I had booked a flight for today and like the previous days, I was not sure to be able to fly as the weather was not really good. Yesterday we had a pretty bad weather with a low ceiling again and some fairly cold temperature. Today, well, same thing: low ceiling and quite some wind in perspective. But the weather seems to be clearing up slowly so by the time of the flight, it should be just fine and as I’m pulling on the parking lot of the airport, there are still an overcast condition above the runway but it seems high enough. The other element that I realize immediately is the windsock! It is not limb as usual but very active and it is showing a different direction than usual. 36 will be our take off runway instead of 18 this time.

Bringing someone on board

Ever since I have started flying, I have been interested in sharing my passion of lying with others. This is usually manifesting into getting people on board for a ride during my flights. Of course, since I’m a student pilot, I can not get someone in a plane unless I have my instructor with me and Michael has always indulged my request for bringing someone along. Some people think that I’m just showing off but in reality, it is just a pleasure to go up and there and give the possibility for someone to see the world from a different angle. Of course, most of the people I’m bringing with have the experience of flying in airliners and they think they know what it is about but they usually discover a different way of flying. One where of course, you do not have to deal with security, and delays and fees but more importantly one where the ground is not just disappearing under 10s of thousands of feet and move at a high pace but instead one where you stay fairly locally where you can identify and see the details of your everyday life.

As you can imagine, today is one of these days where I am bringing someone on board. This time, it is one of my French colleague that happened to be from the South of France. I’m hoping that we can do a tour of the lakes in the East Practice area. After  quick tour of the premises on the ground, we are starting the preflight inspection. Here I’m trying to detail the different part of the plane but it is cold and I’m doing everything to maintain a good pace as to get on board as soon as possible. The plane should at least protect us from the wind… Inspection is checked and everything is alright!

Michael is not yet there because he is finishing his previous flight. One of the person on the airport is selling a share of his plane and Michael is giving a ride to a potential buyer. His flight is now finishing and it is time for our flight to start. We have already completed the preflight and I’m ready to start the engine. As soon as Michael came in, we started the pre take off checklist. After some brief presentation of my passenger, Michael told me that because of the winds today, we should do some cross wind landing training. In other words, this is not going to be what I was hoping but should but at least, my passenger would have a chance to experiment cross winds!

Calculating the crosswind

Pre-take off checklist is now complete. We just have to get the weather and do the runoff and we are good to go! I’m inputting the 134.975 weather frequency on the radio and I’m listening. On this one, I’ve cheated a little bit as I was explaining how things were working to Bruce my passenger, I had a glance at the weather data inside the flight school. The call was then just to confirm what I already knew. 330 at 8 knots! Of course, this favoring runway 36 for take off and landing. A quick crosswind calculation indicates that I should  expect a “true” crosswind of 4 knots and a loss of ground speed of 7 knots. In other words, we will be pushed to the side slowly and we will be slower by 7 knots than the indicated speed. Armed with this information, we can start our run-up. Everything is going as plan so we are ready to start our first cycles.

First Cycle

We have just about ready to enter the runway. I’m calling on the radio but the weather is not very good so I’m not expecting too many planes around.

The back taxing went smoothly and once again I had to get Michael to remind me about the position of the ailerons. While I’m getting the hang on the fact that something needs to be done and that we dive away from the wind on downwind, I’m still get the reflex to try to bring the command towards me, which obviously is not going to give me a dive but a climb. Once that lessons passed, the take off took a normal turn. I got a little surprise by the wind and ended up a little bit of course. Ok I admit, a little too much. Michael did not say anything about it but I was not too pleased about it!

The remaining part of the pattern to final was simple. I had to apply some correction to avoid being blown towards the runway and ending too close to do a turn. I also tried to anticipate the fact that the wind would make the turn to final larger than usual. I will have to compensate by banking a little harder. Let’s look at the landing and we will review after.

The landing was not too bad actually and Michael was prompt to say it was Ok. His concern was more on the landing touch down sequence. The last time we tried to land, I did a terrible landing and landed on the three wheels at the same time. That’s bad airmanship and stress the landing gear. So this time, I did it properly. Well, actually almost. As you can hear and see on the radio, I did not land on the center line but way off center. While flying, I was not sure why but reviewing the video, it is obvious to me. As I was approaching the  runway, I was not aligned so I did touch down on the centerline but the plane was not aligned so immediately, I went left… But no time to rest here and we put the carb(urator) heat to cold, remove the flap and we are accelerating to the 2nd cycle.
Oh and did you hear? I did a little mistake when calling for the back taxiing! I’ve realized it when I announced the departure. So did you figure out the mistake? I’ve said I was back taxiing for 1-8 instead of … 3-6!

Second Cycle

The second cycle started pretty quick and I was not going to let the drifting of the first take off happening again. I’ve tried to correct but yet again, I was blown of course. Not by much but enough to be annoying, not enough to be a problem. The pattern was uneventful and in no time I was ready to try the second landing. Like the take off, I’m trying to pay particular attention to my approach.

The landing was overall pretty good but the speed was a little too low at the end. I’ve maintained my speed by putting a little more power to soften the contact with the runway. I was actually ready to do it when Michael instructed me to do so.

Third Cycle

This time I’m committed to not let the plane go of course and I think Michael sensed it because he told me to put more right rudder to avoid turning to the left as I was banking a little more. I was focusing on my take off and let the plane going up until I’ve realized that we were a little too high. The pattern altitude for Bentonville is 2,300 feet and I was approaching 2,500. The reason I noticed is because I was starting to hit the ceiling or in another words, I was getting … in the clouds! As I was making the comment that we were hitting the clouds out loud, Michael gave me the obvious instructions: “Get out of it!”. That was easy, I dive the plane a little more than usual in the pattern and got to a safer altitude and more appropriate for the pattern we were executing. You can see actually on the GPS log that the speed went a little higher than the rest of the flight…

Went to 2.500 feet and hit the ceiling. In other words, ended up in the clouds!

the landing is not showing it very well but we had a little bit of a bounce on the landing. It was light and Michael told me that the reason was because my airspeed was too low as I was entering the flare. Actually, one thing I didn’t know was when should I stop using the descent speed of 65 or 70 knots and start bleeding that speed to a stall. The answer was clear: I should maintain the speed until I’m crossing the numbers! Good lesson again on this landing that was otherwise not too bad! Carb’ Heat Cold, Flaps Up, we are launching ourselves for another cycle.

Fourth Cycle

This cycle should be perfect. After 3 cycles, I should have corrected all my mistakes.

I’m starting the take off confident when I need to do and I do take off properly without a glitch! I like it!

The pattern is once again completely uneventful and we are approaching landing. Later I will realize that my voice recorder gave up on me and stopped recording! So the video is brought to you without sound!

So let’s review the landing! Well, everything was going well until I came above the number and the plane started to head for the right side. Instead of landing, I’ve put the gas back and saved it by bringing the plane back in the center and finishing the landing. Ok this one was not too good but not too bad either! At least, I’m happy of the recovery if anything!

Fifth Cycle

As we were starting another cycle, I’ve asked Michael if we can go a little off the pattern just to try to get something different to show Bruce. Unfortunately, we were coming to the end of the session so we did not go too far. I was hoping to reach Jane, Missouri but we had tom come the other way before we had a chance to reach it! Not a big deal by itself but it would have been knit to see a slightly different view.

As I’m turning to come back, I’m realizing that I went completely opposite of the traffic pattern and I would have to work on getting back. I’m debating on the proper approach. Should I maintain my position and go up straight and cut the airport at midfield or should I just  go back and enter downwind. Asking Michael, apparently both are acceptable. so I’m choosing the direct approach. As I was hoping to be able to go “up” enough to be able to get the 45 degrees to properly enter but as we reached the airport, I was right at the proper place for a downwind turn. Since I had announce on the radio that we were coming for a downwind on 36, I did not took the time to change the approach. We were the only one in the air and I had a very good sight of the traffic pattern so it was safe to enter this way.

The pattern went smoothly and I’m preparing for landing when Michael decide that we need a last exercise! He pulled the throttle completely back, which means: “Emergency situation”. He made the call for an emergency and warned my passenger. It’s my turn to demonstrate my skills at landing a plane in case of an emergency. I’m not facing the runway properly and I have to make a 180 turn but I also have a lot of altitude. So somehow, I will have to loose the altitude, not gain speed, make the runway and land properly.

Let’s see what happen!

Yep! I made it! And this time, I’ve memorized the lessons from the previous emergency trainings. When we did the emergency training around the airport for the solo, I had to cut almost straight to the runway but this time I was much higher so I had to loose the altitude. So instead of cutting straight, I opened my path to get in a final that would be consistent with a regular approach. At least that was the attempt and by the result, I should have opened a little more. But I was able to make the runway and to land safely! So far that I was good. In a real emergency situation I would be out without a scratch but the landing was not perfect. I have lost a little too much airspeed a little too early and I was too high so the landing was hard. Michael asked me to put some RPMs but I was so in the exercise that I did not realize I could do it! So I did not and so the hard landing.

Oh well, I’m not happy about it but it is another lesson learned.

Interestingly enough, Bruce, my passenger as we stepped out of the plane, told me that he didn’t think the last landing was that great! Yes, I had to agree and I’ve explained to him what happened in fact. His headset was not working properly and he could hear only by intermittence so he might have missed a couple of sentence and explanation about what was going on. Not fun!

Conclusion

I have to admit that I was expecting something different for my passenger but an opportunity for cross wind is not to be missed! I had a lot of fun practicing the landings and I feel that I have learned a little more. Landing on one wheel is not the most natural thing to do but with practice, it starts to get in.

Reviewing the GPS logs

As I was reviewing the GPS logs, it was interesting to see the different approach. the approach were fairly consistent despite the fact that I was not using any ground reference but a general feel from the position of the aircraft compared to the runway. It also confirmed some of the impressions that I had in the plane of drifting on take off.

The review of the distance and speed did not reveal much. It was clearly showing the ups and downs but nothing too valuable.

Overall it was a short but fun flight for me and I hope not too boring for my passenger. He assured me not but you never know…

Last but not least…

When someone in riding with me, I usually asks them to do something: get the camera and film the ride from their point of view. It’s always interesting to see what are people are interested by. The other thing is that it gives a different view point that I can hardly get while flying. This trip was no exception and Bruce did some level of videos…

Following is the result of this run.

Reference

• Google Earth full path flight