June 20, 2011 - More Upper Air
What a fantastic day for flying! Clear skies, winds not too outrageous, and decent temperature, not too humid... this is why I love flying!!!
We started with a ground brief on range and endurance (still a bit confusing to me, i.e. all the numbers to remember, and RPM settings and speed and so on; the more I learn or remember, the more I realise how much I don't actually know! Ha! But at least I am starting to see the connections now... like for example, the bottom of the green on the RPM gauge coincides with the bottom end of endurance, i.e. the beginning of slow flight!!! Imagine that -- it's purposeful, lol!) Lari said we were going to practise leaning out the mixture on the way out to the practice area, then once we were out there, we'd do some review of slow flight, stalls, steep turns and possibly spirals. And we did!
We started with a ground brief on range and endurance (still a bit confusing to me, i.e. all the numbers to remember, and RPM settings and speed and so on; the more I learn or remember, the more I realise how much I don't actually know! Ha! But at least I am starting to see the connections now... like for example, the bottom of the green on the RPM gauge coincides with the bottom end of endurance, i.e. the beginning of slow flight!!! Imagine that -- it's purposeful, lol!) Lari said we were going to practise leaning out the mixture on the way out to the practice area, then once we were out there, we'd do some review of slow flight, stalls, steep turns and possibly spirals. And we did!
|
|
As we came out of one of the maneuvres, we had a near collision with another aircraft. Well, okay, it was not quite that dramatic, but we had made our calls, had not heard of them, and they came zooming by pretty close!! It was not a Cessna, but a much faster and considerably bigger plane!
Towards the end of the lesson, we practised a forced approach -- as typical with Korkka, suddenly we had an "engine failure" (big surprise, hehe) and had to pick a field to land in. Immediately I put the plane in an attitude that would allow for best glide (60 kts in a 150), and we began a circuit of sorts, descending to land -- er passenger briefing was included, as was a mock mayday call. Once we knew we had made the field, we did an overshoot and climbed back up to 2000 (I was surpised by how long it took to get there!!! Although someone told me later that HaZeL, the plane we were flying, was notorious for her crappy climbing abilities), and headed back to Toronto.
The lesson concluded with a soft field landing practice on 08: Power on landing, nosewheel up off the ground.