Lesson 8 & 9 : Preparing For Solo

Preparing For Solo
Since Thanksgiving, I've had 2 more flights and 2 ground schools. The goal is to complete my first solo flight within the next 6 flights or so. As Chris tells it, I won't see it coming. We'll have done a few touch-and-goes and then out of nowhere we'll pull over, he'll get out, and I will go up alone for 3 touch-and-goes followed by a full stop. I'm eager to get it behind me.

The last 2 flights were more pattern work and landings. I've not yet mastered coordinating altitude, airspeed, and heading simultaneously. Changing any one affects the other two. With any luck, I'll get my solo under my belt before the new year. After the solo, the next focus will be planning and executing a cross country flight.

Thanksgiving Flight: Diamond Star DA-40

Thanksgiving Morning in Georgia

Tuesday night, I picked up Lauren and Bill from Hartsfield. Miraculously, we managed to meet up with minimal delay even in the middle of a massive power outage at the infamously busy Atlanta airport. On the drive home, I pointed out Turner campus where I work - already wondering what it would look like from above. Cynthia had some snacks waiting on us when we arrived. The following morning would be my sister's first ride in a little plane, and my first time in the DA-40.

Wednesday morning, I was up early. After some breakfast, I drove us over to Advanced Aviation. Chris had not arrived yet, so we sat down to wait on him. I could see that quiet look of anticipation/tension on Lauren's face that I had felt the first time. Chris came in the back and I introduced everybody. It was cold outside and this flight was more of a luxury, sight-seeing bit of fun than an actual lesson. So Chris went out and did the preflight while we stayed warm in the office.

Ten minutes later, Chris returned obviously chilled. We were ready to go, except we needed a gas topoff. We walked out to the ramp. The 40 was waiting with the canopies open. I showed Lauren the Cessna 172 and DA-20. We took a bunch of pictures, waiting on the fuel truck. After 2o minutes or so, we got filled up and were ready to roll.

The Diamond Star DA-40

Lauren and Bill climbed into the back, Chris took the right seat, and I the left. Chris noticed me digging around for the handle to adjust the rudder pedals.

"It's electric. There's a switch just under the left corner of the seat," he said.

Fancy. I was already falling in love with the DA-40. Chris told me once I fly it I would not want to get back in the 20. I believed him. We expeditiously went through the checklist, which is similar to the 20 until the avionics check. Our 40 is equipped with a Garmin 1000 flat panel system. Between the monitors are 3 steam gauges: Altitude, Attitude, Airspeed. These guages are backups in case of electrical failure.

As we taxied off the ramp, I could immediately feel how much easier the 40 taxies. It reminded me of the 172. We cruised down, did the run-up. We got takeoff clearance, made a left facing down runway, and hit the throttle. The DA-40's 185 horsepower engine got us to 60 kts quickly. It was much easier to keep the 40 straight than the 20.

We lifted off around 60-65 kts. The climb-out was smooth with predictable right rudder input. Again the stability of the heavier more powerful aircraft became clear. The 40 is far less apt to drift around compared to the 20.

"How's it going? Do you feel ok?" I looked back at my sister.

"Yep. I'm good," she replied and gave me a thumbs up. Her body language agreed with her words. Bill looked fine too.

We headed East for Winder to do a touch and go. Chris keyed the location into the Garmin and hit the auto-pilot. The DA-40 was flying itself; the stick and pedals physically moving. On the primary screen, a "tunnel" of squares formed a 3D spatial route that the computer would follow, flying through the center of each square in series and ending at Winder. It was really amazing to watch the computer fly the plane. As we neared Winder, I switched back to manual control. We circled for the approach, touched down, and boosted back up for a takeoff. Again, the 40 was ultra smooth. Not nearly as much wiggle and drift as the 20

We left Winder and flew north to lake Lanier then southwest into the city. We circled around 10th street where I work.

Auto-pilot is especially handy for sight seeing and generally eases the multi-tasking stresses of piloting a plane. As we landed, I was already getting depressed at the thought of leaving the DA-40 to sit in traffic. We touched down, said goodbye to the beautiful DA-40, and began the painfully slow road trip to Cape San Blas, FL.

Thanksgiving Evening in FL

The drive from Atlanta to Cape San Blas is a voyage to the edge of sanity .. and beyond.  Observe here my sister succumbing to what Team Zissou calls "the crazy eye".

Ultimately, the destination is worth the trip.  Cape San Blas is a lesser known, but absolutely beautiful beach about 20 miles west of Apalachicola.  

The only way I can possibly imagine improving such a view would be to see it from the cockpit of DA-40.

Lesson 7: Ground School and Touch and Go

11/14/2008 : (Last weekend) The weather was bad so I did ground school with Chris. We went over basic flight physics, control surfaces, gauges, and things like that. Uneventfull classroom type stuff, but required for licensure.

11/22/2008 : Saturday was beautiful - no clouds, visibility forever, and no traffic. Just us and the sky. We went to Winder for more touch and goes. The actual landing from an approach I've got down. What I need to work on is control of altitude and attitude. For example, climbing to 2000 ft and not deviating from that altitude. Or turning to NE and hitting NE and staying there. I tend to drift around.

It was cold and the wings had ice on them. The Diamond's composite material makes icing a bit of a problem in that it takes longer to burn off than other surfaces. Icy wings makes a big difference in flight characteristics. Chris said he would not fly a plane with even moderate ice on the wings. It causes air turbulence over the normally smooth, streamlined control surfaces. This results in uneven pitch and roll response, and greatly impedes basic maneuvering. So we did the run up and then waited at the line for sun to melt the ice. We did this by looking at the wings and waiting for the appearance of water beads.

The touch and goes were fine, except one I had to go around on. I made a mistake when I flipped the flaps all the way up (cruise flaps) instead of all the way down (landing flaps). That combined with being too high to begin with dictated a go around. I made some mistakes, but I'm still improving with every lesson, so it just takes time. There is no substitute for experience. I'd rather make evry mistake in the book with Chris than solo.

My sister and her husband Bill come into town tommorow evening. I'm excited to see them. Wednesday we go up in the DA-40 with the glass cockpit Garmin 1000. Even though it doesn't count toward my DA-20 certification, it will give me good comparative flight experience. The plan is to go to Winder for a touch and go, fly over lake Lanier, and then fly over downtown Atlanta. The DA-40 has an autopilot, so that will be another first.

I have almost 20 hours of flight time logged. Based on a 60 hour estimate, I'm about 1/3rd of the way to a private pilot license. Probably about 1/2 way to my first solo.

Lesson 6: Radio And Landing .. And Barack Obama

Barack Obama wins!
Now its just a simple matter of running the United States for 4 years. Who in their right mind would want that job? Not me. But I'm glad there are those who do - and who seem to consider the office a privilege of national service, rather than an entitlement to 4 years of VIP rockstardom. Barack might just as well ask who in their right mind would strap themselves behind an engine and pretend to be a bird ..

Wednesday morning I had another flight lesson. Like last time, I did the pre-flight by myself with Chris looking on. The one thing I forgot was to untie the tail and left wing. It is not on the DA-20 standard checklist for some reason. Chris recommended that after the pre-flight, I stand back and look the plane over from a distance. That way, any major stuff stands out more than when you’re right up close.

I did my first radio communications with tower and ground. I had to write down what to say. I still messed it up, forgetting to repeat my call-sign at the end. Like anything else, it takes practice. That’s something I really appreciate about flight; it seems that the only real credential is flight hours logged. There is no substitute for experience. Aside from the communication, Wednesday was basically a repeat of last lesson: touch and goes at Winder. Chris told me that working up to the point of solo is in large part gauged by how good you’re landings and takeoffs are, since those are the riskiest phases of flight.

We did have a moment of excitement. On my third touch and go, I got wheels on the ground and then throttled back up. At about 45 knots, just shy of takeoff, a jet on the crossway started moving. In other words, imagine the runways as a big letter “L”. We were taking off on the long side toward the corner, and the jet suddenly started moving on the short side toward the same corner. Unsure of the jet’s intentions, Chris slammed on the brakes and watched the jet. The jet slowed down and it became obvious he was not going to pull out in front of us, so Chris throttled back up to complete the takeoff. We got back up to 55 knots and took off, but had very little runway left.

The whole encounter only lasted about 5 seconds, but felt much longer. He apologized, but I’m glad he had his eyes open. Over-caution is much better than unawareness. So 5 more touch and goes under my belt. Chris said next time we would practice emergency procedures. The next lesson will probably be in a week or so.

Also, I am especially looking forward to flying with my brother in law, Bill, in the DA-20's big brother : DA-40. That happens the Nov. 26th. I'm thinking I'll put him on camera detail so we can get some pics and maybe some video of the flight.

Lesson 5: Touch and Go

On Friday I took the morning off to get a flight in before the weekend. Chris was running late, so he left instructions for me to start the preflight. I went through the list, line by line and checked everything. When he arrived, he double checked the oil and decided it was a little low and topped it off.

We opened the cockpit and turned on the radios to test my new headsets. I can hear through them fine, but the mic input is a little low. I might look into having the output gain turned up. We finished the check and taxied to the runway. LZU was busy this morning. We were on deck for takeoff.

"Today we're going over to Winder to practice landing." Chris looked at me. "You look nervous about that .. " he continued. He was right. I was nervous and excited.

We throttled up and took off. Chris obviously left more of the takeoff to me this time, because the plane was REALLY wanting to yaw and roll left. I had to apply significant right rudder and right aileron to keep a level climb.

We headed east to the Winder-Barrow airport to practice "touch and go"s. A "touch and go" is a landing practice excercise where the pilot lands, getting all wheels down on the runway, and then immediately throttles back up and takes off again.

Chris would handle the first one. We got runway clearance and circled around to begin the approach. Chris called out the actions as we approached the runway.

"Power down to 1700 RPMs and descended to 2,000 ft."

"Flaps to takeoff. Pitch for 70 knots." I switched flaps down one notch.

Pitching for speed means that on a descent, you pitch the nose up to induce drag and slow airspeed and likewise pitch down to decrease drag and increase airspeed. Thus, you are using pitch to control airspeed.

"Pull power to idle and set flaps to landing." I pulled the throttle level all the way to idle and switched flaps down all the way. The stick was getting mushy. We were over the runway at about a 100 foot altitude, a little high intentionally. We descended down to what looked like about 30 feet.

"Start pulling back," Chris said. I pulled back on the stick to level. Our descent slowed.

We were almost down. "Now pull back more," Chris said. I did as he said and felt our back wheels bump down, followed by the front. That was it. We had landed. Bumpy but intact. It was back to the pedals for rudder control.

"Ok full throttle, 1st notch flaps, and take off again." I flipped the flaps to T/O, throttled up and lifted off again, this time anticipating the hard left turn tendency. I felt the bird wanting to roll and turn left, stepped right and rolled right to keep level.

"At 1500 feet flaps to Cruise." We passed through 1500 feet. I flipped the flaps up.

Rinse and repeat.

We did 4 more touch and goes at Winder, each one getting better and smoother. We got back to LZU and landed. The LZU landing was much smoother. I need a lot more practice, but I'm getting more and more comfortable with each lesson.

Another Helicopter Flight

My scheduled fixed wing lesson last weekend got called on account of wind and rain. I rescheduled for Friday (tommorow) at 10AM.

So yesterday evening, with my wife's generous support and blessing (even in the face of car trouble), I splurged and bought another helicopter lesson. Helicopters are fun, but expensive; fun things usually are. So I wanted to squeeze in as much hands-on time as I could during this lesson; I'm not sure when I'll be back. The good news is that I flew almost the entire time. The bad news is I don't have any pictures - because I was flying almost the entire time.

I flew with Travis because it was chilly and we needed doors on the R22 this time. Why Travis? Because with Derrick and doors, my fat a$$ puts us over the R22 max load. Stupid, delicious Krystals.

Travis lifted off and got us out to 2,600 ft.

"You have the controls," he said.
"Copy, I have the controls," I replied.
This communication is critical in helicopters. We did two things: turning and hovering.

Turning
The turning practice was an extension of the last lesson. It got progresively more complex:

"Turn right to a heading of 32, hold 2,600 feet, hold 60 knots."
"Now turn left to a heading of North, descend to 2,200 feet, hold 60 knots."
"Now give me a right turn to a heading of 17, ascend to 2,500 feet, speed 75 knots."

Left/Right, Up/Down, Faster/Slower .. all simultaneously using all the controls in coordination.
I had it down pretty good. Time in fixed-wing helped.

Hovering
After 45 mins of turns and basic navigation, we returned to the taxi-way for hovering about 10 feet off the ground.

I practiced first with only the cyclic (roll /pitch), then only the pedals (left / right), then only the collective (up / down). I kept it stable and hovered without problem. This earned some praise from Travis. He had never seen a student hover like I did the first time out. I felt my big head swell with pure awesomeness.

I am a unique and special snowflake. The voodoo child.

Then he gave me both the cyclic and pedals. I held the hover for about 3 seconds. Combined with the wind, it was more than I could handle and we got blown around every which way. We started spinning and sidewinding. He pulled us back from the brink. My head deflated back to mere mortal size.

I am not a unique and special snowflake. I am the same decaying organic matter as everything else.

We wrapped it up. I got some pats on the back for how well I did, settled up, and was off home to my wife whom I love for not only putting up with but eagerly supporting my high maintenance, overdeveloped sense of ambition and challenge. While I was playing helicopter pilot, she was dealing with a dead car battery. To show my gratitude, I went out later and picked up some ribs from Sonnys in time to watch Barack Obama's 20 minute music video.

This experience reminded me of what I love, fear, and respect about piloting aircraft: Your mind, body, and senses are in tune with the world. You aren't dealing in artificiality. There is only dangerous and beautiful reality. You're in it, part of it, connected to nature by the work of countless fellow human beings who came before you. If you choose awareness of, respect for, and harmony with that nature, you experience what few others ever do. But if instead you choose arrogance over awareness, or trade reality for wishful thinking, it may cost you your life.

I'm Doug Hale and I approve this message.

Helicopter Flight

Two pieces of news warrant a post of their own.

First, I got my own pilot headset. For $100, I purchased off craigslist a decent set of David Clark H20-10 and no longer have to mooch headsets from the flight school.


Second, I flew a helicopter.

In the interest of developing into a more well-rounded pilot, and because it's just plain awesome as hell, I wanted to get some rotary wing experience under my belt. So on my way home Wednesday night, I called the helicopter training outfit "Blue Ridge Helicopters" located in Lawrenceville and lined up a discovery flight for 5:30 that evening. I've never been in a helicopter before and was really excited about it.

Blue Ridge is located at the same airport as Advanced Aviation, but on the opposite side of the runways. I got to Blue Ridge and met up with Travis, who then introduced me to Derick - the pilot I would be flying with. We would be flying a Robinson 22. I knew from what I had read on the web that this would be an entirely different experience from the fixed wing, but it really hit home seeing the R22 up close.

Like the DA-20, the R22 is tiny. However, sitting in the R22 without the doors is not claustrophic at all. In fact, it was perfectly comfortable. What I didn't realize was how windy - and thus cold - it would be up there. So while I roasted the first time up in the DA-20, I would freeze the first time up in the R22.


The R22 has fewer interior guages, most notably the lack of an attitude indicator. The visibility is far greater in the R22 than the DA-20 because of the lower orientation and smaller footprint of the instrument console. This configuration greatly reduced the temptation for me to stare at the instruments. Like in the fixed wing, we were flying VFR.

We did a quick briefing on what the controls did and how I would be operating them. Helicopters are piloted via 3 coordinated controls.

1: Cyclic. The stick/yoke analog. Push to nose down, pull to nose up, left and right to roll.
2: Collective. Handle on left (between seats). Pull up for vertical rise. Push down for vertical drop.
3: Anti-torques. The rudder analog. Pedals turns nose right, left.

There is also the throttle control. The throttle in the R22 is automatically adjusted by a "throttle correlator" linked to the Collective which keeps the RPMs at a constant rate.

Derick had already done the preflight so we were ready to go. He and Travis both stressed to me the importance of using gentle, controlled pressure and not jerking the stick. "It doesn't take much to enter a dangerous attitude," said Travis.

"Got it," I said. "Do not yank the controls. Understood."

Just then Derick walked up. "I just heard the word 'Yank'" he said.

"No, what you heard is the tail end of 'DONT yank!' I kidded back. We all laughed for a moment, but I reassured Derick that I understood and would be ginger with the controls. In the fixed wing DA-20, it seems practically impossible for a student pilot to put the plane into an attitude the instructor couldn't easily recover from. I got the distinct impression that helicopters were a different story.

Derick started the rotors. "So what I'm doing here is waiting to feel us start to lift and tilt, and then do little corrections. That way we rise straight up." Soon, I felt the tilts and rise begin. Where airplane takeoff is about speed, helicopter liftoff is about balance. I had my hands on the stick to feel the liftoff. Indeed, small corrections and pressure induce big attitude differences. I could already tell. We lifted up about 10 feet and cruised over to a runway.

Derick explained the take off. "To get speed we pitch down the cyclic." We pitched forward. "And push some collective," he continued. We thrusted forward and lifted gradually. Soon we were in the air. After we cleared LZU, Derick handed me the controls and I flew for a while. It's true that flying a helicopter is a balancing act, but straight and level flight is not a hard balancing act. I felt very comfortable with the controls.

Normally Derick would take the controls 8 miles out from LZU, but since he felt I was comfortable with the controls he allowed me to do the approach. He complimented my performance several times which made me feel good. Later Derick would tell me that the really hard part is hovering.

"It's like standing on a basketball," he described it. I already cannot wait to try it. Flying a helicopter was really fun and I'm sure I'll be back for more. My next fixed wing lesson is Friday at 10 AM.

Lesson 4: The B17 Bomber

Tic-Tac-Toe

It was a bright, cold day in October, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

According to my TV and contrary to all my first-hand experience, the United States have magically polarized themselves evenly into Red and Blue factions.  Red guy and Blue guy play Tic-Tac-Toe in the sand for a captive national audience.  Real-time graphs guide viewers through the perilous waters of independent thought.  Tic-Tac-Toe experts debate the artistic merit and style with which the "X"s and "O"s were drawn.  Software, created in part by me, ensures that the circus is profitable.  

And here I am, learning to fly airplanes.  

B17

Chris was finishing his lunch when I arrived.  He and Darrick were talking about a mysterious flat tire on one of the DA-20s.  The flat has happened 3 times now, each time with Chris on the same DA-20, with the same student, and all three times it was only noticeable during taxi.  Oddly nobody else has experienced it.  So Chris decided he was not going to fly it for a while and see if anybody else noticed it.  Why tempt fate?  

 

We got our stuff together.  As we walked outside, Chris asked me, "did you see the B17 when you came in?"   

"No," I told him.  I did not know what a B17 was.  He explained that B17s were old World War II era bomber aircrafts.  The U.S. Air Force (I presume) had flown a B17 into LZU and parked it on the ramp for public viewing.  For $6, you could tour the interior of the plane.  Chris, Darick and I walked down to it and gawked for a few minutes.  It's an enormous aircraft, designed to drop enormous bombs on bad guys, and equipped with machine guns to dissuade enemy aircraft from interfering.  I snapped some shots of course.  

(b17 pics)

Takeoff #2

Back at the DA-20, Chris guided me through the preflight as usual.  I could probably do the entire preflight by myself at this point.  I've seen more advanced students doing the preflight alone.  I'm probably not too far way from that point.

We taxied to the line.  Chris got "cleared for takeoff without delay" which means don't dilly dally; there's an inbound who will be needing to land in a couple of minutes.  

"Ok take us up to the line, " Chris said.  I gingerly pushed up some power and we started to barely move.  I'm still at the point where I like to take things extra slow and deliberate.

"Juliet 91 - No delay on your takeoff," the tower came over the radio.  That meant: hurry up.  So Chris took control for us to get lined up for take off.  

"Full throttle," Chris said.  I pushed up to full throttle and we started moving.  For some reason we were yawing right really hard.  It felt like I was having to stand on the left rudder to keep us from veering off the ramp to the right.  

"At 55 knots pull up," Chris said.  At around 55 knots the ground contact vibration died down.  I pulled up and we were in the air.  Tower told us to turn west.  We turned and climbed to about 4,000 feet.  Today we were to practice trim control, banks, and more slow flying.

Steep Banks

At one point, our traffic proximity alarm went off.  We look around but could not find the nearby aircraft, which is not good.  Then Chris found him, above us on the right side.  It was a glider.  We were coming up on some clouds, so Chris banked us hard to the left.  

I've never banked this hard before.  It had to have been at least 45 degrees, maybe more.  I'm glad we did though, because I had been timid about banking too hard before.  Part of getting comfortable as a pilot means learning what "a lot" and "a little" feel like.  As a land animal born to fear heights and imbalance, it's like learning to ride a bike all over again.  I practiced steep banks into headings.

Slow Flight

Mastering slow flying is a pre-requisite to learning how to land.  In other words, landing is essentially a controlled stall as close to the runway as possible.  You fly slower and slower, closer and closer to the ground until you stall and the plane drops in a controlled descent onto the runway.  In a few weeks, we will start touch and goes.  

As we landed today, I kept my hands on the stick to feel the landing.  The controls become "mushy" at slow speeds because less wind is flowing over the control surfaces.  I need more slow flight practice, but I'm starting to be able to see the landing in mind.

Lesson 3: Sea of Clouds

9:00 AM. I arrived at Advanced Aviation this morning for my 3rd

lesson. It was cloudy and windy today. Chris was finishing up a
ground school lesson with another student.

We got our stuff together and headed out to the ramp. Last class, he suggested I look into getting my own headset. I researched headsets this week but decided to wait and see what Chris used and find out what the Advanced Aviation folks thought about Active Noise Reduction (ANR) headsets. ANR greatly reduces ambient noise by emitting "anti-sound" that cancels out the constant background noise. Other than ANR being more expensive, I was concerned about the possibility of ANR canceling out important noise, like engine sounds, radio, or warning indicators like the stall horn. Chris and Darrick didn't have any concerns with ANR. Darick in fact uses ANR headsets. Chris uses passive Dave Clarks, but wants a set of the new Bose ANRs. That takes care of my ANR concerns. I'll get some off Ebay or Craigs List.

We pulled the cover off the DA-20 and did the preflight. I taxied us to the runway area. Because of the high winds, Chris decided to handle the takeoff. I was disappointed but appreciate Chris's cautious attitude about safety. Darick was with another student beside us in the other DA-20 doing their pre-takeoff. They were first up.

"Hey Darick," Chris radioed. "Your front tire looks low."

It did look very low, pancaked at the point of contact with the road. Darick replied that it felt ok on taxi.

"Ok," Chris responded. "It might be the angle I'm looking. Just keep an eye on it."

"Yeah, I will. Thanks," Darick responded. Pilots look out for each other.

After Darick was in the air, we taxied to the line and stopped. ATC cleared us for take off. Chris throttled up and we were in the air within 5 seconds. We couldn't have been going more than 30 mph.

"Wow - we're already in the air," Chris exclaimed. We were facing a 20 mph wind. That means as far as the wings knew, our true ground speed of 30 mph was more like 50 mph. Wind moving over the wings creates lift. Strong headwind combined with the DA-20s light weight put us into flight in no time. I took control once we were up. Winds were strong and gusty, which meant lots of bumps and drops. I did not feel nervous at all though. I'm getting used to the sensations.

Although I didn't get to take off, I was in for a rare treat: a low cloud ceiling. Because the DA-20 is not IFR certified (its plastic airframe lacks lightening protection), flying through clouds is not allowed. But that doesn't mean we can't get above them, as long as we don't fly into them on the way up. So we had to find a hole in the clouds and climb through it.

"See that opening," Chris pointed. "Climb us through that to 4500 feet." This was really fun. I pushed full throttle for power and pulled the stick back to about a 700 ft/min climb. As we climbed through the hole in the clouds, I looked around at the surreal gaseous layer just below us. I asked Chris to take the stick for moment while I snapped some pictures. Here are few just after we leveled off. You can see the hole we climbed through.

Just through the hole

Sea of Clouds: Pilot side

Sea of Clouds: Co-pilot side

Above the clouds, the turbulence was completely gone. Except for takeoff and landing, I flew the entire time today. For an hour, I practiced turning, ascent, descent, trim control, and throttle adjustment. It was over before it began and we needed to head home. I descended and brought us into LZU controlled space where Chris took back over for the landing.

"This is going to be interesting," Chris said. We were landing under heavy winds. Chris slowed us down and lowered the flaps. As we got down to around 300 ft above deck, it looked like we were barely moving. Chris touched down to an amazingly smooth landing. There wasn't a single bump or jolt. I don't think they get any better than that.

"Nicely done!" I complimented him. "Thanks," he replied. Chris was smiling, clearly happy with his touchdown. He had a right to be. It really was remarkable.

We were supposed to do more stall recovery today, but the high winds prevented that too. It's looking like Friday Oct 17th will be the next lesson. The agenda will be more stall recovery and steep bank turns. Chris also said we would start landing practice called "touch and go"s. That's where you line up for a landing, descend, get wheels on the ground, and then take back off to circle around for another pass: touch and go. Even with the instructor present and helping, completing an entire flight from take-off to landing will be a huge milestone.

Lesson 2: The Cessna 172 Skyhawk

Saturday's flight lesson was awesome. I don't have any in-flight pictures because I spent more time playing pilot than photographer. Which is good. After all, that's what I signed up for. However, I do have pictures of the Cessna I flew and some intense experiences that I'm not sure I could ever verbalize to their full credit.

VFR-into-IMC
I arrived at 3:00. Chris was on a discovery flight and running a little late. No big deal. I sat down and thumbed through some magazines. I found a photocopied article about Cessna safety. I would be flying a Cessna today, as chance would have it. The article explored a sobering topic: VFR-into-IMC is the biggest pilot killer out there.

A pilot flying Visual Flight Rules (VFR) flies by sight. Everything he needs is visible to the naked eye: the horizon, ground, mountains, towers, power lines, other aircraft, etc. Gauges are also used in VFR, but they are secondary. On the other hand, Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) occurs when visibility is severely limited. The pilot cannot fly by sight and instead must use instruments as the primary reference. This mode of flight is called IFR (Instrument Flight Rules). Only by earning an instrument rating is a pilot qualified to fly IFR.

VFR-into-IMC means a pilot starts in VFR and then finds himself unexpectedly in IMC. This is an especially dangerous situation when the pilot is not instrument rated. Disorientation and unawareness of position/heading lead to disaster. Sadly, this situation spelled the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, and his sister-in-law in 1999. Even as a student pilot, I am already deeply committed to a conservative, cautious attitude and intend to earn my instrument rating as soon as possible.
I glanced up as the front door opened. Chris entered followed by a man who appeared to be in his mid 40s. They had just finished the discovery flight. I immediately recognized that quiet, slightly glazed-over look. It's in the eyes, a kind of thousand-yard stare. He was on auto-pilot. Inside he was still sorting out the excitement, fear, and discovery of it all.

"Okay, let's see .. that's sixty-two dollars," the girl at the front said. His eyes came back into focus.

"Really? sixty-two? That's all?". The first one is always free. Advanced Aviation had created another junky.

The Skyhawk

Chris sat down across from me for our pre-flight briefing. Today was going to be about slow flying. Specifically, maintaining control of the plane right at the edge of a stall. It was not going to be a joy ride. We were getting down to business.

Cessna's 172 is the quintessential personal/trainer aircraft. Introduced in the 1950s, it's the tried and true stuff of an earlier generation. Put simply, if the DA-20 fought the Cessna 172 in an epic boxing match, it would be called Rocky IV.

In the right corner, weighing in at 1,116 pounds the Austrian-engineered, state-of-the-art, streamlined 1992 DA-20 C1 Falcon from the Diamond company. Constructed from high-tech lightweight composite material and equipped with the latest avionic technology, this bird is all about smooth efficient flight.


And in the left corner, weighing in at 1,620 pounds the American made, tried and true, blood and guts 1952 Cessna 172 Skyhawk. The steel frame, high wing 172 is the most popular trainer aircraft in the world. 30 years before Diamond was founded, Skyhawks were coming off the Cessna assembly line. Here are some pictures of our 172.





Brie Cheese versus Apple Pie. That's how some people see it, anyway. For me, flying the Cessna was so I could understand both ends of the spectrum and make an informed choice as to which I would stick with for the remainder of my training.

The Skyhawk is a roomier 4-seater and the high wings and covered cockpit make it a cooler flight. The Falcon has less room and gets hotter because of the bubble canopy, but is much newer, has better avionics, and far greater visibility. I also like the stick better than the yoke. Chris agrees that fundamentally they aren't much different. Having flown both, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to stick with the DA-20 Falcon. The deciding factor for me is the fact that the United States Air Force uses the Falcon in their pilot training program. If it's good enough for USAF pilots, it's good enough for me.

Take-Off
Taxiing is a little easier in the Skyhawk. Where the DA-20 uses only differential braking to steer, the Cessna's rudder pedals actively turn the wheels right and left. Chris told me a rule of thumb for taxiing: you never taxi faster than you could sprint. We did preflight and I taxied out of the ramp and toward the runway. We pulled over to do the final pre-flight engine checks.

"Ok. Take us to that line and stop," Chris said. It was the take-off runway.

Calm down, I told myself. We're just getting in all the taxi practice possible. Chris will take it from here.

Tower called over the radio. "November fifty-two seven forty one, you're cleared for take off." That was us.

"Ok, here we go," Chris said. "Give us full throttle, straight ahead."

Holy shit. He wanted me to take off.

"So .. I'm taking off? Full throttle? Now?" I asked as cooly as possible. I'm sure he's seen that look of terror plenty of times.

"Yep. Go for it. Full throttle," he replied.

I pushed the throttle all the way in. The engine roared up, and we started our race down the runway. The panels and everything were vibrating wildly. I had the yoke in a kung-fu death grip, ready to pull up.

"Let me know when to pull up," I shouted over the racket. At the time, I guess I felt that Chris, my fully certified commercial flight instructor, needed a friendly reminder not to let his student careen the plane off the end of the runway into a ditch.

"You're doing fine," he reassured me.

Then something changed. The rattling high-speed noises and vibrations had all but stopped. We felt lighter.

"Pull back gently," Chris said. Point of no return. I pulled back on the yoke and we started to climb. Tilted up at about 45 degrees, all I could see ahead was blue sky. I looked over my left shoulder and watched the ground shrink into the distance. My ears popped. I uttered an expletive. I had survived the first of two gut checks of the day. What would come next made take-off feel like a walk in the park.

Slow Flying and Stall Recovery

We climbed to 4,500 feet and headed North toward Lake Lanier. As we leveled off, I remembered something had I wanted to ask Chris.

"If I let go of the yoke, will the plane naturally level off?"

"Yes," he said. "Watch this." Chris pulled back on the yoke, facing our nose up and then let go. The nose drifted down into a dive. My stomach clenched momentarily. Then the nose started back up by itself, past the horizon and back into a climb.

"If we let it, the plane will oscillate like this for 10 minutes or so until it finally levels out," he explained. "That's what the trim control is for - micro adjustments to get us smooth and level." Things I had read in the textbook were starting to come into focus. Lake Lanier materialized below us.

"Ok we're going to do some slow flying," Chris said. "I'll do the first one, and then you can try it." I knew I was not ready for this, whatever it was.

"See our altitude?" Chris asked. "We're at 4,500 ft. Now pick a point in the distance - let's use that water tower." He pointed out a white tower way off in the distance. "That's our point of reference. We want to keep that tower in front of us."

"Now, pull the throttle back to idle," he said. I pulled the throttle out. The engine noise went away. It got very quiet. We started to dip forward. "The nose wants to dive, so I'm going to trim nose up," he explained and adjusted the trim dial. The nose came up. We were loosing airspeed, quickly approaching the low end of the "green" airspeed gauge. Butterflies. My pulse quickened. "Ok more nose up trim," and he dialed up the trim to maximum nose up. We were about to stall.

Our airspeed dipped into 40 kts. A high pitched, unmistakable whirring sound poured through the earphones and cabin. It was the stall indicator. Our nose pitched down into a steep dive. My adrenaline was pumping. Keep it together. "Ok, we're going into the stall - go full throttle," he said. I pushed the throttle all the way in. Comforting sound of engine noise again. The nose came back up into a climb. Chris spun the trim dial, nose came back down. More trim adjustment. "Throttle back to 2200 RPMS," he said. I throttled back. We leveled off. The water tower was still dead ahead.

I felt like I had been on a roller coaster. Climbing, diving, throttling up and down. Check out the altitude," Chris pointed. 4,500 ft. We had not climbed or dived at all. The nose up attitude had balanced out our throttle loss. We had stalled, but not long enough to loose altitude. At the onset of the stall, we pitched down to get air moving over the wings again and throttled back up to keep altitude. This maneuver is called a Power Off stall recovery.

"Ready to try it?" he asked. He walked me through it. We repeated the maneuver a couple of times. It got less and less scary each time. Am I comfortable with it? No way. But I'm getting there. The 2 hour lesson came and went. Time flies up there. I steered us back to LZU and Chris landed the smoothest touchdown yet. I truly enjoyed flying the 172.

Next Saturday, it's back to the DA-20 where I will stay. The agenda will include take-off, navigation, more stall recovery, a new maneuver: high bank angle turns. I'm looking forward to it.

Lesson 1: Flying Over Lake Lanier

My first lesson was yesterday, Friday September 26, 2008. My appointment wasn't until 3:00. I decided to take the day off to shop digital cameras. Friday morning, I grabbed some breakfast and then drove to Best Buy. After a few minutes, a young salesman greeted me.

"The main thing I need is jitter stability. I'm taking pilot lessons, you see .. I'll be 4,000 feet up in the air .." I explained. He wasn't impressed. That's OK. I too was 18 once and just as unimpressed with the world. We arrived at a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3. I considered a carrying case, but it turns out that my Turner-issued blackberry holster fits the camera perfectly. I spent the morning charging the camera and familiarizing myself with its operation, while half-watching my latest Sopranos DVDs. I ordered the whole first season from Netflicks.

2:45. Time to go. At this point, I had snapped enough pictures and clips (it does video too) of our dog Pita and Tony Soprano that I was now intimately familiar with the camera and ready to deploy it under flight conditions. I even practiced quick-drawing it from the blackberry case in the event something particularly awesome happened that I wanted to capture.

The Pre-flight Check : Instrument Extravaganza

3:00. I arrived at Advanced Aviation. Today I would be flying with a new instructor, Chris. This lesson would be more hands-on than the teaser flight last week. We headed outside to the ramp where our DA-20 was parked. Chris handed me the pre-flight checklist and we walked through it. The items on the pre-flight checklist are grouped by areas of the plane - right wing, left wing, landing gear, front, tail, cockpit, etc. You check the fuel, oil, rudders, flaps, ailerons, propeller, landing gear, lights, engine gauges, GPS, radios, .. everything. Even for our little DA-20, it's a solid 10 minute process for an experienced pilot. The pre-flight provides a natural introduction to all the areas of an airplane. We spent about 20 minutes going through the list and he explained each area and part.

There are aspects of airplane design that are surprisingly (and ingeniously) simple. For example, the way our DA-20 knows if it's stalling (going so slowly that it can't fly) is simply by a little hole on the underside of the wing with a sensor inside that measures airflow. Air must move across the wings at a certain speed to attain lift. This speed depends on several factors, but for the DA-20 is around 37-42 kts (1 kt "naught" is 1.15 mph) . At this threshold speed, air pressure under the wing creates enough lift to overcome the airplane's weight and flight occurs. In other words, you have to be going at least a certain speed to fly. Any slower and air escapes around the wing too freely and you don't get lift. If air pressure inside the hole lowers past a certain threshold, stall warnings go off in the cockpit. One of the pre-flight checks is to make sure that hole is clear of debris.

The cockpit instruments and controls are the most interesting aspect to me. Here is our DA-20 instrument panel.

At first glance it feels overwhelming, but there is a method to the madness.

Left side (pilot side): The 8 (2 rows of 4) circular gauges tell you speed, orientation, and direction. Under those 8 dials, a row of white switches control interior and exterior lights. Right of the light switches are the key ignition, master switches for the avionics, fuel pump, main power, and flaps.

Right side (co-pilot): The main screen is a GPS. Below that are radios. To the right are 8 (4 rows of 2) circular gauges devoted to fuel supply, oil pressure, and temperature. To the far right are a bunch of little black knobs. These are fuses, just like in your car or house. If any circuits overload, the protection circuit breaker kicks in and juts the knob out. To reset it, you just push it back in. If it pops right back out, you've got a blown circuit. More shots of the instruments below.

I got to spend some time taxiing. You drive the plane on the ground by a little throttle and then braking on either the left or right side to control direction. The breaks are black pads attached to the tops of the rudder foot controls.

So, for example if you want to turn left, you step on the left break. The plane starts turning left, you release and it goes straight again. It was not easy to keep the plane taxiing straight, lots of .. left, right, left, more left, right. I began to get the hang of it. Like anything else, there's no substitute for practice.

I won't go into the yoke, aka stick, since that was covered in the previous post. Finally, there are the levers located between the pilot seats, as shown to the lower right.

The upper set of 3 levers control from left to right: heat level, whether heat goes to defroster or floor, and parking brake. The red button to the right of the upper levers cuts the fuel off to the engine. "Whatever you do, don't press the red button" - K, Men In Black.

The lower set of 3 levers control from left to right: alternate fuel injector air source, power (throttle), and fuel mixture. The star of the show here is throttle. Throttle creates forward thrust. On take off, throttle is at max. When banking, climbing, and diving the throttle is used to manage airspeed. Chris controlled the throttle for the most part on this lesson.

Lake Lanier, PDK, and Stone Mountain

Today's flight would take us north over Lake Lanier, then hooking around southwest where we would land at DeKalb Peachtree Airport (PDK). From there we would take off again and head southeast over Stone Mountain and then back to Gwinnett County Airport (LZU). Here is more or less the route we took.

Almost immediately after takeoff, Chris turned the controls over to me. He would give me directions and I would try to convince our bird to make it happen.

"Climb to 4,000 ft and head southeast," he would say.

I mostly used the stick for turns, though I did use the rudder some too. I did some rolling and banking. It felt a lot more comfortable than the first time up, naturally.

Thinking back when I was learning to drive a car, I remember Dad telling me not to focus on what was immediately ahead, but rather to look further out. It's the same with flying. The first time up I was obsessed with keeping the attitude level and starring at the instruments. This time I tried to spend more time looking around, being situationally aware, and adjusting the natural roll and pitch by feel rather than instrument. In a word, learning to relax.

Watching Chris, his attention was squarely focussed on situational awareness. Where were other planes?

Which way were they going? He showed me a little arrow on the GPS and how that little blip was a plane several thousand feet down and about 6 miles away. I could see him out the window, down and to our left.

This is Lake Lanier. Georgia is in the middle of drought at the moment, so the water levels are lower than usual. That's why so much of the bank is visible.

Below are more pictures of the lake.

After Lake Lanier, we went down to DeKalb Peachtree Airpoirt. Here's a shot of us lining up for landing.

PDK is a much busier airport than LZU (Gwinnett). All manners of Cessnas, jets, and everything else were coming in and out of there. From what I could make out, ATC gave us landing instructions that Chris didn't like. It was not clear to me, but I didn't want to distract him. They gave us alternate landing instructions. We lined up and landed under a tail wind.

I think the idea was that I would practice more taxiing at PDK, but it was so busy that we just got back in line and took off toward Stone Mountain.

We took off and leveled out. After a few minutes, ATC bid us farewell saying "have a nice day." As we approached Stone Mountain, I noticed my neck and back were getting stiff. There is no head-rest and the seat is in a fixed incline. 1.5 to 2 hours is plenty in DA-20.

Stone Mountain is a recreational park in Georgia best known for its hiking trails and a laser/light show. Chris asked me if I had ever seen the show.

"I've never been," I said. "I've heard it's overrated .. "

"It's the kind of thing you go see once, just to say you've seen it," he responded.

Chris is a good guy and a good pilot. I can't think of a better way to see Stone Mountain than from up here.

We made our way back to Gwinnett, landed, and taxiied back to the ramp.

"So did you have fun?" Chris asked me.

"Hell yes I did," I said. That was the truth.

We went back inside. I got my student kit consisting of several textbooks, a thick FAA regulations book, a log book, a "flight computer" which is a set of plastic rulers and measures used to chart long courses, and a spiffy bag in which to stow it all. Chris had another student waiting. We shook hands and he was out the door ready to do it all over again. I'm jealous.

My back and neck were sore. Pilot training is not for the physically, emotionally, nor financially faint of heart. I have a lot to learn and much practice ahead of me. My next appointment is Saturday 10/4/2008 from 3:00 to 5:00 PM with Chris. Saturday however we are changing aircraft. I'm going to try a Cessna so I can compare it to the Diamond. I can't wait.

The Teaser Flight

I've always wanted to learn to fly an airplane.

I finally decided to pull the trigger. I chose Advanced Aviation in Lawrenceville, GA. http://http//advancedaviation.com/ They are within a few miles of my house, so that is convenient. I scheduled a $59 teaser flight for 12:00 Saturday (9/20/08) with Darick.

The fact of the matter is I've always been tense on commercial flights. Takeoffs, landings, turbulence, and strange mechanical noises always give me at least a little pause, if not make my heart skip a beat. So I was both excited and terrified at my maiden flight.

The anxiety of it all didn't really begin setting in until Saturday morning. My wife, Cynthia, had some errands to run that afternoon. So I was home alone watching TV with one eye on the clock counting the minutes until I needed to leave for the airport.

11:30 rolled around and I decided to head out. Drove to CVS for a bottled water and some cash. 11:45. No more excuses for delay. I drove out to the Gwinnett County airport. Briscoe Blvd is a strip of road, approximately 3/4 mile in length, where flight school offices, garages, hangars, and the like are located. Advanced Aviation occupies the upstairs of a shared office complex on Briscoe Blvd.

I got signed in and met the instructor I would fly with, Darick. Anxiety levels were holding steady at about medium/low. I followed Darick outside and around back to the ramp (where planes are parked). This is where my anxiety peaked: when I saw the plane.


I had assumed we would be in a larger, twin engine type that we could move around in - like the ones you see in movies. Not so. This little 2 seater is a Diamond DA-20. It's a trainer aircraft made of very light, sturdy composite material. It is tiny. Later I would be told that the DA-20 is statistically the safest trainer aircraft around: newer than the Cessnas and Pipers, better avionics, easy to fly, and stable.


At 6 feet / 200 lbs, this was the only point where I truly considered backing out. I swallowed my fear and decided to continue, trusting in Darick to keep us safe. We climbed into the cockpit, nice and cozy. Once inside, Darick finished the preflight and we buckled up. The belt buckles are 2 straps that cross lap and chest and snap together in the middle. We donned our headsets and the plane started up. Some recorded weather conditions came over the radio. Darick had an exchange with ATC and then jotted down some information they read out to him. I can't wait to learn this stuff.

The ATC radio chatter can be hard to make out. We taxied out of the ramp and toward the runway. Darick used only the rudder pedals to drive the plane around on the ground. We positioned facing down the runway and stopped. A short while later, I heard ATC say "cleared for takeoff". We throttled up and were speeding down the runway.

Every day people deal with "points of no return". Merging onto the interstate, for example. We deal with them every day without thinking about it. They don't feel like momentous commitments because we do them all the time. Takeoff was a new point of no return for me, which is a rare and special thing. You can't pull over to the side of the road. There are no questions. You are committed.

We lifted off at what felt like was 50 or 60 mph. It was different from commercial airline liftoffs; it was lighter and easier. I did not feel like air cargo. I was flying. Our little DA-20 had turned into a bird. Darick let me control the stick while we climbed and leveled out. The stick controls the nose pitch and wing tilt by raising and lowering surfaces on the wings and tail. Hold your hand out the window of a moving car and change the angle. Tilt up and your hand lifts, tilt down and it falls. Same principle.

Every once in a while we would hit these little pockets where the plane would lurch downward for an instant which gave me minor stomach butterflies. Darick said those were "thermals", pockets of hot air rising up from the ground due to the clear, sunny day. If you think about flying as "swimming" through air, it makes sense that different sized water molecules (warm air is less dense than cool air) would feel different to the swimmer as he passes through them. Columns of hot air will actually displace the airplane upward and then passing out of the warm column, the plane "falls" back down relative to the cooler air. We flew around for about 20 minutes.

Darick had a few more ATC exchanges over the radio, and then lined up for landing. We just sort of glided in steadily, held right above ground level for a moment, and then throttled back which lowered us into contact with the runway. He made it look so much easier than it probably is. The DA-20's lightweight composite construction makes for a smoother more efficient flight, but renders them more sensitive to winds than their heavier Cessna and Piper counterparts.

We taxied back to the ramp. I was already sad it was over - hopelessly addicted. I met the president of the Advanced Aviation, Bruce, who was extremely informative and helpful. He was once a CPA - a desk jockey like myself.

Flying that plane was the most fun I've ever had. I want to learn about everything: the avionics, the flight physics, ATC procedures, everything. Once I get my private license, I want to fly my wife to Apalachicola, FL airport and celebrate by eating the best oysters on the planet at Boss Oyster.

My next flight, and first real lesson, is Friday 9/26/08. I cannot wait to get back out there.