Posted by Kevin, on October 31st, 2004 Ok, so we’re not talking about a ‘reverse gear’ or anything, but I was flying a plane backwards today! Talk about freaky! Originally I was supposed to be doing the flight portion of my pre-flight test but the weather conditions were less than optimal (winds were forcasted at 34 knots at 3000 and the ceiling was supposed to be dropping to around 2000 feet) so Brad and I opted to just go out to the practice area and see just how windy it was. After fighting the wind to get out there, Brad had me set up for slow flight pretty much right into the wind. I dropped down full flaps so I could fly as slow as possible. Sure enough when I got down around 40 to 45 knots the plane stopped going forward and started moving backwards across the ground. Talk about cool! I’ll tell you though, I definitely wouldn’t want to be doing a flight test in those conditions…you could be up there for hours if you had to fight the wind the whole time. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on October 29th, 2004 What a beautiful day for flying! I got up early (since that is really the only feasible time for me to do any flying now that the days are so short) and headed to the club for an 8 o’clock booking. I was the first person there so I had to wait for Mark to show up to open the place. Luckily they had stored a whole pile of planes in the hangar over night so I didn’t have to deal with frost on the plane, and I got to do my walk around in the warm comfort of the hangar. Unfortunately my plane was not the first in line to exit the hangar (did I mention how amazed I was at how they fit all those planes in the hangar? Kind of like a jigsaw puzzle) so I had to wait until they moved the 172 out of the way. This meant I didn’t get off the ground until about 8:20 instead of 8 but oh well, I saved myself some money. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on October 24th, 2004 Did some flying this weekend. Friday evening I flew circuits at YOW. I was hoping to head out to Carp but since the sun was setting so early, Andrew asked me to stick around the Ottawa airport. Not a big deal, it just meant that I spent most of the time practicing soft field landings rather than short field landings. Most of the circuits I flew were on 04. There was another guy in the circuit with me at the time, and I was getting a bit annoyed at how large he was making his circuits so I decided to challenge myself a bit. I made a request to the tower for some stop and gos on runway 14. They suggested runway 07 instead. Cool, I had never landed on 07 before! Anyways, they told me to stay on the downwind for 07 and they’d call my base since there was a large airliner on final for 07 at the time. Well let me tell you, that was the longest downwind leg I’ve ever flown, followed by the longest final approach I’ve ever flown! When I finally did reach the runway, I put the plane down and stopped it as fast as I could (for some short field practice) and then took off again. The tower controller asked me if I wanted another one. I was thinking he was asking me if I wanted to do another circuit on 07 so I said no (remembering how long that last one was) and that I’d head back to 04. Not long after I said that I realized that he was probably asking me if I wanted to do another stop and go immediately on 07. D’oh! Oh well, next time I guess. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on October 20th, 2004 Only a single booking today, and the last one of the day, from 5 to 6:30. I had forgotten my map at home, but Brad managed to scrounge one up for us. As we walked out to the plane, Brad was laughing his evil laugh so I was a little anxious about was what ahead. Especially since Brad had been talking to Dave about ideas for diversions. We headed out to the practice area and then right to a small town, the name of which escapes me right now. Anyways, once we got there, Brad showed me where we had to divert to. It was quite a ways away, somewhere around 23 NM or so. I came up with a heading and a time estimate and away we went. I let Brad know when I thought we were about half way there and estimated how much longer it would take to get the rest of the way (the same time it took for the first half). We eventually reached where we were headed, although a little off to the left (there was quite a strong wind). When we got there, Brad told me what I did wrong. I didn’t reset my heading indicator, I didn’t lean the mixture, and I even manged to lose a bit of alititude along the way. I also didn’t circle any obstacles in the path. Not great, but I did manage to find the place, so he was happy about that. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on October 20th, 2004 Had a double booked with Brad yesterday so we headed out to Carp and flew circuits for about an hour and a half. We were working on short field and soft field landings. We worked on short field landings first. After 4 or 5 tries, I was finally getting the hang of it. I even managed to get the plane stopped before the Alpha taxiway when landing on runway 10. After the short field practice, we started working on soft field landings. I was having some serious trouble with those. I kept bringing it in too low and they kept ending up looking like short field landings. Before we left, I had a break through…for a soft field landing, you don’t need to touch down at the very beginning of the runway like you do for a short field! After that realization, things got better. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on October 14th, 2004 Yesterday was a great day for flying. Pretty much no wind and sunny clear skies! That reminds me…I really need to get sunglasses! Anyways, yesterday was spent reviewing upper air work with Brad. Prior to the flight, Brad quizzed me a bit on the plane and some of its components. Specifically he asked me about the different antennas and a bit about the fuel system. I need to review the fuel system a bit. After that, we got into the plane and I had to give a passenger briefing. I’ve never done a passenger briefing before and I couldn’t find any reference material on the subject so I made it up. I made sure to bring a bag in case the passenger got sick (Thanks for the tip Andy). I talked about the controls and the need to not touch them, I talked about the seats and seatbelts, the doors and windows and I also mentioned something about the ELT. I forgot to mention the fire extinguisher and the first aid kit. I think I’ll have to sit down and come up with a good briefing before flight test time. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on October 13th, 2004 Prior to going flying yesterday with Brad, we talked a bit about soft / short field takeoffs and landings. We had done one of each prior, but that was more of a demonstration than anything else. For takeoff, the procedures are very similar for both soft and short fields, with a few obvious differences. After talking about it for a while, we headed out to the plane to try some. We started the day with a short field takeoff. I didn’t do so shit hot, but I’m sure I’ll get better with practice. We headed out to the practice area and practiced a few forced approaches. I still need to force myself to review the procedures, especially the part about dialling in 7700 on the transponder. D’oh! [...]
Posted by Kevin, on October 12th, 2004 Went flying with Brad on Friday. It was my first time flying since my solo cross country to Kingston. I was a bit rusty. I got some more instrument time in. I’ve still got to focus more on the artificial horizon, I find I’m pretty much always drifting around. Towards the end of the booking, Brad pulled my engine on me and made me do a forced landing. It didn’t go so well! I picked a perfect field for a landing, but it was too far away and I wasn’t really realizing it until we were quite low. Then I had to quickly pick a field that was close to us and finish the procedures. As I said, it didn’t go so well, but reminded me that I needed to brush up on those procedures. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on October 1st, 2004 Cancelled again! Not that big of a deal, but I didn’t really like the way it went down today. I was originally booked on one of the two available 150s today for 1700. Around 1122 today, Mark cancelled me on the 150 and booked me on a 172 (BOF). I know this because I got an email from the booking system saying that this had been done. I thought to myself, “Cool! I’ll get to fly in a 172 for the price of a 150,” and I was really looking forward to my lesson this afternoon. Then, at around 1400 or so, Mark called and left a voicemail to tell me that my booking on BOF was cancelled. Wouldn’t have been a big deal if he just said that, but here is what he said, “I noticed that you were booked on BOF today. Unfortunately it’s got a problem with blah blah blah and I’m going to have to cancel your booking.” [...]
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