Lesson 22 - Learning Finer Details
February 04, 2023
Again - it’s been over a MONTH that I haven’t flown. As much frustrating as it sounds, we did try to get up in the air, but winter time in Pittsburgh is brutal for flying. It gets really cloudy and really windy. In addition to that - daylight is extremely limited. Clicking everything in place to fly is a real challenge in Pittsburgh winter season.
That's why today's lesson was an extended lesson. I anticipated some rust on my part - just being behind the controls after a month+ gap.
I (and Drew) wanted to start incorporating maneuvers in my lessons on a regular basis. There are Performance and Ground Reference Maneuvers that I will be tested upon. They are
Steep Turns
S-turns over a road (ground)
Turn About a Point (ground)
Slow flight
Power ON stalls
Power OFF stalls
Basic instrument maneuvers
Turn to headings
Constant airspeed climbs
Constant airspeed descends
Straight and Level Flight.
The basic instrument manevers are incorporated in every lesson in some capacity, but all other maneuvers require a lot of practice. Each maneuver has a strict criteria for passing the exam I have to be within those limits. In order to get to that level of accuracy, I have to keep practicing them, over and over again.
So with that in mind, Drew and I decided to have an extended lesson plan. We covered a bunch of maneuvers, such as
Turn About a Point,
S-Turns over the road.
Steep turns
and then we went to Latrobe - to do some Tower Work, and to practice Pilotage and Dead Reckoning skills. After we got back to Rostraver, I practiced the traffic patterns until my feet gave up.
Building endurance is equally important.
We covered a lot of stuff today, and I am observing a lot more finer details than before. But still, a lot more remains a mystery. Following are my thoughts to demystify some of it, while getting to some the finer details.
Coordinated Flight - What? Why? How?
This one is a biggie. As a low-time student pilot, I constantly struggle with it. From the cockpit, coordinated flight means keeping the turn coordinator ball in the cage. The tricky part is that the control feedback ALWAYS lags. So instruments are always catching up to the event. The only real-time feedback is outside - my site picture, and thats why it is important to anticipate and develop “feel” for what's coming next. Rather than correcting the error I make, it is important to stay ahead of it - that's how I would avoid compounding errors.
The way to get to the coordinated flight - which is to ensure that both wings have equal amount of relative airflow over them - is to incorporate use of RUDDER. In marathi. it is called ‘ सुकाणू ’.
When I first learnt about rudder, theory stated that it controls the movement around longitudinal axis or ‘ YAW ’ of the airplane.
It is true.... but not the whole truth.
As you apply the rudder control, in a single engine plane, it also adjusts the airflow over other controls, such as ailerons, ever slightly, giving you a great amount of control. This occurs becasue of the slipstream or jetwash from the propeller. Becasue of splitstream, when there is more power, the plane tends to turn left. Similarly with turn to one side the plane tends to yaw on the opposite side. That why when you apply rudder, it helps tremendously with the precision - in turns to headings, ascend and descend rates, overall stability of the airplane, especially at lower airspeeds. That's why mastery over rudder is extremely important in having a stable final approaches.
Know Your Enemy
Usually that enemy is wind, especially in crosswind conditions. Rostraver airfield is almost East-West. So if there is a North or South wind, it's important to anticipate how it would affect my final approach.
When in Downwind - is it going to push me towards the airfield? or away from it?
On Base, am I going to have headwind or tailwind..
Processing all of this beforehand would allow me to reduce a lot of “fixing” in the final approach. If I have headwind on base, then I need to put some more power in. Knowing this beforehand would make my final approache much more stable and on the centerline.
Similarly during Turn About a Point and S-Turns, which direction I enter the maneuver relative to the wind would dictate which turn would be a shallow turn and which turn would be a steeper one. Knowing the wind direction and understanding its effect, is what I need to master too.
Getting comfortable with airspeed
I have been really comfortable with airspeed between 65-75 knots on my final approach, but that's a bit low. If I don't have excellent control of a coordinated final approach, things can go south real quick - and being so close to the ground, that's not a good idea. I need to get comfortable with minimum of 70 knots of airspeed on my final approach. That is my target.
This covers the gist of today's lesson. My tower work also needs a lot of “active listening” improvement. That’s going to be work in progress for quite some time. I am also going to start journaling specifics around my maneuvers so that I can keep track of my progress and improvement in accuracy.
Hopefully, I will write my next entry much sooner than a month !