Tag Archives: hot day

First solo cross-country

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I flew my first solo cross country to Merced (KMCE) and back. After left downwind departure and shortly after Livermore tower approved a frequency change, my first order of business was to establish contact with Norcal and request flight following. Per frequencies published, I tried 123.85 but no response. My instructor had mentioned that this frequency doesn’t work and to try 125.1 instead. But when Srinath flew last year, he had established contact with 123.85. Not only was there no response but there was no chatter on this frequency contrary to what I had expected from Norcal. Next I tuned into Oakland Center at 126.85 but again no chatter and neither was there a response to my request. I waited a while, was already climbing over the hills at 4000′ and was anxious to get in touch with Norcal. So I tuned back to Livermore tower and got the frequency as 125.1. Successfully established contact with Norcal on that frequency and got a squawk code for flight following. Why the charts do not list 125.1 is a mystery to me.

 

 

The course was to fly heading 84 (after wind correction at altitude) out of Livermore. That would have me skirting along the south end of restricted area R-2531 all the way to where I-5 meets I-580. At that point I turn to heading 121 to Gustine (3O1). I was doing 100kts airspeed with 128kts ground speed with a healthy tailwind at 5500′. My estimate was 110kts with an airspeed with 100 kts.

Along the way, I would pass Crows Landing airport when I cross radial 191 from Modesto VOR 114.6. Gustine is then along radial 328 from Panoche VOR 112.6.

After passing Gustine with the airport directly below me, I turned to a heading of 69 that would have put me straight into Merced. About 8 miles from the airport, I spotted the airport in the distance and set myself to enter on the 45 degrees for left downwind into runway 30. Winds were from 320@11kts, it was already warm at 27c and density altitude was 1600′ at the airport whose elevation was only 155′ MSL. It turned out that the airport I spotted was Castle (KMER) which is just a few miles to the north of Merced. I was growing suspicious because I didn’t see any traffic or aircraft at the airport and was beginning to wonder if it was even an airport at which point I realized it was not my destination.

Glancing at the GPS, I found Merced off to my right at which point I cross referenced with my notes that Merced was to the west of Hwy 99 whereas the airport I initially saw was on the east side of Hwy 99. The runway at Merced is 5914′ x 150′ which is plenty for a C172. The airport has a tower but it is no longer operational. I pulled into the transient parking area and reset my notes and instruments for the return trip.
Confusion at KMCE

On the way back from Merced, Norcal transferred me to 123.85. Not sure how the frequency is working now when I had trouble connecting on the way out of LVK. There was some aerobatic activity over Tracy about which the controller alerted me and requested I stay above 4200′. It was getting quite hot and turbulent over the Altamont pass. The controller at LVK was clearly overloaded with the traffic. He ignored my first call and asked me to stay outside Class D airspace on my second call before clearing me for landing on 25L. Another aircraft was asked to stay on downwind and it reported approaching Altamont when the controller turned them base!

The course I had planned had a 144nm (72nm distance each way). The actual course I flew was 164nm (85nm + 79nm).

Solo x-country KLVK-KMCE-KLVK

More steep turns, Ground reference maneuvers

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It was a fairly warm day and right from the initial climb the engine ran hot. There was a crosswind at takeoff, managed with right rudder and right aileron.

First off some more steep turns. Srinath is still inadvertently making them too steep and needs more practice. You can see me at 4:06 in the video holding on to dear life as Srinath pulled up steeply to correct a nose down pitch attitude during the turn.

Engine heat was getting very close to the red line. So it was time for an engine out simulation to cool it down. After setting glide speed and scouting for a place to land, at about 300′ we decided to climb back up with throttle simulating a go-around.

Next, at 800′ altitude Srinath started S-turn ground reference maneuvers. In the area north of Byron, we found a long pipeline running east-west for reference. Always enter the turn on downwind, Steve instructed. The first turn is to get a feel for the wind speed and direction to judge where to turn and how much.

The next maneuver was 8-turns around a pylon at around 800′ altitude. The two anchor points were a white tank and a pickup truck. Midway through the maneuver, the truck started moving so we had to choose an outhouse as a different pylon. We noticed another plane making 8-turns at an altitude below us. At one point we came pretty close and the instructor took over to avoid. We turned back to Livermore and on the way back before we climbed the hills another plane was at the 9 o’clock direction. He was coming in the opposite direction, passed us on the left and turned left behind us.

Lesson 1

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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.