Lesson 11: Part 2 - Renaissance
August 02, 2022
“ Speed is super hard to manage, perhaps the most vexing part of flying. You are doing exactly what I was doing early in my training as far as speed is concerned. Speed is super hard to manage, right up until it's not... and it is managed with avoiding that Vertical Speed Indicator needle pointing straight down at any time in your approach. Drag is your BEST FRIEND on the final approach. ”
- Justin Yates, Private Pilot
This was the final gist for me after today's lesson, and we will get into it later. First let's continue where we left off yesterday.
After yesterday's cloud encounter, I had a question - how in the world that cloud appeared out of nowhere.? Turned out that it was due to a phenomenon called Radiation Fog.
What is a Radiation Fog?
Radiation fog is a result of rapid cooling of the ground after the storm as temperature starts to drop after sun sets. fog first forms near the surface, thickening as the air continues to cool. As the air cools, the fog extends upwards.
So with that question answered, I continued with my actual lesson - training on flaps and climbing and descending turns. We took off from runway 26 and exited towards the South.
Drew ran through different combinations of maneuvers as part of today’s training, such as Slow Flight, climbing turns, descending turns to give me practice for the “feel” of the flight. In Slow Flight maneuver, as I deployed Flaps, airplane's nose would balloon up. I needed to anticipate that and proactively apply forward pressure. Just using site picture, I trained on maintaining the pitch of the airplane with flaps deployed.
I would say I did get better at it by the end of it. It still needs to become a muscle memory, my second nature when I deploy flaps. I am not there yet, but I think I am certainly on a right path.
Climbing and descending turns was an interesting training exercise. My handling of controls during the turns, climbs, and descents was a much better than the last time, BUT… the thing that blew my mind happened during level off after each climbing and descending turn.
As I completed my climbing and descending turn and level the wings, I would stop climbing or descending.
My goal was to still keep climb or descend, but that would not happen, and that was because of how aerodynamic forces act on the plane during the turn.
NERD ALERT !!! NERD ALERT !!! NERD ALERT !!!
As you know, four basic forces that work on a plane are Lift & Weight and Thrust & Drag. As the plane turns, it reduces the Lift due to the bank. This is a result of decrease in vertical lift component and increase in horizontal lift component (as shown in figure below) and hence the nose drops automatically. When the plane comes out of the turn, the opposite happens, and hence to keep the descend going on, I have to apply extra forward pressure on the yoke.
From the cockpit, the site picture change is very subtle (at least to me at this point), and hence, I was not applying that forward pressure. That’s why everytime I would come out of a climbing or descending turn only to get into straight and level flight.
Now let's take the same case in the traffic pattern, especially during the Base and the Final leg. In these legs, I have to maintain my descend throughout the turn and even after level-off. At the same time, I have to control my airspeed, and for that as I deploy flaps. Flaps introduce induced drag, which negates the thrust or acceleration and slows down the plane. During the Base and the Final turn, when I levelled off after the turn, I did not have the descend going in, which in turn affected my airspeed and made the task gazillion times harder than it needed to be. Due to the straight and level in the Base and the Final legs, my descent rate was too high, which adversely affected my required airspeed for landing.
Particularly near the ground, you run into the danger of stalling your plane and hence the airspeed management is crucial. This is something I HAVE TO FIX. For my next lesson, that is certainly going to be one of my primary goals - manage my airspeed during the base and final legs of traffic pattern by continuing the descend all the way through.
I have started observing finer things as these lessons progress, which is very good. That means I am slowly getting comfortable with the basic tasks, and that's how I can make room for new things. I am very happy after today's lesson, and I know where I have to focus next.
Can't wait for next lesson.
← Lesson 11: Part 1 Lesson 12 →
Happy days are here again.
Happy days are here again.