On a beautiful and clear Friday evening I met Aaron an instructor with Windy City Flyers at their Palwaukee Airport offices.
We briefly reviewed my Chicago sectional and my newly purchased Chicago VFR terminal area chart. On the sectional Aaron showed me all the best airports in the Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin area. He was sure to point out the best airport based restaurants as well. After that we looked at the terminal area chart for Chicago which shows the Chicago area in greater detail.
On the terminal area chart we looked closely at the Chicago O'Hare Airspace. We decided we would fly down the Chicago skyline so we looked at how we could accomplish this flight while staying below O'Hare airspace.
Next we went out to the Cessna 172 Skyhawk SP. This was the nicest plan I have flown to date. It was relatively new, well maintained and even had some nice equipment including GPS navigation.
Shortly after completing the preflight of the plane we departed on runway 34, Palwaukees longest runway. Of course flying the Skyhawk we were airborne shortly after starting our takeoff run. As we turned east towards Lake Michigan we had a great view of the Chicago skyline to our south. We climbed up to 2,500 feet which gave us 500 feet above us before we would cross through the floor of the O'Hare airspace. After a few minutes we were over the lake and I turned us south towards the city.
It was great flying over Northwestern University, Wrigley Field, and Navy Pier on our way to the city. The view of the city from a small plane at 2,500 feet was beautiful. I loved looking out the window to see the Chicago River winding through the city. Next we flew over what used to be Meigs field. You can still clearly make out where the runway used to be. I wish Meigs was still active.
We then decided to head down to the Gary International Airport for a touch and go. With a stiff cross wind I was blown outside of the optimal flight path through the pattern but ended up making a decent landing. Though you could tell it had been a few weeks since I had flown last.
After a touch and go we headed north past Chicago and back to Palwaukee airport. I logged a very memorable 1.4 hours that night. I am excited to get back up soon to explore more of the Chicago area from the skies.
My trip to Alaska kept me from flying for about two weeks. I returned to the air this evening. I scheduled a flight with my instructor knowing that I would be rusty, and also so I could finally get signed off in the Cessna 172.
I did all of my training for my license in the Cessna 152 and had flown the 172 just once prior to tonight's flight. Some people say there is little difference, I disagree. The 172 has much more power and feels much heavier than the smaller 152. My problem last flight and for the first part of tonight's flight was making good landings. I figured out midway through the lesson that I was flaring to early and the heavy plane was dropping a few feet for a rougher than preferable landing. By the end of the flight, I was making better landings but they still need practice.
Either way my instructor felt I was flying safely and has signed me off in the 172. So I now have two planes I am cleared to fly at Co-Op Aviation. I look forward to getting in some practice time in the 172 soon.
Tonight I took my first flight in the Cessna 172. The 172 is a four passenger plane compared to the two person Cessna 152 that I trained in. An additional bonus to the 172 is the increased power, providing for better climb and cruise speeds.
Although I knew all that before the flight, I had no idea how obvious the extra power would be. I expected the extra power would evenly counter the extra weight of the plane and that it would perform somewhat similarly to the 152. I was wrong. The plane powered down the runway and into the air. I was at traffic pattern altitude much quicker than I expected. We immediatly left the pattern to go out to the practice area so I could get comfortable with the plane. We did some stalls and tight turns and after a few minutes I began to feel a little more in touch with the plane. But I was still having troubles keeping it in steady flight as it wanted to climb. I guess that is not all bad.
After flying for about a half hour, we returned to the field to practice landings. Here I noticed the biggest difference. The Cessna has three flap settings of 10°, 20° and 30°. The 172 has variable flaps that can be set at any degree between 0° and 40° and the gauge is not very accurate so you have to watch as the flaps retract and guesstimate when they are in the right location. That took some getting used too. The 172 handles at about 5 knots faster in the pattern than the 152 and the difference in speed was difficult to get used to. The other difference was this plane is much heavier during the flare to land. As I reduced power prior to touching down, I needed to apply a lot of back pressure on the yoke and even then came down in a less than soft manner.
My instructor and I plan on taking one more flight in the 172 before I will plan on renting it on my own. I think I will feel more confident in it with a few more landings under my belt. Although challenging, the 172 was a joy to fly.
Ninety-five days ago, I set out to make a dream become a reality - to earn my private pilots license. Today, I passed my oral exam and private pilot check ride and earned my Private Pilot - Airplane Single Engine Land license.
I will write a more detailed post in the coming hours or days about the specifics of my oral exam and flight test. I really appreciated the detailed accounts that other pilots posted on the StudentPilot.com message boards and those found on personal blogs like StronglyTyped.com. My exam took a little over two hours, evenly split between flight time and the oral exam, and was an enjoyable process.
As I touched down on runway 6 the instructor said "all that is left is for me to fill out some forms, congratulations". I knew I had a great flight but hearing him say that was awesome. Even better was that my wife was waiting at the airport willing and ready to be the first passenger despite some fears of flying in a small plane. After the paperwork was completed, I thanked the examiner and my instructor and went off to exercise some of my new priveleges.
My wife and I fueled up and took off for a brief sight seeing tour. We flew north and circled King's Island amusement park when she took a photograph or two. We decided to make this a nice short flight to get her aclimated to the small plane experience. But I was proud of her as she was very confident flying with me really seemed to enjoy it.
My goal of earning my private pilots license is complete but my flying adventures have just begun. I will continue to post about my flying experience on this blog on a regular basis. Additionally, if at some point I decided to get my instrument rating I will track those experiences as well.
In order to earn a Private Pilot's license, a candidate must complete 40 hours of flight training. Additionaley, one must meet many sub-requirements. I have completed over 40 hours of training but had one remaining outage. I was 0.8 hours short of the 5.0 hours of solo cross country flight time requirement.
So today I flew from my home base of Blue Ash to Fleming-Mason Airport in Kentucky, which was the site of my first cross-country flight. Tonight was a perfect night for flying with a high ceiling, great visibility and smooth skies. The flight there took just over 40 minutes. I realized since this airport is somewhat off the beaten path for motorists, I probably made the trip in half the time it would have taken by car. In fact I mapblasted the route and it would have taken an estimated 1 hour and 37 minutes by car. Flying is nice, isn't it?
The return flight was great. I climbed to 4,500 feet and had a wonderful view of Cincinnati along the river. The sun dropped beyond the horizon and the lights of the city and its many bridges were magnificent. I really enjoy evening flying. I arrived back to a quiet Blue Ash Airport, satisfied that all my flight requirements are complete.
Tomorrow I will fly with my instructor to review for my flight exam which is scheduled for Saturday weather permitting.
With my long cross-country completed, my focus now is preparing for my check flight exam in little over a week. So my instructor and I planned to spend today's lesson reviewing all flight maneuvers.
When I walked out the front door of my office I felt like I walked into an oven. It was really humid and still very hot, in the low 90s. I was sweating by the time I completed my pre-flight of the plane. When we got in the plane it was even hotter in there with as there was no breeze. My instructor decided to quiz me on equipment within the plane. I was having a hard time concentrating due to the heat. All I wanted to do was start the engine so we could get some air moving around the cabin.
I felt much better once we got up in the air. We flew much of the flight with the windows open which can be fun and provide a nice cooling effect for the cockpit. My instructor would tell me to fly to one location then another, testing my ability to navigate using ground references, my navigational devices and my maps. One destination was to Hook Field in Middletown. That field has an asphalt runway and a turf runway. But when we arrived we noticed the storms from the previous night had left the turf runway in bad shape so we simulated turf landing on the asphalt runway.
After that, we went further north to the Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport and did a touch and go there. After I proved I could navigate my way around the Cincinnati & Dayton areas, I performed slow flight manuevers followed by stalls. We then moved right into the turning manuevers; s-turns, turns around a point and 45-degree bank turns. Then we finished the day with an emergency landing procedure.
At the end of the flight, my instructor mentioned that I completed most of hte manuevers within practical test standards (PTS) but she did want me to practice a few manuevers before my flight exam. I need to work on verbally saying my checklists so the check flight instructor knows that I know what I am doing. I also need to work on my power-off stalls and s-turns. I think I will have two or three more lessons before my test so I will plan to master those manuevers before the exam.
The adage, "Good things come to those who wait", proved true this evening. For the past two weeks I have been prepared and excited to fly my long cross-country trip. But each time weather prevented me from making the flight. After the last let down I prepared myself for another attempt today. Yesterday it looked like there was still a chance of bad weather but as the afternoon came around the weather report was looking great.
I arrived at the airport and my CFI quickly signed off on my flight plan. I think it was easy for her to do so since she had several times before reviewed my flight planning and been satisfied with my abilities to accurately plan a cross-country. That is the bright side of all the bad weather was having many opportunties to re-architect the flight.
With the appropriate endorsements in the book I pre-flighted the plan and took off to the north. It was a beautiful night with light winds and great visibility. Once airborne I contacted the Dayton Flight Watch Center and opened my flight plan. The flight to Columbus went smoothly. When I was within 10 miles of my first stop, Bolton Field in Columbus, I contacted the tower. They asked me to contact them on the downwind leg. The problem was I was having troubles locating the field. I had flown there during my night cross-country and it was much easier to see at night. I had to contact the tower and get vectors to the field. The tower was very friendly and soon enough I found myself on the ground enjoying a nice barbeque sandwich at JP's Barbeque Ribs. It was my first "$100 Hamburger" of my young flying career and it was wonderful.
When pre-flighting the aircraft for the next leg I had a nice chat with the pilot of the plane next to me. I am continuously amazed at how friendly the brotherhood of pilots is. After departing from Bolton I flew to Green Country Lewis A. Jackson Airport just outside of Xenia, Ohio. This was a fun airport to fly into, as the airport sat atop a hill and the runway edge was about 100 feet above the road below it and there were lakes to the side. I made a quick full stop landing then departed to the south-west.
I flew south of Dayton and enjoyed seeing Dayton from the sky. After Dayton there was little but farms and open land until I arrived over Oxford, Ohio home of the great Miami University. I flew over Yager Stadium home of the Miami Redskins (err Redhawks) football team who went 13-1 last seaon. After overflying Yager Stadium I made a left turn onto a 2-mile final for runway 23 at Miami University Airport. After landing, I had to taxi back on the runway as the field does not have a taxiway. I then departed on Runway 23 for my short trip back to my home field at Blue Ash.
The final leg went quickly and soon enough I found myself making a picture perfect landing on runway 24 at Blue Ash. It is hard to explain the excitement and sense of accomplishment I felt as I taxied in at Blue Ash. I had just flown to four different airports, filing flight plans along the way, making four great approaches and landings all while covering over 170 miles and did it all on my own. I really felt like a pilot today and that felt great!
The weather prevented me from flying my cross-country flight once again. The weather was not too bad locally but the forecast for the Columbus and Dayton areas was not promising with high probability of thunderstorms and low level cloud cover.
So my instructor and I agreed I should continue practicing my manuevers in preparation for the flight exam. I flew out to the practice area and worked on slow flight, stalls and emergency procedures. I think the area I need the most improvement on is my slow flight manuevers. Keeping my altitude and speed consistent while in slow flight is my biggest challenge. So, I will continue to work on that.
When I returned I scheduled the plane for Tuesday in hopes of being able to complete my long cross-country then. I also spoke to my instructor and we scheduled a few lessons in which she will simulate the role of an FAA examiner and help me get comfortable with test environment and conditions. Then we scheduled my FAA checkride for Saturday, July 31 - two weeks from today!
Last weekend I cancelled my first attempt at my long cross country flight. My flight to three airports and over a distance of 150 nautical miles could not be made due to thunderstorms throughout my flight path. So I decided I would plan on a second attempt at this flight for this upcoming weekend. Sadly all week the forecast for the weekend had been deteriorating while the skies were clear all day yesterday and today. So I decided I might try to sneak it in this evening.
I quickly recalculated my navigation log numbers based on today's condition. The log helps in the navigation of the multi-destintation flight and includes my checkpoints and my and groundspeed corrected for winds. The winds aloft were high at 16-20 knots but the winds along the surface were not too bad. The flight plan was looking good.
Unfortunately, by the time I arrived at the airport the winds had begun to pick up and to my dismay they were at almost completely perpendicular to the runway. I have become much more comfortable with my crosswind landings recently so that did not concern me so much. When I learned that my home base airport and one of my destination airports were experiencing periodic gusts up to 25 knots, however, I knew I had been stopped again by the weather. I called flight service and they confirmed these conditions would remain for a few more hours. I decided to abort the trip.
Now I will have to hope for an opening of nice weather sometime this weekend as I am anxious to get this long cross-country flight completed.
This afternoon I had the Cessna 152 scheduled for a solo flight. I had decided earlier this week that I wanted to work on landings at a controlled airport while flying alone. In my one my recent flights with my CFI we spent some time making landings at Lunken, the closest towered airport to my home field.
As a solo student you can only land at airports that you have been endorsed for by your instructor and mine had recently signed me off for Lunken. After departing Blue Ash, I flew north away from the airport, and from Lunken, and did some S-turns and steep turn practice. After checking the weather at Lunken, I contacted the tower and was cleared to land on runway 21R. I made two touch and gos then followed those with two stop and gos. I felt really comfortable in my communication with the tower and made some nice crosswind landings.
After that I returned to Blue Ash. Tonight's flight was a lot of fun. I originally planned to do just the two landings and spend about an hour in the plane but things were going so well I just wanted to continue the practice and ended up earning 1.5 more solo hours.
