foggles

Perfectly clear sky today, but the winds were tough. This morning, the winds were light at perhaps 7 kts. By the time I got up there, 18 knots gusting to 24 or so at the ground, and then (as we learned later) 46 knots up at 4500 feet.

That meant today was another bad day for a third solo. We headed up towards Kennebunk instead. I took my time during the run-up, and set up my VOR frequencies, as well as Boston Approach for traffic advisories and ATIS for Portsmouth. When I was finally ready at runway 23, I was lucky and the winds were fairly steady, though strong.

We climbed up and I turned right to my heading of 046. I continued my climb up to 2000 feet, where Tim had me level out and trim, and then put on the foggles. That's a bit of a shame because I can see that it's a beautiful day, we can see for just about forever, with the coastline stretching out on the right.

With the foggles on, I start my climb up to 3500. Tim switches us over to Boston Approach, and I make the call. They come back quickly, which is a good sign, as it means they're not too busy. I set out what we're doing -- tracking the Pease VOR, thence Kennebunk, and return, request traffic advisories. Squawk 5147, maintain 3500 or higher. We're on our way.

I make my altitude 3600 and start trying to track PSM. I have to do a bit of hunting around, as the wind was more than I got on the forecast (30 knots), but it's also later in the morning. Tim sets up the second nav so that we can intercept a radial so I know when I'm a few miles from Pease. After a bit of flying, I see the radial, and then flag drop on the VOR, and I punch the button to switch to ENE.

With the goggles on, it's easy to see which way you're going and how you're banking, but much harder to tell altitude and climb/descent. I'm spending a lot of my time trying to get my nose straightened out, which has two effects. First, I'm getting way off in my altitude. Second, I'm getting distracted from the VOR and need larger corrections than I want in order to get back on course.

En route to ENE, Tim has me climb to 5500 to look for some smoother air. He lets me know that I'm right below the clouds. All that I can tell is that the air here isn't smooth at all, and I'm getting knocked around much more. I descend back to 3500. The flag drops, so we're right over ENE, and Tim asks me to fly to Biddeford -- a bit of a surprise. I look at my notes, and see that it's 86 degrees from ENE, and I set my heading and the OBS to fly from ENE. A few minutes later, Boston lets us go, and Tim has me take off the goggles.

"Find the airport. When you have it, we're going to do a simulated engine out, so pull it all the way back and establish best glide." I'm working hard to keep the airspeed steady and make left traffic into 24. Someone else is taking off, but we don't see him. He says nothing about turbulence. I get abeam the numbers and bang! the airspeed drops away, and we're headed for a stall. Tim says NOSE DOWN in his CFI voice, and we get our airspeed back. I start turning towards the runway, knowing that the wind is going to blow me towards it.

We're descending into the airport, and about 500 feet above the ground, another upset with the plane looking at the ground. Tim rescues the landing, which I'm sure I could not have made. I pull off the runway and gather my thoughts and reset the radios.

Taking off out of Biddeford is mostly uneventful. I had to force the nose down to get some airspeed, rather than climb through the turbulence above the trees. He has me pick up the Pease VOR and figure a course from the map. I get a rough heading, and at 2000 feet, the foggles are back on. The trip back to Lawrence is very slow and bumpy. Tim asks if maybe piano lessons instead are looking better now.

As advertised, Lawrence Tower gives me a straight-in for runway 23. Tim has me practice another engine-out from 4500 feet starting at around 9 miles out. I get it to roughly 80 MPH, and start gliding in. Lawrence notes my altitude and asks me if we're going to descend to land, and I radio back that we're set up for the approach. He asks me to report over the VOR. I probably should have told him that we were simulating an engine out, but that probably also became obvious when our ground speed dropped to 40 knots or so.

It takes forever to get to LWM. Eventually, the flag drops, and I report crossing the VOR. 61976, cleared to land. Cleared, 61976. It becomes obvious that I'm going to land around a mile short of the runway. Without a headwind, that should have been an easy landing, but nothing about this trip was easy. On short final, the winds start shifting around on me, and I get all botched up. Tim takes the controls again, and demonstrates a good cross-wind landing.

That took a lot more out of me than I expected. My left arm ached on the way home, because I was all nerves, and gripping that control. Tim says I did pretty well for a first time under the hood, and the winds were as bad as he's seen them. I still wish I were less surprised and more in control of the situation.

I'm not on the schedule for later this week, but just penciled in, in case someone cancels. The weather isn't looking too great, but if there's a gap, I'll do that elusive third solo. Otherwise, it might be more engine-out practice.

Posted at 03:04PM Dec 24, 2007 by carlson in Aviation  |