This would really fall under the flying by the seat of your pants. A Canadian aviation piece of history replicated and actually flown. The pilot said he wasn’t nervous, I can imagine, he only got several meters off the ground. I fly an old 30 odd year old plane but its so much more sophisticated then a collection of twigs and an engine, amazing!!
Well the General Flying Progress Test is fast upon me, I was hoping to book it last week but for this that and the other I didn’t quite get round to it. I have been reviewing theory and flying in front of my Cessna 152 cockpit poster, that’s been getting a bit boring though. More then likely I’ll wing it and see how I go, although that being said I am resolved to pass it first time round. I’ll keep this posted.
So my passenger brief was always fragmented, I always mixed in a few jokes but I’ve now decided to sit down and write one properly.
Thank you for flying Air Australia. Today we will be flying a Cessna 152 with four seats and two doors. Doors are opened via this latch and windows are opened using this lever, once inside simply pull firmly to close the door.
This is a no smoking flight, please ensure your seat belts are on and latched at all times, please also switch off your mobile phone as it can interfere with the equipment on board.
Your seat belts latch together like this with the harness over your shoulder latching with the buckle. Pull the seat belt ever up for quick release. Seat belts can be adjusted by pulling the slack.
Cabin heat/air controls are here and here, intake vents are here and here. Comfort bags are located behind the seat. Your headset is worn like this, there are volume controls on either side that can be adjusted.
Please refrain from touching any controls during the flight, I am happy to assist if you have any questions. Please keep a lookout and alert me to other aircraft.
I’ll work on this as I go as I might end up shortening it.
Its getting towards the end of January, I have flown a number of hours doing some drill work in preparation for the flight test. Most things are pretty easy to remember but because so many things are happening up there you can get out of sequence easy so its lots of practice and also a large degree of kicking yourself every time you for get the simplest of things.
I am a bit of a lead foot when it comes to rudder control, I need to get the hang of going light on the controls, I tend to yaw the aircraft about a bit too much, practice and more practice. Not terribly concerned about this.
The main thing I am trying to nail is forced landings, selecting an appropriate field is the most challenging for me, procedures are fine once I get the hang of the selection process. I think I am a bit too fussy as I generally want a field that is absolutely perfect, however the flip side is tat failing to find one in time means you run out of time to do all the other checks.
This was my final area solo as part of the training syllabus, because my last solo’s were adhoc in the fact that I flew them at varying time intervals my final amount of time was a very small window. If you go past your amount of time and you are still in the air you get into a bit of trouble as its really illigal to fly solo beyond the amount specified, which I think its about 4 hours.
So if all goes well thats enough time to get up fly around and come home, not much can be done in that time span but you have to do it in order to continue.
Now when I got to the airport the fuel dipstick was missing, this is a stick with notches indication how full the fuel tank is. You “dip the tanks” to confirm how much fuel you need to add, the plans have fuel gauges but we dip the tanks as a safety procedure, the fuel gauges might not be working after all.
Anyway the fuel dip sticks are specific to each aircraft, even if you have two Cessna planes with the same model you might find one has been modified, you never know without looking it up. Anyway spent over an hour looking for it but yeh invisible. I had a sneaky suspicion it was on the runway but then again someone should have already reported it.
Because my flight was only short we consulted some paperwork and made a temporary dipstick from an old axe handle and I did the deed and filled her up, you can never be too careful. The owner of the flying school was a little annoyed about the fact that it was missing and that the previous instructor and student left without finding it, understandable.
So did my checks started her up and taxied out, sure enough I saw the dip stick on the ground at a siding close to where the grass meets the taxiway on the tar. I radioed the tower and the conversation went something like this:
Me: Jandakot Tower, Sighted fuel dipstick on taxiway, Missing from Air Australia Cessna 152, Alpha Oscar Hotel
Tower: Alpha Oscar Hotel please confirm if this obstical presents any danger to ground traffic.
Me: No risk to traffic Alpha Oscar Hotel
Tower: Alpha Oscar Hotel
I went up did my fly around to the training area then noticed my time was almost done, full throttle back to the airport and landed with not much to spare. When I got back they had already retrieved the dip stick and all was well. Next will be my check flight and then its time for the GFPT!!!
Last month was pretty busy, busier then most no doubt being Christmas and all last bit of 2008 and all that however I finally decided to go in and get the aeronautical theory exam out of the way. I’ve been studying the book for about six months and even though that does seem a bit of time they do throw in a few curly questions.
I was there for about 3 hours with a notepad, workbook and the sheet of questions. I went through skipping the questions I needed to give a bit of thought to and completed all the easy ones. There were about 5 there that had me thinking a bit specifically with regards to take off charts and aircraft weight systems.
Finished up with extra time to make some adjustments and after about 10 min checking over my score I was awarded a PASS!!! Next step is completing my last area solo then I am well on my way to doing the practical flight examination.
A quick check with my instructor and after listening to the weather I got my approval to fly out, a little amount of crosswind taking off from 24 Right but I was pretty confidant. Filled up with 20 liters of AVGAS totalling 80, 40 in each wing giving me roughly 3 hours of flight time with enough reserve to get me out of trouble.
I am really trying to build up hours here however I was looking at an hour trip as I started late and my rating requires that I be safely on the ground 10 min prior to sun down. After PPL I will do the Night VFR rating as its handy to have as if you misjudge and in a plane that is not equipped for night flight, without practice/training you might as well put on a blindfold and hope for the best.
Initial checks, run up checks then after obtaining take off clearance I was up in the sky heading for the training area. After entering the training area I took a quick low altitude fly over the prison, I then imagined a forced landing scenario and thinking the prison might not be a bad place to ditch in an emergency, however scene flashes of “Big Stan” put that idea out of my head real quick.
My instructor was going to be out in the training area with another student so he told me to listen out for his radio call. Sure enough over perth radar frequency (135.25) I heard “Alpha Oscar Hotel switch over to company frequency” then after a bit of chit chat, hows the weather, done your hasel checks etc etc we parted radio company and I switched back over to perth radar.
After conducting HASEL checks I then did a series of stall maneuvers, first non powered stall, carb heat hot, throttle idle and hold the nose steady increasing back pressure on the control column until the aircraft reached its stall angel, at the stall horn warning a slight bit more back pressure and felt the aircraft drop nose first. Carb heat cold, full throttle, rudder control to level the plane then back pressure to re-gain height, completed that with less then 100 feet of height loss.
After that did a powered stall @ 1500 RPM, then a 20 degree flap stall and a few others all with varying degrees of nose drop. I have done a few stalls where instead of looking out the front and seeing the horizon you look out the front and see the ground, its an adrenalin kick for sure.
After that I did some 45 degree steep turns while maintaining height which suprisingly is not an easy feet as you either pitch too far up and climb or worst case scenario you enter a spiral downward descent, not fun but easy enough to get out of, well lets just say getting out of a spin is fairly important.
Now the return was interesting, at the 6 South contolled area entry point I made my inbound radio call then noticed another radio call right after identical to mine. I looked behind and below looking for the other aircraft then over to my right and above I saw a cessna 172 on a converging heading to my own.
I knew from his radio call that him and I were going to meet up eventually at the same point and he was getting rather close. Now him being on my right I was required to give way, yet he was higher and me being the lower and slower aircraft he really should have given way.
I radioed tower “Alpha Oscar Hotel, Traffic sighted Cessna 172 at one o’clock high on converging approach above Forrestdale Lake” to which the tower replied “Alpha Oscar Hotel” which more or less means ” I hear you”. We were getting pretty close so I set carb heat to hot and reduced throttle to 1800 RPM, as the other aircraft was faster he quickly overtook me above which was strange as I was flying at max height allowed, he would have been at least 200 feet above me.
At that point the tower came on with “Alpha Oscar Hotel follow Cessna in front overfly at 1500 and join circuit late downwind” I then repeated the instruction and proceeded normally. Landing was typical crosswind, one wheel down then the other then the nose wheel. I kind of miss doing circuits, will do some of those shortly, other then that I had a really great time.
So I haven’t lost my love of flying just the last two flights were fairly nondescript. Standard practice forced landings and other things like powered stalls, powered without flap stalls and a few other stall derivatives with the object being landing technique at 3500 feet. After all landing is simply a controlled stall, by the way I spent about an hour or more doing circuits recently, upwind, crosswind, base and final (land) then power on and take off again, over and over and over and over and over and over again.
That being said my landings are pretty well nailed, to the point that its becoming a little boring and I actually look forward to crosswind landings. Which is more or less landing sideways the right before round out (aircraft pitch from descending to level flight right above the runway) apply rudder to manoeuvre the plane from sideways to straight. Then you land right wheel then left (or visa versa depending on wind direction) then hold back on the stick and let the nose wheel drop down smoothly.
Anyhow today I did a training area solo where i took the plane out to the training area and did a bit of navigational work prior to getting really serious about finding my way around.
Standard checks before fueling the aircraft making sure I had 40 litres on each side, burning 23 litres per hour that gave me plenty of fuel with 45 min reserve. Fuel check, aircraft check (amongst other checks) I was ready to kick it over. Engine start was sluggish but within a few seconds she kicked over and was spinning nicely.
A few more checks then breaks off and giving it a little RPM started taxing out of the holding area. Noticed another 152 on its way in off the siding so swung around ready to give way. It must have been a fairly new student as he was traveling PAINFULLY slow, however I was entering so I was giving way, after that taxied out to 24R holding position for engine checks.
Went through those everything checked out, oil and temps green, RPM nice, throttle idle still good. Taxied out, made my radio call and received the line up instruction followed by “cleared for take off”, full throttle and at the required speed pulled back and we lifted off nicely, tracked for 1000 feet to the exit point and out into the training area.
It was a great day, followed the freeway to Mandurah then headed across to the edge of the hills near serpentine dam,great view from the sky and I was able to get some photos. Apart from some sights I did want to get a better feel for forced landings, circled a field we typically use and ran through the procedures in my head imagining the flight path, checking my high key point, low key point or my 1000 foot level then base and final.
Hugged the limits of the training area and headed for six south entry point back to the airport. Cruise descent went well, made it to six south did my radio call and was given clearance to enter the airspace. One odd thing was that I heard over the radio that another plane was entering the same entry point behind me, strange that as I hadn’t noticed any other planes in the training area. Tower informed me of a plane behind me I responded with “traffic not sighted”, tower then proceeded to explain where the plain was however given that it was a ways behind it wasn’t that important.
Entered the holding pattern at 1000 feet and completed late downwind, sharp turn to base and an even sharper turn to final which I wasn’t happy that I had to do but I corrected myself nicely on final and with careful management of flaps and power settled nicely then had a slight balloon which I managed to bring down softly still, so much that I am still not sure if I ballooned or not I think simply because I held the stick back I never actually landed the front wheel till much later then I anticipated, which is not a bad thing.
I know some pilots who wheelie down the runway upon landing and give the plane ages to allow for the nose to drop down of its own accord, technique technique technique.
Parked the plane did all the after landing checks and packed it up for the evening. Upon seeing me my flight instructor responded with “your alive”. You kinda get worried when you have an instructor who is surprised you are alive after a solo, all good fun.
The calculation of density height requires a few bits of information:
Elevation, QNH and Temperature.
Example
Elevation: 8000 Feet
QNH: 1032 hPa
Temperature: +21 degrees
Use the QNH to work out the pressure height
1013 - 1032 = -19
-19 x 30 = -570
-570 + 8000 = 7430
So our pressure height is 7430 feet, we then use that number to work out the ISA temperature for the given height.
ISA temperature at ground is +15 degrees, and for every 1000 feet of height we loose 2 degrees so we round off to the nearest 500 feet so for our next calculation 7430 becomes 7500. So we then do the following +15 - (2 x 7.5 = 15) = 0 degrees
So our ISA temperature for our height is 0 degrees, however our actual temperature is +21 degrees so we work out the difference which in this case is 0, because our actual temperature is higher then the ISA temperature we refer to the difference with a + sign.
So our temperature is now +21 degrees.
We then apply an ISA deviation so +21 degrees X 120 = 2520 feet.
We then add that to our pressure height 2520 + 7430 = 9950 feet
So 9950 feet is our density height.
Just an update, I havn’t stoped just havn’t been flying in a few weeks, actually its more like a month. Work has had me all over the place recently. Done quite a bit of flying just not in the drivers seat. I have though been working away at the theory side of things as I have several exams coming up where I have to get my head around a few things.
Bought the CR-2 flight computer (Jeppesen) and have been playing around with it. Its quite a cool little gadget for quick calculations, unfortunantly mine didn’t come with a detailed manual so I am doing a bit of work figuring out how it differs from the one used in my PPL book.
I am going to get in some hours next week and finalise my GFTP hopefully, along with that is a final area solo that i’ll be tested on, more updates later.
