Crazy traffic at base

So, I was told in my pre flight briefing that  there might be chances of me flying a right traffic pattern today (but chances are left traffic are accounted more). After the briefing, I did become a bit nervous, since Class C airspace could get quite crowded at times, and my reaction time towards ATC instructions may lag, if it's something new to me.

The busy traffic started once I tookoff from the runway. My first initial contact to tower to fly a closed left traffic pattern was diverted to flying a right traffic pattern, because there were helicopters around the left traffic. There was no time to complain whether I should extend downwind and whatsoever, I tried outmy first take to the right. On downwind, it was sort of going well, runway looked like it was 3/4 mile from my gas cap. Till I got to the point where I had to turn base, ATC issued a instruction 'continue with Left Traffic pattern', I got a little confused, since I was targeting to land on 29R, and I saw that there was another plane flying on base adjacent to me to land on 29L. It was a good thing my instructor took over controls quickly to bank a steep turn for 29R. And handed over the controls back to me to continue with my glide path. And I still managed to land a safe one. However it was bad decision making on my side when turning base, as I overshot a bit. 

Well second round of the pattetn I made extra sure if ATC wanted me to fly R or L? So as a was told the next pattern ahould be Left traffic. As a rule of thumb, writing the instructions down is helpful for  double confirmation of what you hear. If you are still unsure about the instructions given. Get ATC to confirm again!! Very important to make sure your given instrcutions are read back correct and taking action correctly. 

Well landed nicely on all tries today, just lacking a better response to my situational awareness in a traffic heavy location.  

Mr. Solo

Since my last post of just learning the traffic pattern and getting landings down.
I recently passed my Stage check for (slow flight/stalls, normal takeoff and landing and emergency landing) I barely passed that stage check under my check ride instructor's standards, since I had some troubles with taking action on certain steps of been proactive in certain situations (like a mixture cut off, radio response), I was a bit dreadful in radio responses, my heart will skip a beat and I freeze or rather choke in my own words of not knowing what to respond, when the instructions are not clear to me.

Well as a rule of thumb to keep radios clear when there's too much information to chew on, just reply "say again" and ATC will be accommodating enough to repeat the radio instructions piece by piece if they have the patience :P.
But at most is to keep yourself safe in air traffic at all times. (situational awareness),

Well, got down to do my first solo takeoff and landing yesterday. It was quite a relieving feeling to have the plane flown all by yourself, however I was a bit nervous on my runner up, I was constantly trying to make sure I remember to lock the door and make sure the latch is in the locked position, did not want the doors to flip open while in mid air. And I was worried about whether I had all the required switches on. After my initial power increased, I sort of let myself fly the plane, did a pretty smooth take off, and made every step of my traffic patterns with ease without hesitation, and  the only point deduction was that on "Final" my glide slope was pretty low (I kept adding and reducing my power setting to get my targeted airspeed). My power adjustments may had been too extreme that I may cost a loss in altitude leading to my low approach.
However I did manage to land safely, which I am quite proud of myself. Thinking back to the first day I stepped into this training program with no knowledge whatsoever in aviation, and now I am able to takeoff and land a single engine plane. I am impressed with what I am capable of.

Still radio's a kick in the ass, forgot when and where is the right time to enter important airspace. As my instructor puts it, once you established 2 way communication and ATC has called your tail number you are given clearance to enter the airspace. Once approach transfers you to Tower, they will need to give you clearance for altitude (they will say "altitude restriction cancelled") that is when you allowed to setup and get into your traffic pattern (1300ft - that's for our airport plus the airport elevation (313ft)).

More soloing to come and my biggest interest "cross country flights".

Finally pulling my socks up to Takeoff and Land

Had passed my Stage Ia on the basic flight maneuvers (attitude flying: Pitch, Power, Trim idea, slow flights, power on and off stalls). Practicing power "on" stalls was most likely a tough procedure in my case, since I always tend to drift more than 20 degrees off course from my heading when I'm pitched up with 2300 RPM (Later I was corrected: I did not use sufficient right rudder at the time). Since the left tendency plays a big part once power is added which the P-factor comes into play to produce the rolling to the left tendency when little to no right rudder is used.

It has been frisky cold these few days, and the fact I am getting up at 5:30am to prep for my 7am flight. Tough on trying to roll out of the warm bed, but I better get my self together since I can;t waste any more time on pondering, what if I could sleep just a little bit more. That's money down the drains if I continue with that mentality~

So the past two weeks I got into practicing the traffic pattern from the 45 entry to a down wind, then base, and final for the landing procedure. In the beginning it was most likely beginners luck as the spacing from downwind to base and final was semi perfectly executed like 3 times, but that was because I started to pick up landmarks points to initiate turns at the right moment.

Well, this weeks flight was not as successful as the first, since my airspeed increased, I freaked out and started to mess up every step of my traffic pattern procedure, ended up been told that I'm not really flying the plane, it's the plane that's controlling me. As a rule of thumb / metaphor of some sort from my instructor "you should think ahead or rather fly ahead of your plane" be proactive! and stop whining and correct your heading/ speed when you know you did something wrong and finish the traffic patter till the end, when necessary do a go-around when it's really too late to fix more. This was a fun and a bit adventurous week of flying since, two days ago the radio went dead on us while we were still out at an uncontrolled airport practicing landings, so we requested light gun procedures to get back to our towered airport. Then the next day, we flew back in IFR conditions, which was pretty cool, had the tower give us coordinates and we flew back in a seriously cloudy conditions back to base.

Today the skies were nice, though frosty in the mornings, spent some time scrapping frost from the wings. I was more confident with my traffic patterns today, made some changes to my attitude in flying, constantly checking and adjusting while getting my self focused on hitting the different target points:
1) Turning cross wind from the runway at 800 ft
2) Turning down wind and maintaining at 1300 ft, with a 3/4 mile parallel distance from the acquired runway in sight.
3) Abeam at the end runway number
    a) Reduce power to 1800 RPM
    b) 1st notch of flaps when KIAS reaches the flap region white arc (90 ~ 85 KIAS)
    c) 2 finger pitch down (roughly 500ft descent per min?)
4) Turning base at 1100ft, and trim to reduce workload and adjust if necessary.
5) With timing, turn final at 800ft and keep airspeed at 75KIAS with 2nd notch flaps.
6) The tough part: Put my ref mark on the runway number once on final (this should be like a 3 finger pitch glide path). Still keeping airspeed at 75~70 KIAS.
7) At 30ft above ground, cut power and rollout (ref mark to the end of the runway) and smoothly 1 finger pitch.
8) 2 finger pitch on the 2nd sink till the landing gears on the wings touches the ground, then slowly descend the nose to touch the ground.

At the end I think I did a formal landing on the last try. A lot to take care of like radio calls that sometimes blanks me out on what the hell I am doing with my controls, so I think it took me at least three tries to get me warmed up to feel the traffic pattern. Well hope I could warm up a little faster.

Tomorrow's a 7am flight again! flying with an attitude to kick ass and be safe!!!  

Weight Balance rumble

Had a ground class, that was interesting as a discussion with my instructor.
Since Tomahawks are serious light planes, the weight and balance is quite an important step to calculate to make sure the plane is balanced within the given manufacturers specified CG (Center of Gravity).

We went into the pros and cons if you plane was heavily loaded and that it is off the specified range. This may in fact cause a longer take off, reason that you may need more time to reach your climbing speed where your wings are able to capture more airflow to create lift, so works harder to take off.

Once airborne, your plane may take a longer time to reach specified altitude, since your may have to pitch higher than normal weighted planes, as a result higher airspeed required to climb, at the same time higher angle of attack which may cause high stalling speed (this is always a no no factor).
Your plane will fly a shorter distance and eat up a lot of fuel just trying to keep the plane at a certain altitude.

During landing, you will most likely have a higher airspeed to land, since you are trying to keep the plane afloat in a way that you can flare, to have a smoother landing, however flare will be reduced and as a result a hard landing will be experienced with caution of damaging the landing gears.

So if you come across of having a heavier load on the nose (nose heavy), this is similar to flying a heavy plane. Longer time for takeoff, higher airspeed, higher angle of attack and higher stalling speed.
Higher stress load on the wings, since the tail will want to counteract that nose heavy weight.
Reduced flight range, higher usage of fuel.
For landing, it's also higher airspeed during descent, more susceptible to to prop - strike, where your propeller may hit first and create physical damages to the plane.
Although you do have more stability to fly compared to a tail heavy plane.

As for Tail heaviness, the controls are much easier to maneuver, acts as a lighter plane. Take off and climbs are similar to a normal weighted plane.
However the danger of tail heavy planes are that, once you experience a stall, your elevator are unable to act correctly to try and readjust your plane to recover from a stall.

I might missed out a lot of other important info regarding the nose heavy/ tail heavy aspect, and might find that it's all rubbish the next day I read it again LOL since, I'm, writing half asleep. I will do corrections, once I'm more awake hahaha.

Third and Fourth Flight

Last weeks flights were a bit sloppy, either I was really getting nervous about what maneuvers that I was suppose to do on the day of the actual flight that got me worked up and absent minded.

It was interesting to work on "stall maneuvers", stalling in mid air may sound scary. And why the hell do we do stalls you ask? Good to be prepared for the worse case scenarios. Since the design of the plane is focused on how well the wings could withstand the on coming wind to produce the lift.

However the engineering aspect of the wings may cause stalling. What's really unknown about the wing design (in my case was a first), is that as you increase the angle of attack on the wings, meaning if you pitch the plane too high, increasing the vertical angle, it will most definitely cause the plane to stall. The wings itself are aerodynamically designed for air to flow through smoothly on a normal acute angle. However, once you increase that angle, you will relatively start to break the air flow pattern, causing breakage of the flowing air, causing vortexes around the edges of the wings that disrupt the lift of the plane. This will cause the plane to loose more altitude as well as airspeed and result in a stall.

So there's precaution stages while simulating a stall, you may experience a stall imminent, followed by buffeting/ bit of a rumbling shake within the cockpit. As you recognize these conditions, you recover by pushing your elevator forward to 2 finger pitch attitude and pump up the power to full. This procedure will recover you from a stall.

At first it seemed quite easy on the video instructions, however when the actual thing happened, I pushed the elevator too much that my plane seemed to head for a nose dive, on top of that icing, I added full power, that's just the opposite of  trying to recover the plane from a stall but could have created a secondary stall instead haha~ (yes laughing now, but it could be worse with a combo of a spin and then that's KO for me).

I also had a chance to try out radio calls, really tough at first to even catch what the HELL the radio controllers are talking about, I stumbled on what to say when I was given the opportunity to talk to them. Especially the steps of talking to ground control then switching to tower control, then to departure control. It was a bit all over the place when I began to listen carefully, then after takeoff, there's more traffic to be aware of. And the procedure is reversed for the approach/ Landing. I will have to practice to listen and talk like an controller (robotic, fast pace, mono toned?).

Second Flight with better results 10/18

Woke up really early to prepare for my second flight 7:00 F%$$@ing AM. hahaha~
So was a little psyched up and nervous, instructor told me to start the pre-flight checks.

So I went to work out the weight and balance requirement needed for the plane so I can adjust the plane weight with the amount of fuel that's still outstanding. Ok just by the idea of working out weight and balance, I now totally understand why it's crucial for airliners to make sure baggage are carefully calculated for trips. As the CG (center of gravity) of a plane is shifted either fwd heavy or back heavy, this in terms reflects the performance of the plane itself setting up for departure and landing.

As from the text book (for single engine planes, not sure how multi engine might be), But CG too far fwd may cause the nose of the plane to be too heavy , causes longer take off distance, higher stalling speed (will get on the stalling topic soon :P please stay tuned). Eventually the use of the elevator will be useless with the heavy nose.
CG too far back/ aft, causes a more dangerous result. plane becomes tail heavy, unstable for pitching regardless of speed. Elevator effectiveness decreases.

So I may be more aware of weight requirements for flying now, as I remember how my parents or relatives will always try to stuff as many things as possible in their luggages and hope they will surpass the weighing procedure, an not have to pay extra for the exceeded weight :D hahaha.

Aight back to flying: So I was given the moment of pitching the plane up for a lift off, was quite crazy (crazy that my instructor allowed me to do it). I did feel more confident this time round with the plane, and feeling the plane itself, with the use of attitude flying concept in mind. Attitude flying  means that you fly with 90% of the time scanning your surroundings and using the horizon as your reference point to determine what angle of turn, climb, and descend. Instead of focusing on the instruments (altimeter, airspeed indicator,  vertical speed indicator and so on). As the real danger is outside the plane, so always be aware of your surroundings.

The coordinated turns where much better this time (since I watched the JB flight vids) which helped quite a bit. It did surprise my instructor a bit with my improved coordination and handling of the plane. The pitch power, and trim technique was better too, I was more focused on what should be done and listening to the throttle sound as my indicator of how much power I have pushed for a climb, and use the trimm as necessary to reduce workload of the elevators.

Was told that my coordinated turns, the use of ailerons and rudder was still a bit mechanical instead of a flow like reaction.

Overall was a good flying session, and I nearly had the chance to land the plane, however I lost control as we neared ground, and the instructor overtook controls quickly, as we were heading sideways. Phew~

First Flight with minor control on a Tomahawk!

Might as well make good use of this blog :P

Had an awesome experience of flying a plane today. Started off with experiencing the idea of taxing a plane around the runway.

Instructor handed me the control, at first the taxing maneuver was a bit tough to control since you need to balance the L and R rudder to a point you straightening your plane that follows the yellow marked path on the runway.

Instructor took over for take off, a bunch of checks needs to be done before take off, and radio comm with the tower ( it was a bit info overload, where I was a bit unsure what info was given).
Reached the air, I was given control to fly straight ahead towards a landmark lake. Again the controls for the ailerons was tougher than what I had expected, shifting the yoke L or R slightly actually creates a tremendous bank or rather because I was so tense and rigid the banking turns felt very unstable and forgetting to keep at reference point level, the plane kept dipping or rather pitching down or up suddenly.

Was given instructed ways of doing coordinated turns of (90, 180 and 360 degree) it was quite a nerve wrecking start, but soon I got the hang of keeping the plane a bit smooth while banking on the turns. However I constantly tried to keep my attention on the reference points I somehow neglected my hand and foot coordination. Especially banking with the simultaneous use of the yoke and rudder paddles.

The Pitch, power, and trim procedure was a bit difficult to follow, as I was tensed up to wanting to make sure all steps were followed right. I will pitch but unaware that I reach two finger's above ref. horizon to stabilize the plane again and increase throttle power then check whether Trimming was necessary before reducing throttle.

Fun stuff: experienced (0) G while instructor pitched up and went for a sudden drop to produce the slight seconds of 0 G effects. It was quite cool.
Then the experience of stalling, where the angle of attack (critical angle of attack) on the wings have reached it's max causing a disruption of airflow from upper surface of the wings. So yea that was not a fun thing to do, but thank gawd there's a recovering procedure.

Landing felt like a tough procedure when the instructor did it. Overall it was quite an kick ass experience!!