winter approaching

Today we had gusting winds from the north, and this prevented my third solo. We took off from 32, and this was my first time on that runway. I need to get used to it, because strong northerly winds are a feature of winter around here.

The first time around the pattern, we made right traffic, and did a fairly standard approach. I left the power in a bit late and had trouble coming down smoothly. On the second time around, we requested a 360 on the downwind for practice. This was a little disorienting, but not too bad.

The next time around he had me turn base and then turn into the left downwind. This was simulating a special case. If the tower asks me to do a 270 turn to final, I'm supposed to tell him I'm unable to comply, and will proceed to the other downwind. This was disorienting. I climbed as required, but then started turning right, when I obviously needed to go left. Tim had to remind me where I was going. It seems like an easy thing if you draw it out, but it ended up being very confusing. Doing this put me further out on the final, and thus low on approach.

We stayed in left traffic after that. I had a hard time correcting for wind, because it was blowing me through my turn to crosswind, and I ended up a good 30 degrees or more off. It's a good thing I was up there early in the morning with not much traffic. The turn to base was right over my house. I could tell by the terrain, but I couldn't see the house, and really didn't have time to look around for it. I did see Brooks school, though.

The winds made my approaches much less controlled than usual. When I put on flaps, my descent rate went way up, and I had to bring in power. The big problem with that is that I have a tendency to avoid pulling out the power when I need to, resulting in flying much further down the runway. Tim says that this is common, with pilots thinking that they have to come in fast to be safe on a crosswind, so he showed me a power-off approach with full flaps -- still in control and easy to do.

A key observation is that holding off putting in the flaps helps when winds are strong. For runway 32, that means waiting until I reach the shore of Cochichewick (right over Mad Maggie's ice cream) before putting in that last notch.

As time went on, several small planes took off on commercial flights, flying over the pipeline for inspection. These guys were quick. The tower let two or three of them go after clearing me for approach, and there was still plenty of spacing as I slowly went through my pattern.

On my seventh time around, I was worn out, mostly because the gusting winds meant that I had to jump around on the controls. When flying low and slow, that's unnerving. I asked to make that a full stop, and Tim requested light gun signals from the tower. We identified the gun signals, and I learned that they're also a little disorienting.

The problem with the light gun signals is that I end up looking for them instead of flying the plane. They're not too easy to see to begin with, and dividing attention between looking at the tower and doing my pattern turns is hard. On this one, I pulled the power right out when over the numbers, and dropped in short enough to turn off at taxiway A easily.

My progress from here depends on the weather. If it's good, I'll do my third solo and will then be allowed to go to the practice area on my own. If it's not as good, then we'll start working on cross-country. My first trip is to Orange, MA, which means that I need a whole new set of maps. It's just off my VFR Terminal Area chart. That trip will be direct on the way out, and then using VORs on the way back. I'll plan it out and practice filing a flight plan.

Posted at 10:50AM Nov 23, 2007 by carlson in Aviation  |  Comments[2]