. That worked out well.
After a weather check and preflight, Gene and I sat in the cockpit and discussed today’s plan: emergency power out landings. The goal is to (once the engine fails) find a field or other flat area to land the plane, circle around and descend near the touchdown spot at 60 knots, and between 1000 and 1500 feet, start a short downwind, base and final to land. I thought we would do the same thing we did as when practicing power off stalls: pick an altitude and work with it. But no. More on that later.
We were in 4640B today, which I haven’t flown much. The instruments were easier to read from an angle, but the controls were different and it took some time to get used to. One most annoying thing is the radio squelch. Too low and the mics wouldn’t kick in when we spoke; too high and we hear constant hissing. The single point at which it worked properly seemed to vary throughout the flight and it became a significant distraction since Gene’s instructions would break up some times like a bad cell phone connection.
The takoff went fine, except I was told we didn’t need to make the radio call that we were going to taxi to the runway. I asked why. The response was that “it should be obvious [to the other planes what we’re going to do]”. I don’t know what he meant by obvious, so I just ignored it and taxied on.
On the climbout, Gene said, “Oops. My door opened.” I didn’t react too much to that since I had read that it’s not a big deal. Just slow down and slam it shut. Since we were only going 65 knots at the time, he was able to slam it shut. However, shortly after leveling out and hitting near 100 knots, it opened again! We were both as calm as we could be, but I slowed down to about 70 knots so he could give it another shot. That one worked, so on we went.
There were scattered clouds at about 2800 feet, and we usually work around 3000, so we had to fly around them and find a cloudless area to do our maneuvers. It was nice to see how you can tell the level of the clouds… that is, when the bottoms of the clouds are at the horizon as you’re climbing, you can read your altimeter. Simple as that. VFR rules require a certain amount of separation from the clouds, though, so I asked how you can tell how far away you are from them. “Guess” was the answer. That’s about all you can do. Seriously, though, the length of our runway is 6500 feet, so you can learn what that looks like and do some educated guessing based on that.
On to the emergency landings. As it turns out, we were not going to pick an altitude and “land” on it. Instead we were going to pick an actual landing spot and all but land on it! The first spot was an open field; perhaps 3000 feet across the north/south portion where we needed to land. Since the winds were coming from the north, we ideally needed to land heading north. I picked a spot on the south end of the field, he pulled the throttle to idle, and I turned around the spot a few times as we descended… closer and closer to the ground. He helped out a bit. It’s hard to keep up with were it is when you’re just spinning around and everything below is either a field or trees. As we got within 1000 feet of the ground, we headed south a little further, turned base, and then final approaching the field. I’d say we got to about 100 feet above the ground before declaring a probable successful landing and going full throttle.
We climbed back up and picked a couple more spots. Each time I got worse and worse. 🙁 The second time there was some misunderstanding about which spot I chose, so when he assisted me, he took me off to some other spot. The third time was at an actual grass airstrip. That probably would’ve gone better if there weren’t a large, nicely mowed lawn next to it that I thought was our target. Only until we were on final (too high and too fast) did I realize where the actual landing strip was. I also forgot the flaps. If it were real, we would’ve touched down at the end of the strip and ran into the field beyond it. Better than hitting the trees, but it would’ve been rough. At barely over the trees altitude, we went full power and climbed out.
Gene let me judge what I needed to do to get the right speed, distance, and altitude to land, but my judgement is based on very little experience. Because of that, I thought we were lower than we needed to be until we got closer, then I realized we were too high. Forgetting the flaps meant we almost stalled at one point close-ish to the ground as I made a semi-steep heading correction. Needless to say, these maneuvers caused a bit more stress than I have experienced to date. I guess heading toward the ground without a working engine will do that, though. We’ll practice more of those later. I hope to never need it, but I think it’s worth being able to get right.
On the way back to the airport, we talked a little about getting help from ATC if I get lost…err disoriented. We haven’t talked any about proper CTAF radio communications; we’ve just sort of done what needed to be done. That and the squelch setting that was acting up on the way back caused added frustration/stress since I couldn’t follow what I needed to say as we approached the airport. I feel like I should know this stuff already, but reading up on others’ experience, it’s not abnormal and it’ll become second nature with practice. I haven’t even had to talk to ATC yet… that’ll be fun. 😐
Addiing yet again to the frustration of the day was the approach. Gene instructed me to turn downwind and make the announcement. No problem. Then he told me when to throttle down, then turn base. He said he would make the call so I could concentrate on flying. The call is simple, but so much was going through my head at the time, even simple communications wasn’t working for me. Then, on base, it looked like we were going too far, so I said “shouldn’t we be turning already?” He said “Yes, we’ve gone too far already.” I said that I was sort of waiting for him to tell me when to turn, to which he replied that I should be starting to make those judgments now. Err… then why the instructions on downwind, descent, and base? Oh well. After correcting the approach, I was a little too high, but not too much. The runway is LONG, and I was only a little high. I finished the landing, but was a little agressive on pulling back for the flare. Gene corrected by pushing forward so we wouldn’t climb too far over the runway. We touched down a little fast, but it wasn’t so bad. Another fair, but still assisted, landing, but I was so irritated by all the little things from the day that I didn’t bother to enjoy it.
I think there’s a communication problem with my instructor. I need more explicit instructions, even if that instruction is “you do it”, but I’ve gotten some half-baked instructions that include my need to make judgments based on information that I don’t know. At least that’s how I feel.
My “real” job requires me to do a lot of troubleshooting and debugging. Unlike many people I deal with, I don’t like to just do something and see if that’ll fix the problem. I analyze the situation, gather information, and understand what’s going on before I start messing with stuff. I think I’m being expected to just do whatever I think I’m supposed to do before I really understand it. I don’t like that, but maybe I can give it a shot next lesson and see what happens.
The weather was fantastic for the motorcycle ride back, so I enjoyed that destressor at the end of a reasonably sucessful, but very stressful lesson. 1.1 hours more in the logbooks.