Tag Archives: touch and go

Engine out on takeoff

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We departed 25R on a left downwind departure towards New Jerusalem and just as we took off, Steve pulled the power without warning. Srinath did the right thing by “flying the plane” and landing it back on the runway. Steve then pushed the throttle in and we took off. This was a lesson in emergency procedures since the engine could quit just at takeoff. In that case, the best place to land is straight ahead. Never try to turn back to the runway because that effectively requires a 270 degree turn in one direction and then a 90 degree turn in the opposite direction to line back up with the runway. At low altitudes with engine out this turn is almost always impossible to make. In the heart-thumping moments, getting into a stall spin accident becomes likely and with grave consequences. No matter what is ahead, the best bet is to land it almost as straight ahead as possible with minor corrections.

Once at New Jerusalem, Srinath practiced soft field landings and takeoffs as well as a maximum performance takeoff. We next headed to Byron to fill up gas because the new gas station at Livermore isn’t fully functional yet. On approach to Byron, Srinath did a straight-in landing and this time a precision landing on the numbers.

After re-fueling, we taxied back to runway 30 and heard a heads-up that skydivers (jumpers) were heading down from 10,000’. It was incredible that they came down in no time at all, well before we completed the run-up checks and were at the hold short line for runway 30.

We waited for a tricycle geared Maule to land. Steve referred to this as a “quintessential bush plane”. Normally they are tail draggers so it was interesting to see one in a tricycle gear. There was a lesson in not hurrying to the threshold for takeoff because the Maule hadn’t yet turned off Rwy 30 on a taxiway. Just as we got ready to  takeoff, more jumpers were getting ready to unload at 13,000’.

Just as we were over Brushy Peak heading in to Livermore, I noticed gas gushing out of the fuel vents like crazy. Never seen so much fuel come out in such volume continuously. Steve asked if the fuel caps were on, which they were. In measuring the fuel after the flight, we estimated about a gallon was lost! Not sure what caused this…

New Year Flight

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Today the winds were calm and clouds were 4900′ scattered. As we taxied out, we noticed that the construction of Three Rivers FBO is making good progress and they are getting ready to open by Super Bowl. The new fuel station has been opened and the old one removed. Miraculously, the intercom in the back seat of N906MD has been fixed! We no longer need an intercom extender and people in the front seats can hear the person in the back.

We headed to Byron and made steep turns in the vicinity of the airport. Upon rolling out of the steep turn, use opposite rudder to stop the turn. Then Srinath practiced slow flight followed by three kinds of stall. First, power-on (departure) stall. Upon reaching stall, just relax the back pressure on the yoke. Because it is a power-on stall, the engine is already running pretty hard so relaxing the yoke should cause it to recover quickly. If you shove the power in, more altitude will be lost before recovery. It is only in a power-off stall that once recovery is achieved with relaxing the yoke that the power should be shoved in.

Power-off stall was next, followed by an approach to landing stall. Start with a pre-landing checklist, then come back on the power to extend full flaps while within the white arc. Achieve a descent as if we are coming in for landing. Then pull back to stall. Recovery is the same as a power-off stall – relax the yoke to drop the nose and build up airspeed then shove full throttle. So we went through all varieties of stalls today.

Steve pulled back the throttle to simulate an engine out situation. The ABC checklist comes in handy here – Airspeed, Best place to land, Checklist to attempt restarting the engine. It is important to achieve and maintain the airspeed for best glide. On the 172 that is 65kts. Then you determine the direction of wind and scout for the best place to land. Preferably you land into the wind. In our case we found a restricted runway which of course would have been fair game in the event of an emergency. Keep the runway in view all the time as you weave around and descend. If there was no runway, look for a hard field or green field but certainly not one that is wet or just recently plowed. Land along the furrows if there are any.

We proceeded to a long pipe in the vicinity, descended to 800′ AGL and made S-turns by entering downwind. The first maneuver was intended to watch for the wind and the right turn ended up being too shallow because the wind pushed us into the turn. On the next attempt Srinath proceed a little further ahead before attempting the turn. He could also have tried a shallower right turn so the wind pushing us back would have made it a fine semicircular turn.

Finally Steve asked Srinath to use the GPS to take us directly to Byron. He landed by making a right base turn and after touchdown Srinath tried maneuvering the plane to get on the centerline which Steve reminded him never to do so for the risk of getting into a ground loop. Just staying parallel to the runway is sufficient. Srinath took off with a soft-field technique. Once the nose comes up off the “dirt”, shove in full power to maintain the nose slightly off the runway until the plane lifts off. Then push the yoke forward to stay in ground effect to build up airspeed before climbing out.

Finally, maximum performance takeoff. Stand on the brakes and shove the throttle fully in. Watch the RPM come up to 2200 and then release the brakes. Plane will race forward rapidly. Maintain control and at 60kts, pull back on the yoke to climb at Vx until a “50-foot obstacle” has been cleared. Then relax the back pressure to build up airspeed and climb at Vy. After a pattern, Srinath did a precision landing on the numbers. One more maximum performance takeoff followed by a 270 turn to overfly midfield before heading back to Livermore.

A bit of drama on the way back to Livermore. Our radio didn’t connect well and we barely heard the tower transmission after we reported our position over Brushy Peak. Tower asked another aircraft in the vicinity to check if we could hear them. In the meantime, because of this, Steve took us on a 360 right  turn to maintain position over Brushy Peak while we re-established connection. A mooney was taking off from Livermore and heading in our general direction, which is probably why Steve did the turn. We were soon cleared in to land on runway 7L.

Another second solo

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Perfect weather today with calm winds. We headed to Byron first. An airport vehicle was performing runway field inspection at Byron on the 23/05 runway, but only after radioing to confirm nobody will be headed that way. We announced our intention to land on 30.

We did a regular landing and takeoff at Byron followed by a soft field landing and takeoff at Tracy and a no flap landing at New J. On the last one, I significantly overshot the runway (because we were faster than usual) before correcting for the landing. On the next landing, used a slip to slow down and drop altitude. Balked landing next – “there is a cow on the runway”. Final landing was a bit rough, after which Steve asked me to fly a solo completing three patterns around the airport.

There was a pickup truck beside the runway at New J which we had spotted on the first approach. It was apparently owned by a CFI who happened to be there that day to fly a paraglider (which was tucked into his trunk). After the solo, Steve told me that that CFI complimented me on all three landings and takeoffs.

 

Soft field takeoffs and landings

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Ceiling at Livermore was 1500’ broken so our pattern today was lower than usual. A storm was about to roll in. When we see seagulls in the airport vicinity, Steve forecasts that a storm is impending. There were lots of birds today and once we had to bank sharply to the left on the upwind after takeoff to avoid some of them.

Today we focused on soft field takeoffs and landings. We did the landings with only 20 degrees of flaps and with a little bit of power (65kts instead of the usual 60kts) to hold the plane off the rough runway. If this was a real soft field, then the extra speed will help touch down gently and also in not letting the wheels dig into the muck.

Winds picked up after a few touch and go’s, turning into 240@10. On one of the patterns, a twin Diamond was departing ahead of us so tower asked us to extend downwind and called our base turn.

 

Second solo

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We didn’t know Steve was going to ask Srinath to do his second solo today. The training started off with Srinath flying through Byron, Tracy and New Jerusalem practicing soft field takeoffs and landings. The solo was then at New Jerusalem where he did 3 takeoffs and landings. I gave Srinath some relief by flying 6MD back to Livermore.

 

 

Butterfly with sunburned feet

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As we headed out of Livermore towards the hills, Steve pulled the power simulating an engine out. Srinath immediately banked left to get away from the rising terrain but he was a little slow to achieve glide path. Once he spotted a private runway which could be used for an emergency landing, he brought back the power and we turned 180 to head towards Tracy again.

Above Tracy, it was time for steep turns one in each direction. Next was slow flight followed by power off stall and approach to landing stall. Soon we were close to New Jerusalem and Steve spotted crop circles over which Srinath executed ground reference maneuvers – turns around a point – again once in each direction. At the end of this maneuver, we were less than 2mi from New J so we headed there for touch and go.

Srinath got practice with a straight-in landing and many soft field takeoffs and landings. It takes practice and experimentation to stay in ground effect upon takeoff to build up airspeed prior to climb out. It also takes practice to keep the nose just high enough at takeoff, without the tail striking the runway. Soft field landing is like a butterfly with sunburned feet trying to touch down.

On the way back to Livermore, Steve reminisced about N25ES and how much he misses it. He recounted how the club acquired the plane and how 857, the previous 172, was sold. Steve landed us at Livermore demonstrating a short field landing technique.

Bellanca Aries Sighted

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As we flew over the Tracy airport, we noticed that it has now been re-opened after the runways were resurfaced and painted. Srinath started off by performing steep turns near Tracy. Next was slow flight, stall in the clean configuration and an approach to landing stall. Here is a sequence of steps for an approach to landing stall – first establish a steady descent, lower RPM to the airport pattern rate, full flaps and then trigger the stall. For recovery, drop the nose to break the stall, turn off carburetor heat, full power and minimize altitude loss.

Steve pulled off power simulating an engine out situation. Then a few landings at New Jerusalem followed by ground reference maneuver – turns around a crop circle, then turns around a point.

Upon landing at Livermore, we saw a very rare aircraft taxiing past us. It was a Bellanca Aries (N250DJ) – only one of 2 still flying out of the 4 aircraft ever made. This one was owned by Jim Rhoades of Livermore. See more details on this blog.

Soft field takeoffs and landings

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Last week on September 8, Srinath flew a bunch of touch and go’s at New Jerusalem. One was a “there is a cow on the runway” go-around.

 

We took off today and flew the usual right downwind departure. While flying over brushy peak, traffic controller alerted us to traffic in the vicinity which took us a while to locate. By that time we neared Tracy and Steve observed that the runways which had been closed for re-surfacing were getting ready and now being painted.

Today, Srinath had a chance to practice soft field takeoff and landings at New Jerusalem. Steve demonstrated it first and then let Srinath try it out a few times. On the way back to Livermore, we chatted quite a bit about how these require some of the most finessed piloting techniques.

Air work and strong winds

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After reviewing audio from the previous flight’s recording, we determined that the intercom was not working on the rear inputs. We can only hear the radio come through so unfortunately none of the cockpit chatter was recorded. While I squawked about this issue, since the plane is owned by Five Rivers Aviation it is really up to them to fix it.

Departed Livermore in the evening into a headwind. We flew our regular course towards Byron but the ASOS reported winds were too strong from 220 at 15 gusting to 21. Steve decided we should head towards New Jerusalem instead so we banked right over Fore Bay and did two sets of steep turns to the left then to the right. Followed by slow flight with shallow turns, power-off stall, a stall on right turn and a power-on stall. Then we did an engine out simulation.

By now the Byron area winds have increased to 20kts@220. We shot a straight in landing on Rwy 23. It was really bumpy over Fore Bay and more so as we approached the runway. We ended up being too high so the first approach and a landing wasn’t salvageable. We did a go-around and gave it one more try (good landing this time) before heading back to Livermore.

Air work on N906MD

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The Flying Particles club has added a new 1976 Cessna 172N Skyhawk. Unlike N25ES which was owned, the club has leased N906MD from Pete Sandhu at Five Rivers Aviation, LLC who is going to soon open and operate a new FBO out of the Livermore airport. 6MD has the same 180hp Lycoming 0-320 Series engine as 25ES but it is equipped with Garmin GNS-430 GPS.

Srinath flew 6MD today and it has been almost 3 months since Srinath last flew. His last flight was the solo on May 28. So he went back to brushing up on air work – power off stalls, stalls in the landing configuration and power-on stalls. Then we did an engine out simulation and after a couple of landings at Byron, we returned to Livermore.