Lesson 29 - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
July 22, 2023
THE UGLY
Past couple of months time was the most excruciatingly painful time for me as a student pilot. Every single opportunity to get up in the air was eliminated by factors well beyond my control, and nothing seemed to be going my way. Weather and schedule conflicts are perfectly understandable, but,
There was a time when CFI was available, student was available, weather was agreeable, airplane was available, only to find out during pre-flight that the treadwear on mains (tires) is down to the wires.
There was a time when CFI was available, student was available, weather was calm, but airplane was torn apart for its annual inspection.
There was a time when CFI was available, student was available, weather was beyond beatiful, airplane was available, only to find out that the ramp right outside the hanger is closed due to maintenance.
There are five hazardous attitudes in general aviation. They are:
Anti-authority - “Don’t tell me what to do.”
Impulsivity - “Do it quickly.”
Invulnerability - “It won’t happen to me.”
Macho - “Let me show you what I can do !”
Resignation - “What’s the use?”
During these tough times, I saw myself going through each one of these attitudes at some point. These are some bitter pills to swallow. It matters to me the most, because I am a low-time student pilot, who is still developing the muscle memory. Every gap, as big as more than two weeks, sets me back by at least one hour. The only thing I can do is chair-fly, but at this stage, that is not exactly helping much.
With all that venting, I have accepted that staying in Pittsburgh, this is what I have to deal with. All I can do is to make best of what has been given to me.
And that is what I have been doing. My current goal is to improve consistency of my traffic pattern so that Drew can start trusting my skill and my judgement, to sign me off for solo.
Since my last lesson on May 22, I have flown 3 hours of traffic patterns and I can already see that the consistency has improved. There are few crucial things that are still Work-In-Progress, but per my experience so far, I know that all it takes for it to click once and it will stick with me.
THE GOOD
Below are a few of the things I can see the day and night kind of difference. By no means I say that I have perfected the art, but all I am saying is that I am certainly on the right path.
Assertiveness over controls
This is one of the basic skill that every pilot has to accomplish, and as I continue to spend more time behind the yoke, I can tell that the worm is certainly starting to turn. I remember the days when I would let plane do whatever it wants to do, and those days are behind me - to the most extent I would say. For example, I am definitely getting to Vy sooner and able to hold it throughout the climb. I am not diving at the ground during my base turn. These are some of the crucial wins for me.
Energy Management
I have got pretty good handle on this one. Consistently, I am able to maintain the airspeed on base and final. Besides that, I also see overall improved finnesse in my controls handling.
Consistency in my traffic pattern legs
Let’s compare my traffic pattern on May 22, and July 22.
May 22, 2023 - See Below
July 22, 2023 - See Below
As you can see, all the legs, and especially the downwind leg has gotten a lot more consistent. It is a lot more close to each other in every repeatition, and follows the same direction. Now that Drew is looking for consistency, this is a HUGE BOOST to my confidence. All i changed was to add one small thing in my routine - I started to pick some ground references to fly to, and that seemed to have fixed ground course.
THE BAD
Along my training, I seem to have picked up some bad habits and I need to consciously work to eliminate these “vices” that I seem to get comfortable with.
(Not) Reaching TPA
I consistently seem to level off at about 100 feet under standard TPA. That has to be fixed, since there is no apparent reason for me to not reach TPA.
(Not) Getting on the centerline quick enough on the final
This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. Whenever I get on the final, and I am on either side of the extended centerline of the runway, rather than getting myself on the centerline, I continue to fly towards the runway - like the hypotenuse of the right angle triangle - making Mr. Pythagoras proud.
To my surprise, I also observed the same occurences even while taxi. If I am off the centerline, rather than getting back on it immediately, I take my sweet time to get back on it.
In my head, I am trying to avoid any abrupt control input, but the issue with this approach is that by the time I get on the centerline, I do not have enough time to stabilize the approach - both altitude and airspeed wise.
I need to make conscious effort to remedy it.
(Not) Maintaining the constant descent along the glide slope
This is a big one, since it directly affects the energy management - airspeed and altitude - very near to the ground. In order to avoid up-down oscillations, I should maintain a slightly nose-down pitch with constant descent rate. That should fix these swings, which in turn should stabilize my final approach.