Movin' on up.

I'll spare the suspense - I passed the checkout flight so now I can fly the two Cessna 172s at Yankee flying club.

The checkout flight was pretty straightforward. The CFI gave me a briefing on the plane's communications and navigations systems, went over the differences between the Warrior and the 172, and taxiway navigation at Crystal Airport. Then we took off and headed to the west.

First he started me with steep turns...haven't done those in a long time. I deviated from my altitude a bit on the first run, but the second one was a lot better. Then we did some power-on and power-off stalls, and a simulated engine out to a landing at Buffalo airport. Amazingly, I never did a simulated engine out to a landing during my primary pilot training - we'd approach some hay field and then throttle up and fly away. It was fun, and a little hairy, but my first landing in a 172 was a dead stick landing. Sure it was a little rough, but the plane was flyable afterwards so I counted it a success.

We headed back to Crystal and did 3 landings. The first one was kind of rough...I found it a lot harder to pull the yoke to flare, and I didn't want to pull too hard. The second landing I put some muscle into it and got a good flare and soft landing. The third one was a no-flaps landing, yet another first, and though the speed was higher than what I'm used to, and the landing roll longer, it wasn't too big of a deal.

After wiping off the bug guts and buttoning up the plane, Kevin signed my logbook and said he was very satisfied that I could fly the 172 safely. If the weather is good this week I'll take one of the 172's up and get some pics and video for all the world to see.

All good things must come to an end.

I can definitely say that I had fun while it lasted. Many of my loyal blog readers have noticed a lack of flying on my part, and now I will explain to you why.

Renting is great for taking flying lessons, but not so great for anything else.

A few months ago I started scouting some flying clubs in the twin cities area, limiting my search to Lakeville, Eden Prairie, and Crystal. I found a great club in Crystal (at Crystal Airport, KMIC) that had a good combination of affordable share price, very nice planes, and reasonable plane hourly rates. So the past few weeks I've held off renting so that I could use the money to get going with the Yankee Flying Club.

Now before the nice people who run the club will let me fly their nice planes, I need to do a "check out" flight. Insurance requires a designated instructor to verify that I can fly the plane safely. In this case, I'm going from a low-wing Piper Warrior to a high-wing Cessna 172. Sadly, the last four scheduled checkout flights were cancelled due to daily thunderstorms. Tomorrow is attempt #5...and the morning looks t-storm free so I'm confident that I'll be able to get checked out.

Hopefully this will allow me to fly a lot more...my anemic logbook is begging for more ink.

Artic Blast

Ok, I live in Minnesota and I've been hardened against cold weather. But December and January have been so cold as to test my ability to tolerate it. Nothing works right at -20°F. Motor oil is like grape jelly. Garage door openers fail. The dog can barely take care of his "business" before his feet start to freeze. And nobody in their right mind flies a small airplane unless...nope, they just don't.

The relentless cold subsided a bit on the weeked of January 17 and I decided to do a little pattern work to keep the rust away. I did 5 approaches, with one go-around due to a "technical" runway incursion, and 4 landings.

My brother came along again and took photos and videos. The video is from my nifty new Zi8 HD video camera, and I think the video came out really clear.

The weather was calm with high ceilings but visibility was low at 4 statute miles. The visibility improved while we were flying and ended up at 6-7 statute miles.

Here are some photos my brother took during the flight:


Folks icefishing right next to the airport.


Downtown Minneapolis peeking through the haze.


A view of Flying Cloud Airport from the pattern.


Final approach!


Certificated Aeronaut.


Brother Joe the flight photographer / videographer.

Currency.

One of the rules of most FBOs (Fixed Base Operators) is that you need to be checked out in an airplane to make sure you can safely fly their rental aircraft. In the case of Thunderbird Aviation, where I took my training and rent my planes, is that you need to fly each type of plane you are checked out in at least once every 90 days, or you need to get checked out again. Last week I got an email saying that my currency on the Tecnam Bravo would expire on the 24th of December, so I started watching the long range weather forecasts to see when an opportunity would arise. When saturday rolled around, the weather was very cold (0°F) but calm and sunny. At 9am I rolled up to the FBO and saw they had the heater on the Bravo, which is a very good sign.

I preflighted and fired it up, taking my time in making sure I knew where all the gauges were and re-learning how to program the glass panel and GPS. I made the call to Ground control and taxied over to the run-up area to perform the pre-takeoff engine checks. As I increased the engine RPM, the cowling (engine cover) flapped up on the left side and I had to cut the power to prevent damage. I radioed ground and told them I needed to taxi back to Thunderbird to secure loose equipment. Now, the cowling on the left side isn't accessed as part of the FBO's checklist...BUT...I should have checked to make sure it was secure anyway. Seeing as how I didn't damage the aircraft, I fired up the engine again and called for permission back to the runup area, and soon I was airborne. Tower told me to make left traffic (I was staying in the pattern for full stop landings so left traffic meant to make left hand turns back to the runway) and on downwind, the plane was flying extremely crabbed (angled to the direction of flight).

I was a little worried: what was wrong with this airplane? Was the rudder damaged? There was only a gentle breeze on the ground, so I didn't immediately suspect such strong winds above, but sure enough, as I descended for landing the wind died down. The landing itself was my best in the Bravo by a long shot, a squeaker to be sure. Now, I'm getting to learn this neat little airplane's personality. The Cessna 152 and the Warrior are much different to land, because you start putting in flaps long before your final approach to landing. Because the Tecnam Bravo's safe speed for flaps is so low (70knots) I can't safely put them in until I'm on final approach.

So anyway, I'm current again in the Bravo and I hope to fly enough this winter to keep my skills from getting too rusty. I'd like to budget enough money to fly a lot more next spring, and possibly look into a flying club to cut expenses a bit.

Until next time, fly safe!

I haven't stopped flying.

I apologize for the lack of updates but my last two flights were done solo and were more to keep my skills updated than anything else.

I flew the Tecnam Bravo in September for some takeoffs and landings, and to maintain currency with the outfit that rents planes to me. The landings were a bit rough but overall it's a pretty easy airplane to fly and it was a lot of fun.

In the beginning of November I took a Warrior out for a jaunt around my stomping grounds, just to relax and enjoy flying.

I have obtained a small HD quality video camera that I will mount on my next flight, so expect some high quality video soon. I'm curious to see how it works in the plane.

Passenger Service

Like many Americans, I had Labor Day off, which happily coincided with a visit from my Dad who lives in Colorado. So when I mentioned that I'd be flying that day, four of my family members in all asked for a ride:

Joe, my younger brother and veteran of many of my flights;
Susan, my baby sister (who happens to be an archaeologist);
Julie, my other baby sister, who expressed both a desire to fly with me and serious reservations against, and
Dad, who has flown quite a bit as a passenger in small airplanes, mostly while I was in diapers.

Four adults would be a full load and an unnecessary risk, as well as leaving someone behind anyway, so I decided to fly two "sorties".

Sortie Alpha

My first flight was with my two little sisters, neither of which had flown in a small airplane before. Julie, the older of the two, was the most nervous, so I made a point of explaining in detail the emergency procedures in case of engine failure, flight into IMC, electrical fire, and inflight structural failure.


The wind was almost nonexistant, so the takeoff was smooth as silk and straight as an arrow. We climbed out to 2500 msl and I did my usual tour of the countryside, lakes, and my house. The visibility was about 8 miles or so with ground haze but no clouds to speak of.


Julie was sitting up front and I offered her the controls. She put her hands on it, clearly afraid she was going to crash the plane. I said I wouldn't allow that, and did she want to make a gentle right turn to follow the highway? Nope, she didn't want to, but I had her keep her hands on the yoke so she could see what the control input for a turn felt like. She seemed relieved to take her hands off the controls.


Soon we turned back towards Flying Cloud, I dialed up the weather (hadn't changed) and made a nice straight in approach for landing, and even greased it a bit. I taxied back to the FBO and shut down the engine. After disembarking my passengers, I embarked the second set - my Dad and my youngest brother Joe.


Sortie Bravo

With my second load of passengers loaded, I performed a hot start procedure on the Warrior, which started without any trouble (I'm told some engines can be fussy about hot starts). We launched into the hazy blue sky and cruised over Lake Minnetonka and watched a sailboat regatta, and did some lazy flying around the countryside again.


My Dad took the controls for awhile and I decided to head for my house. Just as we were getting near, my brother, who was in the back seat, said "Traffic, behind and to the left". I immediately spotted the plane and noticed it wasn't moving in relation to my plane which meant we were going to get closer to each other than I was comfortable with, so I lost some altitude and watched the other plane cruise over me without so much as a sign that he'd seen me. I bought my brother lunch that day - his experience as a passenger and traffic spotter kept the other plane out of my safety zone.

We headed back again to the familiar runways of Flying Cloud, which was difficult to see with the sun illuminating the haze. I was about 4 miles out when I could finally see the runways. I greased up the landing and wheeled onto the ramp, having successfully completed Sortie Bravo.










Logbook: Logshare
Google Earth Track - Sortie Alpha
Google Earth Track - Sortie Bravo

VIDEO - Takeoffs and Landings

Crosswind Practice

So, I got an email from an old high school buddy ("Rob") who reads my blog, and he asked if I'd take him flying. So I scheduled a plane and we met at the local aerodrome.

It was a bit breezy, but not gusty, and the wind was pretty much aligned with the runway, so I felt pretty confident that we'd have a nice smooth flight.

Rob walked through the preflight with me and after I was satisfied that the airplane was airworthy, we saddled up and got in the air.

However, the air was fairly bumpy, but both pilot and co-pilot were holding lunch down well, so we pressed on. Rob snapped some pictures (finding out along the way how hard it is to take good photos from a plane) and then I gave him the airplane. He made the same mistakes, at first, that everyone makes the first time they get the controls of an airplane. After awhile, he got the hang of straight and level flight, and even some turns. I had him continue with my IFR flight plan (I Follow Roads) and we flew back to Flying Cloud along Highway 212.

I got a little surprise with the ATIS weather report...winds at 16 gusting to 24. Now, this isn't a dangerous situation, as I have plenty of crosswind landing experience and the Warrior is very stable in crosswind situations. But it means I would have to work a little harder to get in a good landing.

So, I made a decent pattern and set up for a crabbed crosswind landing. A couple of times, the gusts blew the plane almost 45° to the runway (briefly), but I kept the plane on the glide path, kicked the tail over as we crossed the threshold. I felt plane float just a bit, then the tires kissed the pavement for a brief moment, then we were up a few inches, floating along again. The tires yelped a bit and we were down. Rob thought it was a good landing, so we'll go with his assessment.

Here are some pictures for your amusement. The batteries for the GPS tracker were dead so no track for you!

Next flight I'd like to take the bravo up again so I don't forget how to fly that little go kart with wings.


Rob is more or less in control of the aircraft.

A view of the beautiful Minnesota countryside.

Coney Island on Lake Waconia. Once a resort paradise...

Oh yeah, the plane is still airworthy, yessir!

Pictured here: Rob