Tag Archives: touch and go

More high air work

Aviation, , , , , , , , ,

We were heading towards New Jerusalem and had entered the hills east of Livermore. Steve suddenly pulled the power (engine out simulation) and asked Srinath what he would do. Srinath suggested checking the fuel gauges (wrong), restarting the engine (wrong). Then he was scouting for a location (wrong). We were losing altitude and the terrain beneath us was climbing so the first thing to do was to turn 180 and head out of the hills back to the valley from which we approached. Steve took over the plane, made a steep turn to the left 180 degrees and got us pointing out of the hills towards the Livermore valley. This way we have increasing altitude under us. Then we scout for a place to make an emergency landing. We had a couple of back roads and some green fields and that was it. The exercise was over, we put the throttle back in, turned 180 and headed back into the hills, aimed for the valleys since we were still climbing slowly and again wanted more altitude underneath us.

Later, we headed towards New Jerusalem for steep turns, slow flight. When making turns in slow flight, look at the turn and bank indicator to make sure the turn isn’t steep. Don’t go beyond the first notch. Next, stall in the landing configuration – Steve demonstrated why you don’t dump all the flaps at once. We lost lift and descended at about 2000′ a minute even though the engine was powered up. Of course, this can be serious when you are close to the ground and starting a go-around.

Finally, some landings at New Jerusalem and then back to Livermore.

Steep turns, instrument hood, stalls, touch-and-go

Aviation, , , , , , , , , ,

My brother-in-law was visiting us and I had asked Steve if we could take him on the next training flight. He had never been on a GA aircraft before. Steve’s first concern was that we may be close to the weight and balance limits and that the aircraft wouldn’t perform well with the load, making training a bit challenging. We decided to take him along for the next flight at 7:30am with the plan of one of us sitting out when he went on the flight. The weather was cool that morning, my brother-in-law wasn’t very heavy and Steve felt we could all ride along. He did let us know of emergency procedures and that he would take over the plane if such a situation occurred. We also checked to make sure that there were air sickness bags, if our guest needed it for his maiden flight in a small airplane. There were two at the ready but we never ended up using them. Normally we would climb at around 80kts but today with the load we couldn’t climb at more than 70kts.

First Srinath flew under the instrument hood.

Then he was introduced to steep turns (advanced performance maneuver). Steve demonstrated the first turn after he made clearing turns. We felt a bump at the 360° rollout of the turn. Steve explained this was our plane crossing our own wake turbulence (or is it wingtip vortex?). Srinath was looking at the instruments rather than outside to judge the angle. So Steve put a patch on the attitude indicator. Then Srinath did a turn on the left and one on the right. Here is a good cover story on slow speed flying as well as steep turns from AOPA’s Flight Training magazine.

Next was full stalls and recovery in the clean config. Power idle, pull back yoke, right rudder to maintain heading. Soon the stall warning horn goes off and there is the incipient stall when the plane buffets. Then the stall occurs when the nose drops. Relax the back pressure to allow airspeed to increase over the wings and produce enough light to break the stall. Wings level flight and then power to produce more lift back to straight and level flight.

Later, Steve introduced us to an approach to landing stall (at 2:27 in the video). At altitude, do clearing turns. Then run through a landing checklist as if you are going in for a landing. Lower airspeed and then flaps in standard increments. Then pitch up to enter the stall. Stall recovery is identical to the clean configuration. Once the power goes back up, turn off carburetor heat, raise the flaps gradually a notch at a time as if you are executing a go around. Raising the flaps too soon will cause the plane to lose lift too soon. Steve demonstrates this at 5:05 in the video. Losing lift too soon after recovering from a landing stall can be disastrous.

Wind was gusting from 220 up to 22kts at the Byron airport, coming down over the Livermore hills. So we decided to land at Tracy instead. Another pilot was landing at runway 8 just ahead of us. We ran into her at the airport terminal and she was getting endorsed to go on her first solo. Srinath and I exchanged places on the left seat. We decided to take off quickly to clear the area for her and after takeoff, wished her well with the solo. I did a couple of steep turns with Steve demonstrating what happens to the nose if it is not coordinated (4:09 in the video).

Finally for the day, we headed to New Jerusalem for three touch and go’s before heading back to Livermore.