Yet Another Learning To Fly Thread

[TheAnimus]

Check Ride, it’s an odd phrase but I guess Americans wouldn’t use a phrase like Practical Test, after passing my written it’s time for one of the other instructors to take me up and make sure that I’m progressing properly. We fly off and I get to demonstrate my turns around a point, S turns, steep turns, straight and level, foggled flight, power on and power off stalls. It is really quite tiring to do everything straight after each other.

This other instructor is a fair bit older, not quite the flying octogenarian member like the schools founder, but has definitely seen it all before. He starts telling me I’m fighting the craft too much rather than gently leading it I’m squeezing the controls so hard the yoke might crack. Ultimately I score a pass mark and we return home for a rather piss poor landing, there is a cross wind, but it’s about 7knots so I’ve really not got an excuse. The instructor calmly takes over and comments that its quite normal for someone of my experience to have problems with a landing in anything other than perfect conditions. Crap there was me thinking my landings were getting better.

On the ground its back to the books to get ready for the next stage exam, this times its meteorology and FAA regulations. This is incredibly boring stuff, you have to really want to fly to bother to read this. I keep reading for about 5 hours. I’m sat out on some garden furniture besides the airfield offices reading, the disarming friendly nature of the natives provides some welcome relief from the constant study. A local who is learning to fly here comes up to say hi, upon her discovery that I’m only here for three weeks doing non-stop flying and study she looks at me as if I should be institutionalised for my crazy, and says as much in the typically American blunt fashion.

Then the monotony is broken up with some good news, one of the girls who had been having some issues with her landings is finally solo’ing. One of her house mates cycles down towards the main runway with a video camera to try and take some footage for her parents. She flys circuit, doing a quick landing but taking off immediately after getting all wheels firmly on the ground, then as its left hand rule she flys over where we’re standing and tries again, and again.
It’s a great atmosphere in a smaller school like this one when something like that happens, it’s also Friday and some of us decide it’s a good excuse for a little party, 4 of us pile into a car and head to the supermarket for supplies. You’d have thought that given the different ages and years of life experience the fact a fair few of us are good cooks we’d have come up with something better than pasta, tomato based sauce and white fish, but hey, we’re learning to fly and things are basic.

The thing is not only is it great fun being in an environment like this but it also reminds me that if it takes 40 hours or if it takes 15, the school will get me there.

[TheAnimus]

A heavy nights drinking when you’re flying the next morning is 5 bottles of beer. As I’m pre-flighting the plane the piercing heat and ghusting wind are already starting to get on my nerves, if it’s not the mosquitos it’s the humidity and when it’s not the humidity it’s the turn of the static heat, Florida I would not recommend in April.

We take to the sky in a rather well executed take off, which given I had the controls and there was a cross wind takes us both by surprise. After I’d hit rotate speed I felt the pressure difference on the yolk and turned the aileron into the cross wind without even thinking about it, the yaw compensated by my legs again automatically. It was rather tidy and I’m quite happy with it.

We practice the basic turning manoeuvres and they are rather good, the strange thing about these manoeuvres is no two are ever the same, the pockets of air pressure, the wind and the angle/speed you come into them always have significant changes later on, the effect of the entry speed can still be felt on a turn about a point easily into the second or third rotation. There are just so many variables you can’t keep thinking about them each in turn you have to instinctively make tiny corrections many times a second. As such for me its Practice Practice Practice.

Next up its navigation, I’d already been using the GPS a little bit, but we’re going to be using something a bit more old school, VOR or Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range. Radio beacons placed strategically on the ground that you can get a fairly accurate bearing from (the operation of these is quite simple and worth reading on wiki if you’re a geek). This is quite simple really, the trick is just to remember from and to as obviously you’ll be 180 degrees out, but even the simplest task can be made more complex by having to fly a plane at the same time, we practice some bearings and then on go the foggles again. My instructor is simulating a vacuum instrument failure removing the Direction Indicator and the Attitude Indicator with some little black pads so I can’t use them. I can of course use the compass and the VOR to replicate the DI, the Turn Coordinator and the Vertical Speed Indicator / Altimeter for the AI. All is well.
We fly back to CGC for a truly abysmal approach by me and get some ridiculously oversized lunch.

I can see why so many people here just eat two meals a day, a massive late lunch and a small dinner.

Because my progress has been acceptable it’s on to my first night flight, I’m actually really looking forward to this. I’ve always loved looking out of the window of a plane when landing at sunset, so the idea of some circuit training at sunset is very appealing. We kill a few hours talking about random crap until it starts to get dark. I pre-flight our plane before we run out of light completely and the instructor starts to lock up the airfield, it’s rather quaint. There isn’t anyone else for miles but I make all the radio calls ad nauseum, practice is practice.

First off it’s a short field take off, these are quite fun but you really have to stamp on the breaks to stop the plane moving when your throttling up. The power lurches us forwards and it’s a great game to keep her straight on the centre line, we take off from runway 27, heading due West in to the setting sun. Part of me wants to start humming a theme from a cowboy film or at least the Indiana Jones theme.

It is so peaceful at this time, the water bellow reflecting the red settings sun glow as it weaves between the islands creating an amazing vista of the bayou in front of me. 500ft time to turn crosswind, speaking of crosswind the only wind present is at most 2knots, so calm, running straight down the runway, perfect conditions. It would have been a perfect romantic moment between myself and Kilo Sierra if it were not for the instructor burping, can’t wait for solo time. We fly downwind, I slip the carb heat on, throttle back, flaps down, pitch and trim down. Everything feels quite effortless in this weather environment. I turn base.

Below me is a metallised ribbon of blackness, with only the airfield beacon giving the game away. I key the mic five times. Two bright strobes come on immediately, followed by the runway lights slowly warming up, an L shaped field marked out in soft blue springs to life for the taxi way. It is really quite a site to see, and something I’d been looking forward to for some time. I turn final, I’d been keeping a constant 65knots for glide speed, a 500ft per min descent rate and I’m now lined up right on the numbers. I’m keeping slightly high of the glide path as shown by the VASI because it’s always easier to loose height than gain it, plus with the darkness and the landinglight been lost in the trees that come before the runway I just prefer it, I throttle back a tiny amount.

I glide straight down on to the numbers for the first time ever, the flare I started a fraction early so we almost immediately drop the 10ft as I bleed off the airspeed too fast. Throttle to max, carb heat off, flaps up, wait for rotate speed and off to try again, I feel relaxed the heat of the day has passed and everything is finally orchestrated together, the music sounds good.

We try fly circuit again, and again, my ultra-relaxed British RP accent is gracing the airways, on a clear night like tonight we can hear two other fields on MULTICOM, the radio calls are coming automatically, admit a flurry of other operations. After take-off I have to wait for a safe altitude before I can turn crosswind (or first left 90 degree turn after take off) before watching all the instruments (speed, VSI, altitude) had been quite hard, especially whilst keeping a good look out. Now it comes as freely and predictably as a Beethoven Allegretto, every note just falling on time with that sense that you need to play the note at the exact moment otherwise the feeling will be lost forever.

As he asks me to climb to 1,000 on the downwind (running parallel to the runway) my instructor pulls the plug on my music. Engine failure time. It’s almost like a panic, a frenzy the notes are been played in the wrong order and the direction of the piece is lost. I turn sharply towards runway 27, to sharply, I won’t give myself time to turn finals whilst keeping glide speed, I turn sharply and get to try another slip landing, I don’t go far enough into the slip and I’m crossing the boundary fence about 300ft too high, the instructor takes over and shows me quite how far into the slip, and how pitched forward you need to go to bleed off the height whilst not picking up the speed.

We do a touch and go before trying again, this time I turn properly, giving myself time to gracefully line up with the runway. We then practice some softfield landings before calling it a night.

[MadduckUK]

oh god, TheAnimus is channeling Moby

duck and cover!

[Rave]

Mind if I ask how much this is costing? I've got 5 grand sat in a cash ISA right now but I remain very paranoid that it'll be rapidly inflated away....

[TeePee]

I seem to remember spending about 5G when I went through this. That octogenarian was my instructor! Night flying is so much fun. After days of bumping around in the Florida thermals, at night they all go away. You can loose the sensation of flying and it just feels like floating.

[alpha channel]

I've been thoroughly enjoying this , love to learn myself (though helicopter more than fixed wing).

[handscombmp]

I've been thoroughly enjoying this , love to learn myself (though helicopter more than fixed wing).

Helicopters only fly because they're so ugly the ground repels them.


TheAnimus have you done any flying yet in a tower controlled airspace. If not i'd try and do some as soon as possible as it seems very odd at first i remember. (Mainly because i kept messing up what i was trying to say )

[TheAnimus]

Mind if I ask how much this is costing? I've got 5 grand sat in a cash ISA right now but I remain very paranoid that it'll be rapidly inflated away....

Well it would do it, but be warned getting the license is just the first step. You might also find you need more, one person here had to spend an extra 20+ hours of dual, or almost another £2k....

Then the fact is you might actually like it and want to go commercial.....

TheAnimus have you done any flying yet in a tower controlled airspace. If not i'd try and do some as soon as possible as it seems very odd at first i remember. (Mainly because i kept messing up what i was trying to say )

Yup did some towered work this morning, damned confusing at times....

[TheAnimus]

Well its Easter so things are a little quieter, I’m down for an hour with a different instructor to practice take-off and landing (short field and soft field (grass!)). This time its 08H and I’m beginning to get a feel for her, there is quite a strong cross wind from 040, and I decide to use runway niner. I line up for a short field, I always like these, the power required to stomp on the breaks never ceases to amaze me. We build RPM at the end of the runway, waiting for the propeller to be spinning as fast as possible, and then it’s off with the breaks and try and hold her steady down the centre line.

The feeling is kind of like that moment removing a Champaign Cork, we lurge gracelessly to 40 knotts in no real space, the airspeed indicator becomes active and climbs slowly to the magic 60 knotts, I can stop pushing forward and instead pull fully back. I hold Vx the best angle of climb simulating an obstacle at the end of the runway before joining circuit and trying again for a landing. There is quite a crosswind, but I get the power level just right to allow for a nice finals line-up on niner despite the cross wind. I hold the glide path rather well, before holding level with the runway, I flare and BUMP we drop 10ft vertically straight down, we bounce once, twice, before the energy has left us on the third bump. Think skimming a stone across a still lake, only the stone has wheels that take the shock out, if I’d been aiming for that it might have been impressive…. Oh well.

We try again with a couple more landings but there is little real improvement, I think the instructor is bored as he takes me off for some power off / on stalls.

After the lesson I’m a bit bored, my situation is reversed from a week ago, when my practical flying was ahead of my ground work, now I really need to work on the last 5 seconds of my landings, as whilst they are all safe for me, they are not the plane.

I decide to go see what the night life is like in Crystal River with another student, we head out at about eight, after walking for half an hour we find a biker themed bar, and go in for some piss water that the yanks call beer. In bar life I have a rule, If the bar maid is the most attractive girl in the joint and you didn’t pay £15 to get in, then it’s not a strip club and obviously then it’s a sorry state of affairs with very slim pickings, this bar definitely fell into the later. I could have started many a fight by simply suggesting that free medical care for all is a required service for a compassionate nation which loves its citizens. Thanks to the piss weak beer I thought better of that. After three not-pints-but-called-that sized cups of amber rats piss it turns out this pool bar for hard ass bikers is closing, it is after all 22:00, we meander back to the airfield to find none of the fast food joints open. Pfft.

It’s my birthday soon and I’m missing my friends who actually know how to throw a party, or at the very least understand what a bar should be. It’s not a great place when you’ve time on your hands.

[TeePee]

If you need night life, head down to Tampa. It's a looong drive, but you'll find some decent places. Crystal River is a daytime place, great for floating down the river, or the beach, or stuff like that.

Don't worry too much about the landings. That's one of those things which gets everyone. In another lesson or two it will just start working!

[Kata]

I saw a turtle at Crystal River.

Fly to Cedar Key, although I assume you must have already, it's so close.

[TheAnimus]

Cedar Key, not yet, only to Gainsville.

[g8ina]

Certainly sounds like yer having fun there Better than jumping off a roof anyway....

As a side thought, have you ever read any Richard Bach books - Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Illusions etc. He was a barnstorming pilot in the USA midwest and used to drop on a field near a town and give rides... Great philosophical works those books...

Looking forward to next installments.

[stevie lee]

are you still learning to fly then, last thing you said was that you headed to a biker bar, you've not decided to become a hells angel instead have you?

and i take it your landings are now a bit 'steadier' than this one http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13286479.


looking forward to your next post.

[TheAnimus]

Ah I need to make some posts don't I, things became a bit busy the last few days.

But I made it after 19 days and some good weather, so I now have a FAA PPL

[GAteKeeper]

Grats dude!!

GK