Diego’s Flight Blog

Bah, that’s all I have to say. I can’t understand why I can’t get some of this stuff down. I keep freezing up, and nothing I try works. Whatever, still no rush.

I’ve been told I am more comfortable with my controls. Rotating is no big deal now.

My approaches can use a lot of work. I froze up and almost spun the plane on Tuesday, an experience that I never want to go to through again. All I have to tell myself is with due time.

Have to update the pictures, camera next week. Hopefully I’ll get some decent video and pictures.

Well, today was a good day. Thanks to the advice from v1valarob (blog), and from a few understandings of my misunderstandings, I completed my slow flight. Sort Of. I was to focused on maintaining altitude that I didn’t maintain my heading correctly. I was off by…30 or so degrees. That shouldn’t be that big of a deal since I already have altitude control. And last time I stayed on heading pretty decently, now I just have to put them both together.

Anyways, prior to that we did a quick landing at Sussex. First thing Nick tells me is ‘this place is a sh*thole’. First thing out of my mouth is ‘this place is a sh*thole.’ But still super entertaining just to see the differences in what a controlled field and an uncontrolled field can be.

Hopefully on Sunday, we’ll be doing some touch and goes.

Heres a few pictures from Sussex. I’ll try to get a few more soon when I have a chance to land there and just walk around for a few minutes:

Well, at Sussex. They believe in having cut grass…if you do it yourself.

On final on  3/21.

Notice the hole in the trees? Yeah well, use your imagination on why it’s that shape. And the owner didn’t think it was funny.

The runway from up in the air. About 1200-1600 ft MSL. I don’t remember to well.

In the last week, I have logged 3 hrs. It’s pretty nice to not have scrubbed a lesson this week! On the 11th, the lesson was pretty bland. Going over different things, basically felt routine, felt I did real good. Did some simulated instrument time, under the hood. That was an experience, honestly felt real fine doing it.

Todays lesson, different story. Today we practice slow-flight. Carb heat, 1500 RPMs, stall horn blaring basically. I can’t seem to keep altitude. I forget to add power to stay at altitude. Thats an experience that I am slowly getting used to. It’s scary at first, and I can tell that I am damn pale, but I am slowly accustoming to it. I think next lesson I’ll have it pretty down packed!

11.8 hrs so far. Feels great to have broken into the double digits. Before I remember I’ll have quadruple digits, maybe 5 digits. Time will tell and that will be light years from now. All day I just think about how some day I will have 8 hrs in a day, and 11.8 will be nothing by them.

Well, thats enough for today.

Dangers.

Thursday I get to school a little early, studied a little in the car get out, and there’s my flight instructor. We shoot the shit a little, I get my papers and hop out to the plane. Do my walk around, same old same old. Nothing out of the ordinary. I feel really comfortable going through the checklists. As usual, during the take off briefing, I said our rotation speed was 65, yet in my head I am always saying it’s 55. Quite odd, anyways. The tower tells us to line up and take off. We do, and all of a sudden Nick goes. So um…go ahead and set the throttle in and take off. Screaming at me the whole time, I am going real slow on pushing in the throttle. Over and over and over, haha, I found it really funny. But, I get it up to throttle, I am thinking that he’s going to say my control, but next I know, he says to take it on up. I do, and honestly, it was the greatest experience ever, we’re doing about 1000 ft per minute, usually I am really scared about gaining altitude like that. But I did, and I have never felt more comfortable behind the stick as I did that day.

According to Nick, I was busting out some 45* turns. From then on I was called a bush pilot.

Great times up in the air. Logged 1.6 hrs. Holla back. Longest flight to date, but it felt so short.

Oh yeah, I even used the trim, ain’t that something? I’ll get a video up next week if the weather is nice. Hopefully it is.

Today, I flew N5353K, which is nice, this is the first time I got to fly the same plane again, which I would think would make it easier since I don’t have the relearn the quirks of a a new airplane every time that I get in. The day didn’t start out great. I was there about 15 minutes early, stood outside, got my composure together, smoked a quick cigarette and walked inside. Soon as I got inside, they handed me the binder for the plane and I asked if Nick was around, I thought I saw him, but didn’t know it was him, I can’t see through fences. Haha. I was told he was there, and I said I am going to go preflight, I did, and 30 minutes later, still no Nick. Hopefully I won’t get charged for that half hour, cause that would suck, thats a lot of money. But I’ll keep my mouth shut for now, Nick is a good teacher so I still think I am getting the best out of it.

It was pretty rough up there for me, had to hand over the controls a few times, possibly even have them removed from me early on in the flight. I was really fucking nervous, and I don’t know why, but I felt as if the nervousness went away and I brought my A game. Turning is beginning to become easier, I don’t look at the turn coordinator as much anymore, only at the beginning of the turn, once I am in it, I tend not to look at it, I feel some slippage and I’ll look at it. Learning to use the rudder better also, I am now understanding why I have to give it opposite rudder to get out of a turn. I could use some more work on that. I am understanding trim now, well let me rephrase that, I always understood trim, and why it’s there, but I just don’t feel comfortable taking my hand off the yoke and setting the trim up, but slowly it’s getting there.

Now, I know I definitely need some more work on the descending. I think thats what we are doing in the next flight.

Well, thats enough for today.

- Dangers.

Oh yeah, I spoke to ground today, I think did pretty damn good

figured I’d update this now. This has been the weight loss since 01/03/2008. Every Thursday after I get weighed, I’ll be updating. It’s going to be difficult, but 1 lbs a week will put me at my target weight in just over a year. Have to start the exercising routine soon, I am sure that it will definitely help me out.

- Dangers.

Well today we went up again, I went in a little early, needed to catch up on some of the videos that I should be watching. Went in about 2 hours early, you’d be amazed how long it takes to watch these videos, especially when you’re taking notes. Took the little exam at the end, scored a 92, taxiing with headwinds and tailwinds threw me a little off, no big deal though. The flight started off a little choppy, not only because of turbulence, but my flying skills. Not that I have flying skills just yet, haha. Nick [my CFI] asked me what instrument I kept looking at, I guess he noticed that I was always fighting with the plane to keep altitude, which is true. I mentioned it was the VSI, out comes a pack of post-its, I am thinking he’s going to take notes, but he’s rocking the knee board. My second thought was, he’s blocking the VSI, and he did, and I was glad. I kept my altitude +/- a few feet. I’m finally starting to feel a little more comfortable w/ the rudder control and the turning. Not as scared to turn anymore. Atleast I feel that way, God knows how Nick feels about that.

Well thats enough for now.

- Dangers.

PS, here’s a few new pics.

Well, I learned that CFIs don’t let off some mistakes to easily, especially when they’re quite funny. So today I learned, and made a diagram for in case that any CFI out there needs to use in a lesson.

Flight 1: Well, I took my first flight lesson on February 8th. It was exciting. I thought I was going to be nervous. In reality I was, but it wore off as soon as we rotated. I don’t feel as if I did as great as I should have, though Nick assured me as that it is normal since it is my first flight. He told me I babied the controls, and that affirmed by suspicions. Flew over High Point, dabbled a little over Pine Island, hit up a few other spots and headed back. Ended the flight with a trip to the Delaware Water Gap. The approach onto RWY 040 was exciting to say the least, and the complaints about newb controllers is no exaggeration. Coming in on a final we did a sudden drop since we were right in the path of another airplane. I have to learn to look out for that.

here are some pictures from the first flight:

Flight 2: This one started out fun, I did my own preflight, that was exciting, I didn’t feel as if I missed anything. My taxiing needs A LOT of work, I can’t seem to learn how much rudder control to apply to stay on heading, at least I didn’t hit anything, heh. This flight I felt as if I did better. At least to me. I felt like my turns were right on, except I am always climbing whenever I turn. My rudder control can also be a little better. Well wait, no, they definatly could be better. On Thursday I am doing ‘Flight 2′ according to the syllabus over again. I am excited to continue practicing those turns. I thought I kept the headings plenty better than the first flight. Hopefully we’re able to stay up for a good amount of time to be able to square all these problems away. The fact that there was snow in the area cut us short, which was fine with me, I felt like coming back down anyways.

Until next time.

Well today I took ground lesson 2. All about aerodynamic principles. I think it went well, though longitudinal, vertical, and lateral angles are still giving me a little bit of a hard time. I just get confused between them

Took the Stage 1 test today, originally graded I got 12 wrong, I was shocked, I consider myself slightly intelligent. I do well on tests. Especially multiple choice ones. When it was regraded, it turns out I only had 2 wrong. Wow. One of the questions I got wrong made me feel REALLY stupid, considering my background. The second one, I guess I didnt understand the wording of the answers and should have thought it over a little better.