It was a hot day. As we left home around 5:30pm for our first lesson on June 9, 2014 at 6pm, the temperature reading on the car dashboard indicated exactly 100 degrees. We had spent the previous weekend at a scouting camporee at Rancho Los Mochos and the temperatures were scorching hot and dry between 95 and 103 degrees. Comparatively today was cooler. When I called Steve in the morning to schedule this lesson at 5:30pm, he suggested we meet at 6pm instead because it was to be a hot day. He wasn’t sure if we’d be able to make it in the cockpit long enough in the heat for both Srinath and my lesson today. As we were driving, we checked the METAR and remarked that the hot day with low pressure would lower engine performance due to higher density altitude.

This was the first time we used our own access to enter the airport grounds and I was going to try and get into the hangar before Steve showed up so that I could attach the GoPro camera on the ceiling and position at the proper angle. But Steve beat us to the hangar. The ceiling turned out to be not so smooth and I couldn’t attach the GoPro (yet again). Srinath would have to handhold the camera.

I asked Srinath to run the preflight inspection this time because I had done it the last time. The oil dipstick reading wasn’t very clear. I thought the reading was between 3 and 4 quarts whereas Srinath and Steve both thought it was between 4 and 5 quarts. Srinath let me fly first because he had taken off from Livermore on our last flight. By 6:45pm we were strapped in and ready to start the engines. It was sweltering hot in the cockpit and Steve reminded us that pretty soon we would turn on the air conditioning (aka propellers). I completed the other checklists before starting the engine. Steve let me talk to ATC for clearance – Livermore Ground, Cessna 2 5 Echo Sierra at Northeast hangar, request taxi for takeoff with Lima. We were finally lined up and as I gave it full throttle I got the first of many reminders to give it right rudder. The plane snaked on the runway and we took off. Due to the high density altitude, the plane needed 1300′ to reach rotation speed instead of the customary 700′. After a shallow turn crosswind and a shallow turn downwind, we were headed east towards Byron. Steve remarked that it was still 95 degrees outside.

ATC told us that there was an aircraft at 2400’ at 11 o’clock to us. We scanned the skies and could see it. We were climbing and were roughly at 2000’. A few minutes later ATC told us there was an aircraft at 12 o’clock to us at 1800’ which I was able to see executing a descending bank. Again a few minutes later ATC told us there was an aircraft at 6 o’clock to us which I’m not sure how we would ever be able to spot. As we were heading to the practice area, Steve noticed that I was making very shallow turns. To allay my fears me showed what a steeper turn looked like. The combination of the steep bank combined with a loss of altitude got me excited (a little dizzy). After leveling out, I was back at the controls and climbing to 3000’. Steve pulled back the throttle, dropped flaps and trimmed the aircraft to just above stall speed. The stall horns were continuously sounding (even though the airspeed indicator was only at the bottom of the green not the white). I flew the aircraft maintaining airspeed by controlling pitch and executed a 180 turn keeping an eye on the turn and bank indicator to not exceed the “notches” while banking.

This is when Steve noticed that the oil temperature was rising quickly. We continued the slow flight and soon the oil temperature was at max. We increased throttle, pulled back the flaps slowly and dropped the nose to increase airspeed thus cooling the engine. After trimming for a roughly 100 KIAS, we cruised around while the plane was slowly losing altitude. During this time Steve reminded us about how to plan for emergency landings. The oil temperature needle was visibly but slowly retreating into the green until we were down to just under 1000’ now. Executed a slow climb and flew straight and level parallel to a canal, using a distant point as reference on the windshield to keep it straight, all the while keeping an eye on the oil temperature to ensure it wasn’t getting dangerously high.

Today’s lesson was Medium Turns, Straight and Level, Slow Flight and I logged 1.2 hours. Cooling an overheating engine by increasing airspeed was a nice bonus. Perhaps I should have taken a second reading on the oil during preflight and used a tissue to wipe the dipstick clean before taking the reading to improve accuracy. Perhaps I should have suggested that we add more oil given it was going to be a hot day (and more oil will absorb more heat). An over heated engine runs the risk of either failing or catching fire, neither of which would have been welcome occurences on my first official lesson.

Still learning to give right rudder pressure but I started getting a visual feel for when the plane starts to yaw to the left due to P-factor. Still learning to keep one hand on the throttle at all times as the other hand gently holds the yoke. Back at the hangar around 8:15pm we debriefed on the lesson before calling it a night. We left the oil door open on the top of the cowling  and by now the outside temperatures had cooled down considerably.