Skates97

George, thanks for posting. I got the email earlier today with a link to the video. I think it is very well done.

Off topic, but after I spent two years living in Alabama I went home and asked my parents if I had picked up any accent. My mom said "No, you just talk a lot slower than you used to..."

I grabbed it online from shutter stock... You may or may not get in trouble for using it, I am not a copyright lawyer... Nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

FAA Knowledge Test - Passed I'm continuing to march along and check off the requirements needed to take my check ride. This morning I took and passed my knowledge test. I'm not a stranger to testing. I just finished up a BS in Accounting and tested out of three different classes on my way to finishing up the last two years of the degree in 14 months. The running joke was "C's equal degrees" although I was determined to do better than C's (who wants to be average). I managed to finish with a 3.91 (anything under a 95% was an A-). To test out of a class you just needed a 70% and it went into your transcript as a transfer credit (which didn't affect your GPA) and that was a good thing because I squeaked by the Accounting Information Systems class with a 70.68% on the test. So, I am well aware of the pressure of going into a big test. (Think of if you don't pass a test you will have to take an expensive 8 week class instead...) The difference between getting my degree and taking the FAA Knowledge Test was that although only a 70% was needed, I was determined to do much better than that. Think about it, if I don't quite understand something about the accounting I can look it up or ask for help. If I get something wrong up in the air, well I might not be able to look it up, there will probably be nobody for me to ask for help, and the consequences are a little more severe. I have also been told that if you do very well on the Knowledge Test that it will make the Oral Exam during your check-ride easier. (Easier is better...) I had a couple of different routes I could go to prepare for the test. I could study the book on my own and pay my CFI for ground school time, or I could sign up for one of the online ground schools. After I looked at the price of paying for ground school with my CFI and the cost of an online school I decided that it would be less expensive and more beneficial to do the online ground school (no disrespect to my CFI's knowledge or teaching prowess). I looked at all the different options and settled on Gold Seal Ground School with presentations by Russell Still. The lessons were good, the presentations often cheesy, and I could hear Russ' voice in my head as I would be reading the review materials after the lesson. The bottom line is that it was effective and kept me interested. As I finished up studying last night I had no doubt that I would pass the test, the only question in my mind was if I would do better than 90% (which was the bar I had set for myself). The test itself is 60 multiple choice questions drawn from a huge bank of questions and you have 2 1/2 hours to complete it. Not to knock anyone that uses all the available time to take the test, but 2 1/2 hours is a loooonnnnggg time. Do the math, that's 2 1/2 minutes per question. Most of the questions are the type that you just read and answer which should take maybe 10-15 seconds each. Even the questions that require some kind of calculations shouldn't really take more than about a minute. You either know the answers or you don't. I got to the testing center, located at a local flight school, and checked in with the proctor. I had with me my E6B (Whiz-wheel), a plotter, and a basic calculator. The testing center provided scratch paper, the testing supplement with all the charts etc..., a calculator, and a clear page protector with a dry erase marker so I could lay it over the pages in the book and mark on it. (If you are going to take your test, remember that in the front of the supplement there is a key with all the symbols and everything for sectionals which can be handy if you forgot one). The proctor got me set up at the computer and we went through the way the interface works. I began the test and many of the questions looked familiar. Some of them were identical to some I had seen and others were just asking the same thing as the practice questions I had done but in a little different way. There were only a couple questions that I wasn't really sure on so as I clicked the "Finished" button just over 30 minutes after starting the exam I felt pretty good. After completing a short survey my score came up on the screen, 88%... I could miss six questions and get my 90%, but I had missed seven. Rats... Where did I go wrong? Well there were two questions I knew I was guessing on, two I over thought (the age old multiple choice strategy of your first answer is usually the right one and when you switch you are usually wrong, I switched my answers and was wrong), two I thought I had right (but didn't), and one that I just completely missed and can't believe I missed. That one question had to do with wind forecasts and I must have either been looking at the wrong row for location or column for altitude, either way there is no excuse for missing that one. Still, 88% isn't bad, it's much better than the 70% required, but I was not pleased that a couple of easy questions that I shouldn't have missed kept me from my goal of scoring over 90%.

Nope, reminds me of doing touch-n-go's at Riverside toward the beginning of my training when the tower told a helicopter to slow down so he didn't pass us as we were on final.

Ron, Thank you for sharing your experience. One of the things that the other CFI that I was chatting with mentioned was what if I was flying down to San Diego at night, and some high clouds block the moon, and a little bit later I notice that the lights on the ground are gone because there were some thin low level clouds that I hadn't noticed before... Now what? It has been a busy few years for me. There is a new opportunity at work so I finished up a Bachelor's in Accounting online through Colorado State, packing the last two years of the degree into 14 months. The last semester, having tested out of two classes, I pulled down 21 credit hours along with working full time. The plan was to start my flight training after finishing school but when my wife said in late May "Why don't you start now?" I thought "Sure, I can finish up the last 8 weeks of classes, work full time, and take flight lessons" so I jumped on it and began flying. I finished school the end of July and it has been nice to just focus on learning to fly since then. As I said before, my current plan is to work on my IFR in 2-3 years, like you said to just enjoy flying for a few years and get some more time and experience under my belt. Buying a Mooney will require getting a complex endorsement and transition training. I want to learn to fly it and get comfortable with it. However, I'm guessing that long before the 2-3 years roll by I am going to get the itch to get started on my IFR and so it will begin. I like to always be learning, not that there won't be enough for me to learn just flying VFR after I get my PPL, but the instrument rating will present a new set of challenges that will be calling my name...

Yep, that's the one.

We have plenty of great days all year down here for flying. Good luck on your next try, I'm pulling for you. I won't be flying again until the 17th, going out of town for a little vacation. For those of you that golf, I am going to get to play the TPC at Las Colinas next week where they play the Byron Nelson Classic.

Thanks, I love watching as many accident analysis videos as well as reading accident reports as I can. (Subscribed to the AOPA Air Safety Institute channel on YouTube) I would rather learn from someone else's mistakes instead of making my own... Heaven knows I make enough of them on my own anyway...

I have only flown the Cherokee 140's and a 180 but they are not difficult. I'll bet it wouldn't take you long at all to be able to pass a check-ride in one.

Extra time won't make that much of a difference, I'll just be more prepared. I understand the 'my decision' on what to fly in. In fact one of the things I was talking about with the other CFI today was about different weather conditions. He had asked if I was going to pursue my IFR and I told him I planed on it in 2-3 years. He said the same thing I've heard from everyone else, getting your IFR will make you an all around better pilot, even in VFR conditions. I told him that I wanted to just get some time and that since I am not flying for work, just for fun and for faster visits to family in AZ, UT, and northern CA that there is no place I have to be that I can't put off for better weather. He asked me if today would be a go/no go day for me after I had my license. At that time the ceiling was 1,800 and visibility 6sm. I told him a no-go until the ceiling got higher or broken up. He was surprised by my answer but I told him again, if I was heading out I can't rely on staying under the clouds because they could be lower en-route, and I can always afford to wait.

Sam, looks like my check-ride might not happen until the beginning of October. today I didn't get my flight in with my CFI and I am out of town for a bit beginning next Saturday. Today was going to be the day to evaluate where I'm at and look to schedule the check-ride. Now I won't get that evaluation in until the 17th and by that point it will probably be too late to schedule it by the end of the month. We'll see. Anyway, here's my tale from today... Some Days Are More Work and Less Play Yesterday I received a call from the school that my CFI was sick and they needed to reschedule me. They gave me the option of flying with a different CFI, flying solo, or scheduling a different day. The plan was to go through maneuvers to see where I was in my preparations for my check ride which I can't do by myself, I didn't want to just practice landings again, and due to schedule conflicts I am not able to fly on the 10th. If I didn't fly today then it would be three weeks between flights, too long. I decided that it would be good to fly with a different instructor to have a new set of eyes on my flying and get a different perspective so I asked them to schedule it. My original flight time was noon, which was to give time for the morning haze and clouds to burn off but they moved me up to 10am. When I left my house at 9:25am for the drive to the airport it was still overcast and not looking promising, but usually on the other side of the hills from my house it is clearer, today wasn't one of those days. The weather at CNO was variable winds, visibility 6 miles with haze, and overcast at 1,800'. That would be good enough to fly the pattern but that is about all. I met the new CFI and we talked about doing some real instrument time through the clouds to get up on top and work stalls and steep turns, but that would be a lot of time to only work on a couple things so we scrapped that idea. We spent the next hour and a half just talking about flying which was great, I learned a lot from him. Finally we decided that it just wasn't going to happen today but that I would wait around to see if it cleared enough for me to at least get in some pattern work on my own (no sense paying the CFI to fly the pattern with me). The overcast had broken up but the minimum visibility that I am signed off for in my additional 90 day solo endorsement is 7 miles, soooo I had to wait for that one more mile of visibility. There I was, sitting in the lobby of the school, checking in every 10 minutes or so on the current conditions. Outside the overcast was completely gone and I could see the mountains 7 nm to the south and 11 nm to the north, but the weather still said 6 sm visibility. I checked Ontario 5 nm to the north, Corona 5 nm to the south, and Riverside 10 nm to the east and they all listed visibility of 10 sm but yet Chino still said 6 nm. Finally about noon it updated to 7 sm visibility and I was good to go, I thought... I went out and did the pre-flight on the plane then asked one of the ground crew to pull it out of the hanger. I finished up the last few items on the checklist and was about to start it when a twin engine that is kept in one of the hangars along the row came around the corner at the end. No sense starting up the plane and paying to sit there so I waited until the twin it was put away in its hangar. At last, everything was clear and I was ready to start the plane up. I started going down the start-up checklist, engaged the starter, the engine kicked over, the propeller started spinning, but something wasn't right. I went to back off the engine to 1000 rpm but it was rough and started to die so I put a little more throttle in and it started racing. Went to back it off a little again and the same thing happened. About this time the owner of the school and one of the mechanics were walking up from behind the right wing, I looked over and gave them a 'cut it?' motion and they shook their heads so I pulled the mixture to idle cut, let it die, turned off the mags, took the keys out and put them on top of the dash. (The school wants the keys there so there is no question the mags are off when someone is around the plane.) The owner said it sounded like the plane was only firing on three cylinders. They opened the cowls and felt the cylinders and sure enough, one was cold. The mechanic pulled the plugs on that cylinder and one of them was bad, the insulator was broken. When the plane is started it is on just the left mag so only one of the two plugs in each cylinder is firing. I hadn't switched to both mags yet and because it was the plug connected to the left mag that was bad, the engine was only firing on three cylinders. The mechanic got a new plug to replace the bad one and installed both of them. We started the plane up again but the owner still couldn't get it to idle smooth. After some more trouble shooting he determined that the primer was leaking a little but said to go fly it and they would fix that later. By this time there was another Cherokee from the school that had been pulled out in front of me and I was waiting on them to start up and go. They got their plane started and then the Apache that belongs to the school came around the end of hangar row returning from a flight. Sooo, I shut the engine down again and they pushed both myself and the other Cherokee back so they could put the Apache in the hangar to make room for us to leave. I started the plane, again, and was finally taxiing on my way down the hangar row. I received my clearance and taxied out to a crowded run-up area. After a short wait one of the planes left but it was still crowded enough that the tower told a Cessna waiting on the taxi way that there was nobody behind him and he could do his run-up there on the taxi way. The run-up went well, I finished up my checklist, and after a short delay was given clearance and on my way down the runway and up in the air. I will say right now I am not a fan of 'variable' winds. The winds were variable at 6 knots which means they were coming from anywhere and everywhere. I made my way around the traffic pattern following a different Cherokee, the whole time bouncing around and compensating for the changing wind directions. I turned final and realized, this doesn't feel right. With the flaps all the way deployed the lever was too close to my right knee and hitting my knee board. The throttle was right next to my knee (too close) and I had to rotate my right knee out to keep the yoke from hitting it. (Dang it, I had the seat one notch closer than normal. I had gone back and forth with where to have the seat on the ground before starting up the engine but just wasn't quite sure about the distance until I was up flying. It was the 'Am I too close, is this too far away to push the rudder pedals all the way in' debate. Once I was flying, I could tell it wasn't where I normally have it.) I landed, it wasn't very pretty, brought the flaps back up, and pushed the throttle in for the touch-and-go. I thought 'The seat is just a little too close but I can still fly like this' except as I was climbing out it was really starting to annoy me. There was no way I was going to try and adjust it while flying, that's just asking for disaster, so the next time around after landing I exited the runway, came to a stop, and then adjusted the seat. With the seat finally in the right place I taxied back and waited for my clearance to take off again. I made another trip around the pattern for a touch-and-go still bouncing around with the variable winds. It was another sub-par landing with the shifting winds causing me grief as I tried to stay lined up on the centerline and keeping my descent rate stable. I thought 'I'm just going to ask for a full stop next time around.' Then I reconsidered and told myself I would do one more touch-and-go just for the experience. I was on the downwind when the tower gave me my landing clearance. Tower: "Cherokee 5800Uniform, you are number one, 26L, cleared for the option. Me: "Number one, 26L, cleared for the option, 00Uniform, after this one can I get right traffic for a full stop landing on 26R?" Tower: "00Uniform, we have your request." I continued on the downwind and as I was turning base the tower got back to me. Tower: "Cherokee 5800Uniform, on the go make left closed traffic." Me: "On the go make left closed traffic, 00Uniform." I guess they weren't going to get me into the right traffic pattern. I made the landing, put flaps up, throttle in and a little right rudder. I had just lifted off and was climbing out when the tower called again. Tower: "Cherokee 5800Uniform, extend upwind, turn right crosswind at the power lines for 26R. Me: "Extend upwind, make my right crosswind at the power lines for 26R, 00Uniform." I continued the climb and had cleared the end of the runway but had not yet reached the power lines. Tower: "Cherokee 5800Uniform, contact the tower on 118.5 and check in with your location." (They had the runways split on separate frequencies.) Me: "Contacting tower on 118.5, 00Uniform." (Switch the radio frequency) Me: "Chino tower, Cherokee 5800Uniform checking in, just departed 26L and extending upwind to the powerlines." Tower: "Cherokee 5800Uniform, go ahead and make your right crosswind when able." Me: "Beginning right crosswind turn now, 00Uniform." I continued to get bounced around by the variable winds which now had some gusts to go along with the shifting directions. As I was passing about midfield I was given my landing clearance, number two following another plane on short final. I saw him landing, let the tower know I had him in sight, and then continued downwind, turned base, turned final, and again was fighting to stay on center-line with the winds pushing me around. Here the winds were coming from the right (as given by my effort to keep from drifting to the left). I managed to put the plane down about 20 feet to the left of the center-line (it's sometimes really nice to be landing on a 150' wide runway). Some days it's a nice relaxing flight, and some days are a bit more work. Today was the latter.

I hope that we both have our PPL's by the end of this month. Stretching the meet up out to 6 months is only to give us both time to find and buy a plane...

Sam, Don't quit... You've come way too far and are so close. I can't imagine trying to do what you are doing in a complex plane. I'm grateful that I am taking my lessons and will be doing my checkride in Cherokee 140's, nice and simple. Hang in there, listen to the experienced guys here, and you will succeed. Maybe in six months or so when we both have our PPL's and planes we can meet up and swap training stories in person.

Not just higher education. We have had a few high school age exchange students over the years. About three years ago we had one from Germany and she came home from school one day asking questions about Roosevelt's New Deal that they were studying. I gave her my take on it from a conservative standpoint, and she did poorly on the assignment. She came home and told my wife how she did on the assignment and my wife said, "You can listen to Richard but don't answer the questions that way, answer them the way the teacher wants them..." Dang liberal teachers...

It really depends on which plane I am flying. The school has 4 Cherokee 140's and a Cherokee 180. One of the 140's has a Horton S.T.O.L. kit on it and that one doesn't do anything when you stall it out, just gets mushy and shakes like you are driving down a dirt road. In fact you can try to hold it in the stall and the nose will eventually try to fall back forward. The other planes each behave a little different, but they all like to drop the right wing just a little when the stall is fully developed. How much the right wing will drop depends on which plane it is but it is just a quick little dip, you push the yoke forward and then level the wings.

That's why I had stalls at the top of the list of things I want to work on, I need more repetition.

The rest of my vision is better than 20/20, just the reading. We used to tease my parents calling it "short arm disease" because they couldn't hold the book/newspaper far enough away to read it... My dad needed reading glasses about age 45, it looks like I might beat him to it. I'll be 44 next month and while I don't have to have them yet for everything, I can see (no pun intended) that time is fast approaching. The flight doctor that did my medical exam told me that typically if someone has excellent distance vision they will need reading glasses about the time they turn 45. I like that my CFI allows me to make the mistakes when there is no danger to making them. He could have told me again to watch the glideslope as he saw me drifting lower but we weren't going to run into anything so he just stayed quiet until I took the foggles off and he pointed out the trees that were much closer than my normal approach on that runway. That sticks in my mind much better. The PAPI's are nice, I know its supposed to be two white/two red but I like to keep three white/one red there as the runways are very long and I would rather be a little high than a little low. Final test will be the last week of September, the date isn't set just yet. I fly with my CFI on Saturday the 3rd and we are going to go through all the maneuvers just so he can see where I'm at. I feel good about all of them with the exception of stalls which I know I can do, I just don't like them. The examiners are scheduling about two weeks out so we'll see if I can get a date set when I go in this Saturday. I'm gone on a short vacation the second week of September so will have two weeks between flights as I won't fly again until the 17th. If it's set for the 26th-30th that will give me a couple flights with my CFI after I get back plus a checkride with another instructor from the school.

A Flight Without a View Flying is fantastic! Everything looks different from the air, and in a small plane it looks different than when you are in the window seat of an airline. You are lower and slower than the big boys which gives you more time to look around and see things. If I was flying a high performance plane that could crank 90° banks or do barrel rolls that would be the highlight, but in the planes I fly the highlight is in looking out the window. Today there was nothing to see... My check ride is getting closer. I'm trying to wrap up my ground school so that I can take my written exam in a couple weeks. The only requirements that I have left are 1.5 hours of simulated instrument time, learning recovery from unusual attitudes, and a couple more hours to go over the 40 minimum. (I think I will be between 45-50 hours when I take my check ride.) Other than that it is just dialing in the maneuvers. Today the plan was to get in some simulated instrument time, learn recovery from unusual attitudes, and work on stalls. I told my CFI that don't feel comfortable with stalls yet at all. He said that wasn't unusual and that he thought he was comfortable with stalls until today when one of his students put the plane into a spin while working on stalls and he had to recover it for the student. The only other time I did simulated instrument flight I didn't have my own foggles so I had to use a set from the school that looked like this. You can't see anything and have to turn your head just to see the radios. I thought I was going to be smart and order a set of what my CFI calls "cheater foggles" which look like this. You still can't see outside, although you can see light and dark areas. You can also see more of the panel which is nice. With a plan in place for today's flight we got the logbook from the receptionist. CFI: "Do you have your own foggles?" Me: "Yep, I bought some after the last time we did instrument flight." CFI: "Are they the good ones or the cheater ones?" Me: "The cheater ones." CFI: (Walking over to the file cabinet and taking out the set from the school which someone actually put a sticker on the top that says 'Da Hoodz') "Then I'm going to have you use these." Me: "But, the cheater ones are legal." CFI: "I know, and you can use them on your check ride. But if you practice with these then your check ride will be a piece of cake with the cheater ones." Me: "Okay..." (I know he's right, I'm just not excited about it.) We went outside and I began the pre-flight on the plane. I started out in the cockpit, everything was good there. I put the flaps down and got out and started on the right wing. Flaps look good, aileron, wing tip, light, aileron counter weight, fuel to the tabs, fuel is blue (100LL), sump the tank and it's good, but there are a few drops of hydraulic fluid on the ground under where the brake line connects to the caliper. The line has obviously had a little leak for some time given the amount of gunk on it, and I wouldn't question it if it was just the line that was dirty but I knew the plane had just come back from a flight and hadn't been sitting more than 30 minutes. I called my CFI over to take a look and ask him if he's concerned about it. He had the same thought that I did, the plane hadn't been parked very long and with drips on the ground we decided to have the mechanic take a look. The owner of the school was there in the hanger too so they both came over to check it out. The owner grabbed a wrench, loosened the fitting and tightened it again to see if he could get it to re-seat. We opened up the cowl on the left side and checked to brake fluid level in the reservoir which was low. The owner went and got some fluid and a funnel and brought it up to the full level. My CFI put some fuel in the left tank to bring it up to the tabs and then we were sitting in the cockpit where I finished up the checklists and started up the plane. I received taxi clearance, went to the run-up area, and worked through that checklist. Everything still looked good so I rolled out to the hold short line for 26R, the tower had me cross 26R to hold short at 26L and contact the tower on the other frequency. (It must have been a busy Saturday morning because they had the runways split on different frequencies, but by 3:30pm when we were out there everyone must have already found somewhere to go because there were only two other planes on the frequency.) We lifted off and I kept the climb right on the numbers at 85mph and trimmed out the plane. We reached 1,100' and I began my crosswind and then made a turn to the southeast toward the Lake Matthews practice area. As soon as I was making my turn he handed me the foggles with a "Here you go" and there went my view... It is interesting how everything changes as soon as you can't see outside. The amount of mental effort required to fly (for me at least) increases exponentially. He told me to fly a heading (I think it was 120°) and so I started an easy turn towards that heading. I was checking my altimeter (I was still climbing to 2,500', my attitude indicator, airspeed, vertical speed indicator, turn coordinator, and heading indicator. Everything looked right, but the heading indicator did not seem to be changing even though the attitude and turn indicators showed me in an easy right bank. (That's weird...) This went on for about 10-15 seconds until I realized that I wasn't looking at my heading indicator, I was looking at the VOR Indicator. (Not a mistake I have ever made, but one that was obviously a result of the added mental stress of instrument flight.) I admitted the error to my CFI to which he responded "I was wondering" since I had turned well past the heading he was asking for. I turned back to the requested heading and we proceeded to the practice area. Once there I turned to plane over to him and he told me to "look at my lap." With my head down he proceed to turn, climb, descend, and then finally say "It's your plane." The engine was racing so I immediately pulled power while looking at the attitude indicator. We were in a right turning dive so I leveled the wings and pulled back on the yoke to bring it back to level flight. Once the speed bled off I pushed the throttle back in to bring it back to 2,200 rpm, gave the controls back to my CFI and looked back down at my lap. This time he tried harder to confuse me and even got my head to spin a little before saying "It's your plane." Right before giving the controls back to me I heard the RPM's drop. A quick glance at the attitude indicator showed we were in a climbing left bank and the airspeed indicator showed the airspeed rapidly decreasing. I added full throttle and simultaneously turned the yoke to the right and pushed forward to level the plane. Once the airspeed was coming back up I decreased the throttle and had us straight and level. When talking about the procedure to recover from unusual attitudes before flying I had told my CFI that in my mind I didn't think it was going to be very difficult. He said that it really isn't and that it would probably be even easier than I thought. He was right, it wasn't hard. I actually seem to struggle more with straight/level flight by instruments than recovering from unusual attitudes. We did one more unusual attitude recovery and then he told me to fly direct to the Paradise VOR. On the way he planned out a route to fly and had me make notes. Taking notes while flying by instruments, trying to track a radial and maintaining a steady climb to altitude was an interesting/challenging experience to say the least. He changed our original plan (which was to split the 1.5 hours of simulated IFR into two flights) and instead decided to have me fly a triangle route from the Paradise VOR, to the Pamona VOR, then south to intersect a radial from Paradise before tracking that in. I realized as I was flying extended time in simulated IFR that when I am flying VFR I don't look at my attitude indicator much at all and only glance down at my turn indicator to make sure I am staying coordinated. For straight and level flight, turns, climbs, and descents I rely almost completely on the horizon outside the plane. I don't have any problem making a turn and rolling out right on a specific heading, when I can see outside. However, under the hood that all changes. I would roll out early, roll out late, drift into a shallow turn and notice my heading had changed 5-10°, I was all over the place. Chasing the radials turned out to be quite the task. About the time we reached the Pamona VOR and turned south I finally had it and was able to fly a straight heading and stay on the radial. When the radial from Paradise started to come in I made a gradual turn, lined up on it, and tracked it in. I'm all over the place heading NW to the Pamona VOR. By the time we turned South I finally was able to hold the heading and fly straight. I was happy to see that after the initial climb I was able to hold the altitude and eventually headings. My CFI was doing all the radio work, flying by instruments and talking on the radio is past my current capabilities. In fact, unlike our other flights there was very little conversation between us, I was too busy trying to concentrate on those darn instruments. At one point I told him "This must be so boring for you." As we were approaching the Paradise VOR my CFI asked approach for vectors to the Chino ILS. I followed the headings from SOCAL Approach and soon we were on the ILS and I was chasing the localizer and glideslope. CFI: "Watch the localizer, if you're going to miss it miss to the right. If you drift left you could end up on approach for 26L." (The ILS at Chino is on 26R.) ME: "Okay" CFI: "Watch the glideslope." Me: "Okay" Elevation at KCNO is 650' and the minimum for the ILS is 886'. I got down just under 900' and for the first time since I turned toward the practice area an hour before and about 85 miles of flight, I looked outside the plane. We were flying towards the sun and my first reaction was 'It's bright out there!' It was so strange to have been flying for so long without having seen anything. I was pleased to see that I was almost lined up on the runway. The problem was that I had drifted below glideslope. My CFI said,"See how close those trees are?" (As we were passing over them.) "This is what four reds on the PAPI looks like. That's why you never want to be below glideslope. If you're going to miss the glideslope, miss high." The truth is that I had not even noticed that I had drifted below the glideslope. I had been right on it until maybe the last 10 seconds when I had taken my eye off the glideslope and instead was watching the altimeter to see when I could finally take the foggles off. That was enough time to sink low... I added power to stop my descent until I was back where I should be and then settled down for a nice soft landing with just one notch of flaps (10°) in. I missed the centerline to the right but got a "Very nice" from my CFI as the plane settled down on the runway. I'm down to just 0.5 of simulated IFR needed. Next Saturday I fly again with my CFI and we'll go through all the required maneuvers to see what I need to work on. In the mean time I will try and get my ground school completed and schedule my written exam. It really is getting close...

On my third xc solo I came back to the home airport and bounced once. Came in with too much speed, but the Cherokee is fairly forgiving. Kept it level and then held it in the flare until the speed bled off and it settled down. Called my dad in AZ on my way home like I always do and told him I bounced for the first time. My dad who has more hours than I can think of in T-38's and C-130's just said "Won't be the last time."

Silly me, I was trying to use code to embed it and the forum just automatically embeds it when you use the link...

More Landing Practice and a Milestone... To get to the airport I drive along Euclid Ave which passes along the west end of Runways 26R and 26L. Today, as with every other time I drive by I was looking for whatever planes were taking off. I guess I'm still not tired of watching planes, any planes, fly. However today was a bit different because as I passed 26R I saw a bright yellow plane just sitting in the middle of the runway with some kind of vehicle by it. That didn't look good. I arrived at the flight school, got the log book for the plane from the receptionist and went out to pre-flight the plane. Everything looked good, except the fuel had not been filled back up to the tabs (18 gal each side) after whoever flew it last. I was only going to be flying around the pattern and I'm sure wouldn't need more than what was in the plane, but the school's checklist says the tanks need to be at the tabs before flying so I went back inside to see if there was anyone around that could fuel the plane. Unfortunately there wasn't anyone there currently, but she said the owner of the school would be back shortly. I wandered around the hangers and after about ten minutes the Cherokee 180 and Mooney M20B that belong to the school both came around the corner at the end of the hanger row. The owner of the flight school was giving a new instructor a ride in their Mooney. The owner fueled the plane for me and then asked where I was headed. When I told him I was just going to stay in the pattern and practice landings he said I might want to wait a little for them to clear 26R because there were a lot of planes backed up waiting on 26L. That was when I found out what the yellow plane I saw on 26R was. Chino has a great museum and many of the planes in the museum still fly. One of those planes is the Northrop N9MB, it was the fourth and final in a series of 1/3 scale test models for the Northrop XB-35 flying wing. It is the only one that is left... Something apparently went wrong when it was landing and the nose gear collapsed. The owner of the school said he was going to take the cart out to see if they had cleared the plane yet and asked if I wanted to come along. We got out to the runway and they had already moved it so we drove around to the hanger where they were putting it away. It looked like the front strut had snapped. I can only imagine the feeling the pilot had when he felt that go, knowing he was flying a one of a kind, multi-million dollar aircraft. Fortunately the damage did not look too bad and they think they will have it repaired in time for the Air Show next Spring. We got back and I sumped the tanks, did a quick check of the plane since we had been gone for a little bit, and then got in and started it up. With both runways clear there wasn't any backup and by the time I was finished with my run-up the only two other planes out there had left and I was first in line. The tower had me cross 26R and take off on 26L to make left traffic in the pattern. The landings were better today than a week ago, which is good because I would hate to be going backwards. It was another fairly quiet day in the pattern and on one downwind the tower cleared me for a short final, but then took the clearance away. I had just turned on my downwind when I got this call from the tower. Tower: "Cherokee 4132Juliet, I have a lear jet on a straight in for 26L, you are cleared for a short final and touch and go only if you like." Me: "I'll take the short final touch and go only runway 26L, 32Juliet." (Cool, I haven't done a short final for a long time.) About the time I was just past midfield on my downwind the tower called me again. Tower: "Cherokee 4132Juliet, cancel the short final and extend downwind, he's moving pretty fast." Me: "Cancelling short final and extending downwind, looking for that traffic, 32Juliet." (Dang it...) Tower: "Cherokee 4132Juliet, you are #2, runway 26L, cleared for the option. That lear jet should be about your 10 o'clock, caution wake turbulance." Me: "I have the traffic in sight, #2 runway 26L, cleared for the option, 32Juliet." As soon as he had passed me I began my turn to base. He was moving so fast by the time I turned final he was already on the ground. After four trips around the pattern with touch and go's I landed and taxied back to give myself a short break and get a drink of water. It was another day hovering around 90°. My left hand was always on the yoke and my right hand was alternating between the throttle, the trim, and then flaps once I was abeam the numbers on the downwind. Each time on the downwind around midfield I would trade hands on the yoke so that I could wipe the sweat off of my left hand on my pant leg. On another trip around the pattern there was a 'three ship formation' talking to the tower. As I turned base for 26L I saw them turning base for 26R, a P-38 and two other old war birds. It was neat to watch them fly by me as I was on final. I did get another chance at a short final later and took it. The tower offered it to me so I thought 'Why not?' Today was a day of milestones and what I think are a few big progress marks (those things that you look back and say 'I think I'm finally getting some of this'). First, I am now over 100 landings and what a difference it was from the first one to number 100. I am looking forward to seeing where I am at another 100 landings from now. Second, my pattern was much better today. I have been using Droid EFB on my tablet which is great to be able to go back and review my flights. I noticed when reviewing my flight from the 13th that my base leg was anything but square. I just wasn't compensating for the winds. The winds today were fluctuating some, they started at 260 at 13, went to 220 at 11, and at one point were 250 at 13 gusting 19 (runway 26 so almost right down the runway but those gusts are interesting for a rookie). Anytime someone made first contact with the tower if the winds had changed from what was on ATIS the tower would give out the new winds which was helpful. I made a conscious effort to correct for winds as I was making my crosswind and base legs and it paid off. On the top is 8/13 and on the bottom is 8/21. Each flight is split in two because of the full stop half-way through. Patterns on 8/21 were much better with the exception of when I extended base and the short final never squared off. Another cool thing from Droid EFB is the ability to upload your flight information and then view it in Google Earth. 2016-08-13 Pattern Work Part 1 2016-08-13 Pattern Work Part 2 2016-08-21 Pattern Work Part 1 2016-08-21 Pattern Work Part 2 Third, I have flown in gusting winds before and calm winds where you hit a pocket and a wing will drop on you or going through thermals that bounce you around. Every time I get that little 'whoa' feeling but today when I got bounced around a little or had a wing drop from a gust I didn't get that little feeling in my gut but just made the correction. Just a little thing but still progress in feeling more comfortable and trusting the plane more. Last, and this was my major breakthrough today, was controls on final approach. In normal flight you control speed with the throttle and your ascent/descent rate with pitch. When you are landing you are behind the power curve and you control speed with pitch and your descent rate with power. Are you going too fast? Raise the nose a little. Are you descending too fast? Don't pull back on the yoke, keep the plane angled down and instead add power to slow your descent. I have had to make a conscious effort to keep from pulling back to slow descent and instead add power. Today it finally 'clicked.' Like driving my car with its manual transmission where don't have to think about shifting, I just do it. Today I finally didn't have to make the conscious effort to use the reverse controls on final.

Thanks for posting, I like watching as many of these as I can. Better to learn from someone else's mistake... My dad was an instructor pilot in T-38's at Williams AFB when they lost a pilot who crashed into those same mountains at night. My dad said that the rules were that you didn't cross the highway at night when flying the pattern to make sure you stay clear of the mountains. http://www.aviationarchaeology.com/T38A.htm

Fun to watch. How were you able to get the YouTube embedded in the post? Everything that I try doesn't seem to work.