Today has a ground school session and a flight session planned.

Ground School

We spent a good hour to discuss different elements on the ground. Notably did a review of the entire set of airspace. We did talked about the performance chart also. Each plane comes with a POH or Pilot’s Operating Handbook. This is the must have booklet because it is containing all the information about the plane. All the data that are related to performance, weight and balance configuration and checklists. The purpose of the training on the ground was to make me familiar with the information and where to find the different information required in the booklet.

I’ve attached a URL of the POH for the Cessna that I'm flying most of the time (aka N733VR. It is a Cessna 172N Skyhawk. The POH attached is for a 172N from 1978 plane but the performance charts are identical. Of course, the weight and balance being different from plane to plane, the information in this booklet can not be used for any of the calculation and I have to revert to the real one stored in the plane.

You can find the POH here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3801614/C172N-POH

Flights

Short session with N840MC. Since I had only 2 hours booked and we took a good hour in ground school, I had only about 1 hour of flight available. By the time I was ready to start the engine, only half an hour was left but that was enough to get a solid half an hour of flight. Of course, to maximize the time, we stayed in the pattern and did some take off and landings.

First Cycle

So I’m ready to take off, after checking the pattern and back taxiing, we are taking off. At that point of my training, I don’t really need to think about anything but the landing when we are in the pattern. Everything else is pretty much under control. This first landing was pretty good overall and watching the video it looks pretty fine but I do remember very clearly that I had the impression that the plane was sideways when I landed. This “scared” me. I mean that I was not very relaxed during that landing. I guess the idea that everything was not perfect and that I might damage the plane is always in my mind when doing landings. The plane I’m usually flying is a 1977 Skyhawk but this one is a 2007! This means that it is worth about $280K!

The video is a showing a full cycle from the taxiing, take off, pattern and landing to almost a full stop. On the video, you can clearly see the different steps involved in flying the pattern.

Second landing did not go as well!!!

The second landing did not go exactly as planned. After doing a proper take off, a nice pattern and an approach that was totally reasonable, the plane started to go to the right. I’ve managed to bring it back to the center line but as soon as I’m starting to to start flaring, I’m ending up on the right side again with the nose pointing towards the outside of the runway. Since I do not want to practice some soft field landing techniques, I do not have any other choice to cancel the landing and to initiate a go around. Moreover, landing next to the runway is not seen as good airmanship!

The video shows very clearly the movement of the plane! What happened is not completely sure and I think the plane was weathervaning a little. Yes… I know… I’m trying to dodge the responsibility here!

Last landing of the day

That going around was really annoying and I could not stay on a failure. I’m not sure what I did wrong but I’m more than decided to not repeat that mistakes. I’m therefore focusing on the speed and alignment for the last landing before going back home. Let’s see what happened by looking at the video.

Well, the result is not very glorious. Yes, I did land the plane in the proper distance but looking more carefully, you can see that I was not really aligned and that I had overshot the runway a little bit so my landing was approximately 3 feet off the centerline.

For today, it is it. My time in the plane is coming to an end. I’m left with a mixed feeling. On one hand I was able to land the plane but it was not very consistent. The wind was only responsible for so much. So more progress are still needed!

Oh by the way, I will have a passenger tomorrow! A teenager interested in aviation apparently! More about it on the tomorrow’s post!