Step By Step

The last two weeks have kept me busy flying and studying. While flying I have been focusing on soft field operations, steep turns and ground reference maneuvers. Studying for my written exam has been going fairly well and I hope to take that in two weeks. Planning cross country flights to Ponca City, Oklahoma (PNC) and Newton, Kansas (EWK) has greatly helped in bring everything together. The toughest part of the practice tests is the chart questions, the computer screen makes it hard to draw lines and what not. Thankfully on the actual test I will get paper copies. This past Saturday my instructor and I flew to PNC and EWK. Before the flight we went over the flight plans that I had made. The flight plan consists of several things. There are obvious aspects such as your flight route but even that is not as simple as just pointing the plane in the general direction of your destination and going. You have to account for wind direction and speed, magnetic variation and magnetic deviation. Once you figure all of that you will be able to figure out you just need your distance and speed to figure out the time and fuel you will need. Fuel needed and fuel burned is also highly necessary aspect. For flights under visual flight rule (VFR) conditions you have to have a half hour of fuel on board when you land during the day and 45 minutes at night. Studying what potential obstacles you will have, airspaces you will go through and if and or when you have to talk to ATC are also highly advised. Doing this also gives you a good chance to look at your route and know what landmarks you can use on the ground to make sure you are on the right track and to find potential alternate airports. The flights went great and I handled all aspects of flying. I don't like to boast too much since I know I have a lot of learning to do (there is a great saying that a pilots license is just a license to learn) but I those flights gave me a lot of confidence that I can do this whole piloting thing. Most of the landings went good and I thought that my communications with ATC were very good. The real test will come later this week when I do those flights on my own. Next Saturday we are tentatively planning on flying to a couple of airports with control towers which is a requirement of getting the license. Look for an update after those, as always questions and comments are encouraged. Oh one last thing... GO CYCLONES!!! BEAT IOWA!!!

Living, Working, Flying

It has been a few weeks since I updated this and to tell you the truth I have not had much to update about. I have flown a few time with my instructor to a few airports (Newton (EWK), Jabarra (AAO), ElDorado (EQA), and Stearman (1K1) field). During this fight we have used ATC to get radar service (essentially just them telling us if there is any traffic to be aware of). I am slowly getting better at talking to ATC so that is a plus. I am also now checked off to go on solo flight between our home base of Augusta (3AU) and ElDorado. Last Monday we also worked on short and soft field takeoffs and landings. Soft field takeoffs are designed to get you off of the ground as quickly and smoothly as possible, from there you hold it in ground effect until you are at your normal climbing speed. Soft field landings are done with some power to help smooth landing and allow you to "feel" the runway for a good spot to put it down. Short field takeoff's are similar to soft field except you climb quickly to get over a certain size (say 50 foot high) obstacle near the end of the runway or if you just have a short runway, however these two usually go together. To do this you lift off as soon as possible and climb at your best angle until you clear the object before resume best rate of climb. Short field landings use full flaps just like soft field landings but you again are trying to get down as quickly as possible and you may have to clear an object. Once you clear the object you nose down and cut power. Since these procedures is done so low and slow proper execution is key since you will have little time and altitude to recover. I think doing this has also helped me improve my landings and landing where I am aiming instead of just floating until I get down. I was hoping to do a fair amount of flying this past weekend but well airplanes are mechanical and they break. On Friday I went out to fly and my aunt had just gotten down and the carburetor heat handle thing came completely out of the panel and then the vacuum pump went out. Thankfully it didn't take long to fix and I was able to fly for an hour this morning. This morning was truly the reason why you fly especially in the morning. It was 80 on the ground but a couple thousand feet up was right about 70 and smooth as can be. I worked on steep turns which I have not done in awhile and was a little rusty...certainly something to keep working on. Hopefully the wind will cooperate a few nights this week and I will be able to get up a few nights. College football also starts later this week and will be going strong next weekend...I cannot contain my exCYtment (see what I did there). Leave some comments and I will be sure to respond. GO CYCLONES!!! BEAT THE PANTHERS!!!

Cross Country

This past Tuesday night I was able to do my first cross country flight. The FAA defines a cross country flight as any flight that the arrival is somewhere other than the departure airport. I made a flight plan to leave our home field of Augusta, Kansas (3AU) down to Ponca City, Oklahoma (PNC) where we did a touch and go and back to Augusta. In my opinion this was a good first cross country because it is 1. almost straight south of Augusta 2. only 57 miles and 3. there are numerous towns, airports and other landmarks along the way to help you keep track of where you are and adjust your flight path accordingly. After going through my flight plan (this entails figuring out what your heading will be mainly adjusting for wind correction and magnetic variation and checking the weather we talked through who we would talk to on ATC (although this is not required I believe it should be taken advantage of and is valuable experience). We were able to take off on runway 18 (heading 180 degrees or straight south) and were on our heading to Ponca City immediately. Our cruising altitude for the trip down was 5,500 feet above sea level (ASL). For visual flight rule (VFR) flights if your heading is between 0 and 179 (straight north to one degree west of straight south) you have to fly an odd number altitude plus 500 feet (3,500 5,500 7,500 etc.). Between 180 and 359 you have to fly an even number altitude plus 500 feet (2,500 4,500 6,500 etc.). Remember these are all altitudes above sea level. We contacted Wichita approach for flight following and after they got done dealing people that were bigger, faster, and actually in their airspace we were able to get a squawk code (a four digit number you put into your transponder so they can identify you on their radar scope). The hand off to Kansas City Center went smooth (mostly because my instructor handled the radio communications for the way down) and I felt I did a good job of identifying the towns and landmarks along the way. It was a blessing in disguise that there was haze that limited our visibility to 8-10 miles because it forced me to pick out more places to cross check our path, on a clear day I am told you can almost see Ponca City from a few thousand feet right after take off. The arrival at Ponca City went very well as I crossed over midfield and entered a right downwind for runway 17. The runway at PNC is almost twice as long and much wider than 3AU. These differences if you are not careful can be dangerous as they change your perception of your attitude. The touch-n-go went well and we headed back to 3AU. I handled the radio communications on the way back, I was not good at all but it was my first time right? The haze also caused it to get darker a little earlier and we got back to 3AU at what was essentially sundown at that point. While approaching 3AU we had a small issue with a plane taking off on runway 36 while we were entering the pattern for 18 (same runway just different ends going opposing directions...not good). Even though I had made several radio calls he did not say a thing until he pulled onto the runway and went to take off. Thankfully I had enough time to adjust and make a quick base turn to land on runway 36 (overshot final but was able to recover and land pretty well!). I was hoping to do some more flying today since it is my bi-weekly three day weekend but the weather is not cooperating. Hopefully the wind calms down the ceiling goes up and it stops raining sometime soon! Let me know if you have any questions about aviation!

AIRVENTURE

Well I have had a busy few weeks of flying, work and well life. My flying is going pretty well in the last week I have logged about 2 hours of solo time in which I have done about 20 landings. Everything is going great and I am looking forward to expanding what I can do as well as checking off more requirements. The real reason why I wanted to update this is because this is the week that Oshkosh, Wisconsin becomes the center of the aviation world. Airventure is the annual air show, celebration and trade show held by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). There are many things that Airventure such a great event. You can do everything from look at all the newest and greatest general aviation aircraft from every manufacturer, to seeing some of the oldest and rarest aircraft in the world in the warbird and vintage areas. You can literally find every type of airplane single engine piston (SEP), turbine, jet, home built, and rotorcraft. There is almost something for everyone Kidventure does a great job of educating and giving kids something interesting to do. You need something for your plane or are looking for a plane you can find it. Looking for a job in aviation? For the first time Airventure had a career fair this year. My favorite parts are the cool new planes, the old vintage planes and what is arguably the best air show in the world. Airventure features the best civilian performers in the world. The usual headliners are Mike Goulian, Matt Younkin, Sean D. Tucker, Gene Soucy and my personal favorite the Aeroshell team! For those of you up in Iowa the presenting sponsor for the daily air show is Rockwell Collins. On Monday night after the air show there is always a concert which featured Chicago this year. There are also forums and "lectures" lectures covering any topic in aviation. This is no small get together either. The show normally has over 50,000 attendees during the week and thousands of airplanes fly-in to Oshkosh and camp on the grounds. During this week it becomes the busies airport in the world. On Thursday of this week the air traffic controllers (ATC) at Oshkosh handled 2,805 flights in 10 hours, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport averages 2,750 in 24 hours. The thing to remember is these are all general aviation aircraft coming and going, not one bit is commercial. Due to this amount of traffic there are special flight rules for this week which allow them to handle this many planes. It can get so busy that as a pilot you are instructed not to verbally respond to instructions from ATC, instead you simply rock your wings. You are also told to land in big painted dots on the runway to allow for multiple planes to land on the same runway at the same time (not to mention the makeshift runway right next to you that has multiple planes landing or taking off on it as well). This is also just the traffic at Oshkosh, nearby airports in Fon Du Lac, Appleton and Greenbay also act as reliever airports if you don't want to or can't get into Oshkosh. I encourage you to check out Airventure.org to check it out. They have videos, pictures and live cams from areas around the field as well as showing the daily air show from 2-6pm daily and from 8-10 on Wednesday and Saturday nights. Sadly we couldn't make it since someone has to stay back in the air capital and keep the industry going. If you want to go let me know and you can join my wife and I next year as we again plan to make the yearly pilgrimage.

SOLO

I can't come up with anything witty or creative to start this so I will just kick it off by saying today I did my first solo flight! This is the culmination of a lot of work and time although there is still a long road ahead of me. It is a great feeling to have the first big check mark on the list of requirements for my private pilots license. Officially I soloed after 14.3 hours of dual time and 68 landings. We started early (6:30AM) since my instructor was busy from 9-12 and I try to avoid flying in the afternoon down here, especially when it is 95-100+ and I am flying at low levels. Overall this turned out to be a great decision today when we got to the airport there was no wind and the temperature was 80. This afternoon as is normal here it got up to around 95 and right now there are some storms with some strong outflow winds moving into the Wichita metro. To start the flight my instructor went up with me and we did two touch-and-go's along and one full stop landing. During this time he was telling me what to do if something goes wrong (the common sense things of go to another airport if something happens here and come back and land immediately if there is an issue with the plane). On the third landing I taxied onto the ramp he got out and sent me on my way. While pulling onto the runway I definitely had a "holy shit I am about to do this" moment. After that I was fine and completely enjoyed the experience. It was quite interesting getting used to being the only one in the plane and not having the weight of the instructor in there. I certainly learned several lessons (more flaps to prevent floating down the runway). Climb out was also interesting with less weight as I climbed at 85-90 at around 500 feet per minute (FPM) however the 180 hp engine does help this part. Overall everything went really well and my instructor said it all looked great! I will not be flying nearly as much over the next two weeks as my instructor if pushing to finish his CFII (Certified Flight Instrument Instructor) rating before Airventure in Oshkosh which is next week. He is then going to spend a few days up there with his dad. I will take this time to focus myself on studying for the written test so when he gets back we can get mostly done if not done before he leaves for college. I have attached the picture of my shirt tail cut off (you can find the explanation to this tradition here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_solo_flight) as well as videos that my wife took, they aren't the best but you get the picture. As always let me know if you have any questions!

Up and Down...

It has been a few weeks since I updated this but I have been doing a lot of the same things. The last few weeks have been full of take-offs and landings. I have not mastered them and probably never will, there is a reason why they say a pilots license is just a license to learn. Last week I was only able to fly twice due to a wedding we went to back in Iowa. On July first the weather was almost perfect very light to no wind which made it very ideal to do 12 touch and go's. My main issue was visualizing the landing and getting the sight and how it should look down as well as responding to the decent. After a couple I started to get it down and was really doing well. The fourth was a great morning for another 10-12 (I just got done mowing and am too lazy to check my logbook but it is around that number) touch and go's. Most of them were really good and I am getting more and more confident about how I was doing. At that point my instructor threw in simulated engine out landings. Now the key to that statement before my mom freaks out is SIMULATED the engine is at idle. The first step to this (in this case) is to trim for best glide which is 75 knots (about 86MPH) in the 172. The next point is to choose a landing point. We did these at different points in the pattern so the runway was always my landing point. The main thing to remember when doing anything while flying is to never stop flying the plane. The first simulation we did he cut the power when I was on the base leg of the pattern (I can dive more into the different parts of the pattern if requested but for now I will just include this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Airport_traffic_pattern.jpg), the second one we did on the base turn from downwind and the final one was on downwind. They all went very well and I actually enjoyed the added challenge of it and the break from just going around and around. On Saturday we had a little crosswind which was great for where I was at in my learning. The crosswind turned out to be about an 8 knot quartering crosswind. Crosswind landings are a little tricker but the same principles are in place you just add a step at take-off and landing. You want to keep the upwind wing low to minimize the wind pushing you around the runway as well as to keep it from flipping, turning and pretty much having it's way with you. To do this you add in aileron (directional control surface on the wing) in the direction of the wind and rudder in the opposite direction. This cross-control when applied correctly will keep you going straight while lifting off safely. ON landing you do the same thing while flaring. At the end of our lesson on Saturday my instructor said that as long as everything goes well with weather and my performance this week I can probably solo at the end of this week. I am currently planning on flying Tuesday (severe weather may not let this one happen) and Wednesday night as well as sometime during the day on Friday and Saturday. It is another hot week with temps around 100 down here so if I am not flying or at work I will probably be at the pool...thinking of you all of course! Let me know if you have questions!

Lucky number...12

Well it is officially summer down here in Kansas. In my opinion being less than an hour from Oklahoma we are far enough south to be considered south so yes it is summer in the south. This of course means it is hot, the high today was about 105. Thankfully though there was not much wind which was great for flying. We spent the entire hour and a half flight "in the pattern" (flying around the airport) doing touch-and-go's. This just means we go around land and take off again. I ended up doing 12 of these and finally on the last one I had an almost perfect landing. Now I don't say that the other 11 previous were bad...just not quite there. As my instructor put it "you are doing great, you have not scared me and I haven't yanked the controls back." So I got that going for me. The more I continue this the more excited I get to do more and be challenged more. Check back next week for another update!