Another lesson where everything turned out right.First, here we are parked outside the Chicago Business Air Center, the FBO in Lansing (shown at left). We stopped off here to refuel after I practiced all of the maneuvers that I will need to exhibit during the checkride: Turns around a point, S-turns, steep turns, power-off stalls, and power-on stalls.
I started with turns around a point. The wind is light and variable, so I was able to pick the cardinal heading from which to start my turn. I decided to start out facing south. Tom asked me to pick out a point around which to make my two full turns. I chose an intersection between a country highway and a country road. Maneuvering speed, 1000 feet AGL, and I've verified that there aren't any tall powerlines in the area. Time to begin.
Well, I'll admit that I didn't really have a rough time holding the correct bank angle because the wind was hardly a factor. During a windy day, I would require more drastic bank angle changes, but today, I held a steady 10 or 20 degrees of bank, holding my altitude at 1,800, looking out the left window to maintain my ground track. With each quarter turn, I glanced forward, continuing my mental projection of the circle. By the end of the first turn, my ground track had made a perfect circle around the intersection, and I knew that my second turn would be just as good. Lo and behold, my second circle was just as good as the first, and I rolled out of the turn at almost exactly the spot where I started.
"Very nice," Tom says. He's congratulating me more often these days.
Moving on to S-Turns. I found a long north/south road, far away from power lines. As I drew closer to the road, I picked out a farmhouse about 1/2 mile away along the road, and once the farmhouse was directly off my left wing, I banked the wings to the left 30 degrees, and then steadily began to take the bank back out, ensuring equal distance from the farmhouse at all times. As I continued to circumvent the farmhouse and began to come back to the road, I looked to the right to choose my second landmark. Within a few seconds, I chose a large white house. Passing over the road, I banked the wings to the right, and continued to make my S-turn around the white house, keeping perfect distance. And at the conclusion of the turn, as I passed over the road with the white house directly off my right wing, I levelled out, and smiled.
"Very nice, once again," Tom said. "I think your ground reference maneuvers are good. We really don't need to practice those until we're doing final practice for your checkride."
Awesome.
Climbed to 2,800 feet to practice stalls. Reached altitude, trimmed the aircraft for level flight. When I felt ready, I prepared for the power-on stall. Throttle back to 1,600 RPMs, holding level flight as the plane slows to 65 knots. Throttle to full, pulling back to climb at 75 knots. Pulling back, more and more, the stall horn sounds. Just as the stall manifests and I feel the buffet, I push the control wheel in for less then a second, then neutralize it completely. I hold slow flight attitude as my speed picks up, and my right hand quickly double-checks that the throttle is full, carb heat is off, and flaps are up. It's textbook.
"Very good," Tom smiles. "Recover here, and perform a power-off stall."
Throttle back to 1,600 RPMs, pulling back on the control wheel to maintain altitude. Slowing to 65 knots while steadily adding flaps. As flaps are fully extended, I begin pulling back on the control wheel, more and more, until the stall horn sounds. Continuing to pull back until the stall manifests, and as the nose starts to dip down, I push the control wheel forward and neutralize it to maintain slow flight attitude. Then I bring my right hand up to push the throttle to full, push the carb heat to off, and lift the flaps to 20 degrees. Once I verify positive rate on the vertical speed indicator, I retract the flaps back to 10 degrees, maintain altitude, and retract the flaps when I reach 75 knots.
"Very good, again!" Tom says. "Let's finish up your maneuvers with steep turns."
Maintaining 2,900 feet and maneuvering speed of 97 knots. Just before entering the turn to 45 degrees of bank, I add 100 RPMs and pull back slightly on the control wheel to keep from losing altitude. I can feel the extra G-Force pushing me down in my seat; it's only 1.4 G's, which means that the plane and everything in it feels like it weighs 40% more. It's not alot; a 60 degree bank would be 2.0 G's, and I would feel like I weigh twice as much! Still, it's an interesting feeling, like being in a roller coaster that suddenly changes direction. I'm losing a little bit of altitude, so I pull back on the control wheel to compensate. As I complete my first turn, I've lost more than 100 feet. Tom points this out, then instructs me to complete another steep turn in the opposite direction.
Banking the wings to the right, 45 degrees. Pulling back on the control wheel to prevent any change in altitude. Remarkably, I am actually better at holding my altitude in the right-hand steep turn than I am to the left!
"Most students are better at the left-hand steep turn. I've never seen a student who was better at the right-hand steep turn."
Well, it is my intention to become proficient on both right- and left-hand turns, but I'm not there yet. Something else to work on.
"Let's go to Lansing and do some takeoffs and landings," Tom said. "I'll slap the hood on you on the way."
I was a little sloppier holding headings and altitudes today while wearing the hood. I've done quite a bit of reading about mistakes pilots make when they lose visual reference with the ground, and I have an explanation for my difficulty.
When a human being flies an airplane, he is primarily dependent on his sense of sight to determine whether he is climbing, descending, turning, etc. When a pilot is deprived of his sense of sight, either by flying through a cloud, or fog, or at night, he must rely on instruments. Without instruments, a pilot would have to rely on his sense of motion, which is primarily governed by the inner ear canal.
Human senses, especially our senses of touch and motion, have evolved to perceive the world on the ground, and relying on one's sense of motion can be very dangerous in an airplane. If a pilot enters a banked turn, for example, the inner ear will sense the change in orientation and tell the brain that the plane is turning to the left. However, if the pilot keeps that turn constant for 10-20 seconds and is unable to see the ground, the fluids in the inner ear will settle, causing the pilot to believe that the plane is level when in fact it is still turning. You can imagine that if a pilot continues to bank the wings too far, he can cause a terrible accident.
The reason why I am having difficulty, after I had been so successful yesterday, is because there is more of a wind factor today. Since my first lesson, changes in wind direction can make the plane turn off course or generate bumps. But I have always relied on my sense of vision to right the plane and put it back on course. When I have the hood on, I don't have that luxury. I find that even though I am looking solely at the instruments, my body is feeling the motion of the airplane bopping around, and I am trying to respond to my sense of motion. I need to learn to completely ignore my sense of motion and trust the instruments implicitly.
It's not easy!
Tom has asked me to follow a heading of 010 at an altitude of 2,100, and I've been trying to hold it for a long time. I'm not horrible, but I am definitely not holding the altitude +/- 100 feet as I am required to, so I will obviously need more practice.
"Okay," Tom says, "Take off the hood."
I remove the hood, and plain as day, there's Lansing Regional Airport. Time to land.
"Let's land, then you'll do three takeoffs and landings in the pattern by yourself."
Actually...
"Tom, to be honest with you, I'm feeling a little bit tired. I wouldn't mind a 10 minute break."
"Well," Tom says, "We can park, top off the plane, and get out to stretch our legs. Sure."
"Well, Tom, do you have a lesson after this? Do you want to go up to Shannon's Landing and get a bite to eat?" I ask, earnestly.
Tom thinks about it for a moment. "Yeah, I can do that. I'll just give Bill a call to make sure no one else is using the plane."
"Awesome," I say. "I'll have the $100 hamburger."
"What!?" Tom smiles.
"You haven't heard of that? Getting in the airplane to fly out to an airport with a restaurant on the field. The burger doesn't cost $100, but getting out to the airport sure does!"
"HA!" Tom likes it. "That's funny."A perfect landing at Lansing, a quick phone call to Bill, and he green-lights our little lunch break. As the plane fuels up, Tom and I take a walk over to Shannon's Landing and have lunch (shown here, to the right).
Except, I didn't order the $100 hamburger. I had the $100 Caesar chicken salad, instead.
Finished lunch, did three more solo takeoffs and landings before picking up Tom and heading back to Midway.
It's all good.
- Airman Eric
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