Date & Time: Tuesday, 27th May, 1997, 18:00 CDT
Where: From SPX, local flight
Instruction: 0.4 hours (ground) 1.1 hours (air) - - Total 1.5 hrs. Running logbook total: 10.1 hrs (double digits! Wayhay!)
Aircraft: Cessna 172, number N1219F
Dual Instruction with Lee Simmons.

Bump And Go, but watch the Stearman!

   We were planning to go at 7pm, but fortunately, someone before us cancelled their booking of one niner foxtrot. I got a call from Lee at work at around 5:30 pm, so I went straight to the airport. The wind was less active today - Hobby's METAR was indicating a windspeed of about 10 knots straight down the runway, with no gusting. The only trouble was a cold front which was already over Austin, but fortunately far enough away not to be a factor for this evening's flying. It's going to be nasty tomorrow, as it sweeps through to the Gulf of Mexico (or even tonight - I wouldn't be surprised if I get woken by a big thunderstorm!)
   I got the airplane fuelled, and we left for some touch and goes. With no crosswind, and a very small amount of turbulence, takeoffs were nice, and the approaches weren't too bad. However, at around 400 AGL (well, AGL is almost MSL here - SPX has an elevation of only 22 feet) turbulence would build up as the wind got deflected by ground objects such as trees. Today I could get the roundout started at just about the right place, but then I'd veer a little over the runway, and bob up! Thump! Down came the mains as I dropped it from a few feet. Fortunately none of them were particularly hard, but there were no greasers, either. My trouble is either pulling back too quickly and ballooning up, or not pulling up quickly enough, but just enough to get us level and bumping down onto the runway. The words "it's an energy management problem" that I read somewhere on Usenet kept floating around. Sure, I can get rid of the energy...but not very smoothly yet! We did about four of these, and went for a break, heading up to about 3,500 feet just over Galveston Bay to cool off.
   Touch and goes make you hot! It was in the high 80's, and not going above the pattern altitude of 1,000 feet means it's still hot and humid. At 3,500 feet with the vents turned at your face, it's much more comfortable (it was around 75 degrees F over the water at that altitude). We watched an aerobatic airplane out over to our right just a few miles away practising hammerheads (we made sure we were well out of his way). It's quite something watching aerobats from aloft - a much different perspective than the normal airshow! We also turned the OBS knobs on the two OBS displays to demonstrate VOR radials. I'm used to this from Flight Simulator, so I could tell Lee straight off where we were going.
   We then headed back towards the airport for a couple more touch and goes. As we came back, I suffered major distraction! A bright yellow Stearman biplane was partway on his crosswind as we entered the pattern midfield. By the time we were abeam of the numbers, it was really quite obvious he was catching up on us, but he was staying to the left of us. Whilst I was watching this, I forgot all about reducing the power and getting the carb heat in - and I got a gentle reminder from Lee to do so. The Stearman announced that he was going for a short final, so we went on a slightly longer pattern than usual. I did the normal procedures - get the speed down, flaps - 10 degrees, hold 65 knots, turn left to base... but I was still wary of where that Stearman was. He was just about to touch down as it was time for me to turn. I watched him a bit too long and my airspeed had got up a bit. I didn't quite come around quickly enough, and I had an uncomfortable feeling of being behind the airplane! In my efforts to keep track of the Stearman and look for any other traffic coming in, I'd missed the small detail of actually flying the airplane and I was high and hot! That'll teach me. I pulled the power to idle and put the flaps down another 10 degrees, and we glided in. I needed a lot of forward yoke pressure to keep the airspeed at 65, then I realised I'd forgotten to trim in my eagerness to watch the Stearman. I rolled in the trim at about 400 feet. A bit of turbulence took me by surprise and I thumped it down on the mains. Lee asked me if I wanted to go round again - I said 'yes' - I thought I'd have one more try to get it right. This time I came in with a beatiful final approach, and started the flare at the right time, but didn't come back quite far enough on the yoke so we touched down before the stall horn started sounding. However, I didn't thump it down this time, but it was not quite a greaser!

Conclusion.
   Well, I'm starting to get the hang of it - no bounces this time! Flaring is what really needs the most attention. Lee gave me a good morale boost - he told me that I'm one of the better students he's had for landings - I've not wheelbarrowed it (landed on the nosewheel) or scared him to death! I'm sure the Flight Simulator practise I did helped with getting the approach right, but it's difficult to judge flare in Flight Simulator - but it's at least possible to practise landing it with no wheelbarrowing or excessively hard touch downs.
   Oh yes - get the "I Learned About Flying From That" books from Flying magazine (available in your local bookshop - there are 3 of them) - you can learn about all sorts of interesting errors people have made...and avoid them yourselves! There's quite a few landing ones in there. The third one has a very enlightening story about someone who decided to re-write the book on landing Cessnas, and ended up balancing one on its spinner!

What I learned.
   Keep pulling back on the yoke, like you want to stall it (well, this is what you want to do, in fact). Just keep coming...I thought I had it made, and stopped pulling...thump!
   Try not to get behind the airplane. It feels pretty uncomfortable and it really makes your approach so much harder...and then after concentrating so hard to catch up with the airplane on approach, your jangling nerves will help you to flare badly!
   Rules for landing:
1. Keep the airplane pointed straight.
2. Never land sideways.
3. Never land on the nosewheel!

Date & Time: Saturday, 31st May, 1997, 14:00 CDT
Where: From SPX, local flight
Instruction: 0.5 hours (ground) 1.0 hours (air) - - Total 1.5 hrs. Running logbook total: 11.1 hrs
Aircraft: Cessna 172, number N1219F
Dual Instruction with Lee Simmons.

Nearly a greaser!

   Well, today was off for more touch and goes. We did a solid hour of nothing but touch and goes...and it's hard work! The wind decided to change direction and favor Runway 31 today, which is quite rare (only the second time I've gone off 31). Despite the nice weather, the pattern was fairly empty - the ramp was pretty empty too - at least half the aircraft had gone, it seemed.
   I did the usual preflight, then the runup from the seemingly unusual position at Rwy 31...then took off. Over the trees off the end of the runway, the air got much more turbulent, but as we climbed out the air smoothed off a little - but not much! At pattern altitude the air was still quite rough. I thought I had it on the first landing! I made a nice approach, got the flare started at the right time, and the wheels touched down smoothly with what I thought was a nice greaser. However, all I could hear through my headset was "come on..don't give up now, keep it coming - look" at which point Lee eased the wheel back a little and we became airborne. I had touched down, and was just flying with the wheels on the ground! The second time around, I managed a full stall landing, but from too high, and we thumped down - but even so, not too bad. All the others were a combination of this, plus a couple of bouncers (I was sure we were headed straight for the grass on one occasion - I needed a whole lot of rudder to make the airplane even think of going straight - my problem was that I ran out of energy a few feet above the runway and got "slam dunked" onto the ground).
   My final landing started off really well - a good flare, and I kept the airplane flying level just above the ground. Then it all went to pieces just before touchdown - I lifted up just a little bit, then thump! Well, better luck next time!
   After all that I was pretty tired and hungry, so after taxiing in, I handed the keys to the next person flying the airplane, and went for a burger with my instructor to help digest todays lesson. Touch and goes need quite a lot of concentration because your'e in the pattern all the time (looking for traffic, ground reference, altitude), and then trying to land. Before I went, I heard another instructor talking to his student - "anyone can fly a plane, but landing is another thing". I can heartily agree!

Conclusion.
   If at first you don't succeed...try again! Although it's tiring to do touch and goes hours on end, they are far from mundane, and practice will inevitably get me good at it. I feel I'm not doing too badly either...Lee told me that after the first couple he was thinking "he's getting good at this pretty quickly" - well, until my horrendous bouncer of course! I know I have it in me because I've done a couple of pretty reasonable landings today - I just need to keep practising until I can consistently get the flare right.
   Just before leaving, Lee gave me something else. The pre-solo written! So it won't be long before I get that "let me out over there, and go round three times on your own"...

What was learned.
   You really need a good final for a good landing. I made a rather short final one time, and paid for it by a bouncer because I didn't have enough time to get everything settled on final.
   Lee did a couple of landings to demonstrate the flare techniques, and I could look out the side a little like you need to to judge the flare to demonstrate what it should look like. The biggest difficulty I have when I do it is doing just that - looking out the side a bit. My cool, "eagle-like" analytical part of my mind tells me to do it, but my "chicken" part of my mind yells "arrrrgghhh! you can't see what's coming" and somehow overrides that, and we balloon up, or don't come back far enough on the yoke and thump! I described this to Lee and he said that's how everyone feels, and it just takes time and practice to overcome it.

Date & Time: Sunday, 1st June, 1997, 15:00 CDT
Where: From SPX, local flight
Instruction: 0.4 hours (ground) 1.1 hours (air) - - Total 1.5 hrs. Running logbook total: 12.2 hrs
Aircraft: Cessna 172, number N1219F
Dual Instruction with Lee Simmons.

What's Wrong With The Centerline?

   Today consisted of another session of touch and goes. It was good weather for it too - not much wind (or so it seemed), and clear blue skies. Once again, we were going off runway 31 - what little wind there was seemed to favor it. I was expecting the pattern to be jam packed with the nice weather, but there were only a few aircraft flying around (the ramp was empty again). Lee said that pilots tend to go out in awful weather then just complain about it! (I suppose on a day like this, to those of us who are not free and single, yard work beckons...)
   We went around the pattern a few times, and as I did the touch and goes, my flare seemed to get better. However, I have this habit of landing to the right of the runway centerline as if I'm going to drive down a road. Lee kept telling me about how to use the rudder to keep the nose pointed straight (paralell or down the centerline) and use ailerons to move left and right if I was not satisfied with the position. I had heard this a few times before - my mind knew it but something kept overriding my desire to do it. After a few bumpy touch and goes, and a couple of low passes to demonstrate the use of cross-controls (rudder depressed to the right, with the airplane banked left to track the runway centerline), we needed a break, and so I flew out to the east over Galveston bay. Once we got here, we did some Dutch rolls to help the aileron/rudder coordination to keep pointed at a target on the horizon (the big Holiday Inn on Galveston Island was a good target), and then headed back in to try some more touch and goes. The first one I did back in was a greaser! However, I was right of the centerline again. We went around one last time. This time I got more rudder in, and it was looking good. The runway came up to meet us. I flared the airplane, and it looked like it was going to be the best one yet. However, it all went to pieces just before touch down - part way through the flare I let the wings level, and we headed off towards the grass! At that point I nearly firewalled the throttle to go around (my thumb was just depressing the button on the throttle to allow it to slide home), but Lee just put in the aileron I should have done, and we went back towards the centerline (with a few terse words coming through my headset "use full aileron if you have to - there's nothing wrong with running along on one wheel").

Conclusion.
   It's coming...slowly. Fortunately, I had a couple of smooth touch downs, and I managed to put in enough rudder at the end to ward off the feeling of frustration. Next time, Lee said we would try it where he would take the rudder, and I would take the aileron so I could see what was needed without having to worry about the other controls. Then we would change over, and hopefully I would get a better feel of just how much input is needed on each one to keep things going how I want them. I'm determined to get it down good next time!

What was learned.
   Effective rudder control! Also, don't believe the wind on the ground. There was nearly no wind when we left, but there was enough there - and it ended up being perpendicular to the runway - to push me off course and nearly into the grass if I wasn't careful.
   I watched a couple of people go round the pattern whilst I was waiting for Lee to finish with his last student before me. Somebody had the club's Musketeer out, and I watched him come into land. He seemed to have it right, but landed a little hard and bounced. He then made a good descision to go around since he had balloned up about 5 feet. If things go pear-shaped on landing for me, I will do the same - it seems a wise descision.