Will Samurai Husky Solo?

[Danb]

You'll get used to having to slow down if/when you get a Mooney, you gotta love the freedom frisking about the skies alone, now that rocks.

[Samurai Husky]

i felt reallly guilty taking the plane by my self for the first time... It was like something was missing  I probably should have just gone out for a joy ride, but i went out to practice. So i think that killed some of the joy.

I think i will like it more when i have more freedom to go outside the area. Which is why i rushed solo XC. When i went over to the training grounds there were about 10 other people, every time i would do a steep turn i had someone pop up on my traffic scope. The worst was the citation jet that probably saw me doing maneuvers and didnt care. It decided to buzz 700ft above me; I was pushing the stick hard to get below him and he didnt do anything, just kept coming down right on top of me. An no, i wasnt in any IFR approaches where he would have been following an approach chart. Probably had it on auto pilot going into hayward and figured i would get out of the way for him. 

I would have thought with the weather being so hot that no one would be out... I was wrong

Anyway, now that i have XC, i can go farther than livermore area and maybe to practice over halfmoon bay or other areas that will have a lot less congestion.  It takes longer to get there, but the time spent going there will be time saved aborting maneuvers because of other people being in the way. 

Oh and steep right turns for some reason still evade me. I have no idea what it is. I can do a perfect left turn, +/- 20ft, but right turn I am all over the place. If i do it at 38* then i am fine, but exactly 45* things go bad. I dont know why.

Edited June 4, 2016 by Samurai Husky

[Dave Colangelo]

41 minutes ago, Samurai Husky said:

Since people have asked for updates. 

I passed my solo XC check ride today, so i am now allowed to start planning my solo XC. 

I also took the plane up for the first time by myself yesterday; It was 99F on the ground, 88F at 5000MSL. I tried doing some practice but every time i would start something and try to keep it in check ride standards, i would hit a thermal and balloon up, or hit some major unsettled air. Winds were calm though. 

It was so different flying somewhere by yourself. I didnt stick around the pattern, i went out to KLVH and did maneuvers over the city. On the way back ATC was picking on me; They gave president to a diamond coming in. Problem is, i was doing 140kts, he was doing maybe 105knts (this is about 4miles out); It started out as enter right traffic #4 clear to land, To Follow the diamond into right base (they had me going into right pattern where the diamond was told to go directly into right base), to Extend downwind into moffet, to extend again for straight in cessna (must of had IFR or something); I had to slow up and do slow flight to let everyone by. It felt like every 10 seconds he was calling on me to do something... and of course i was nervous enough as is being my first time back by myself....

 

Dont be afraid to tell ATC you are a student pilot. I would even get in the habit of it, they will be much nicer to you and may lay off a bit with things like that. Ive been down wind extended numerous times coming into KPNE for jets and the like and yes it can be frustrating. You may have also just had a controller that didn't like you, it happens...

 

6 minutes ago, Samurai Husky said:

The worst was the citation jet that probably saw me doing maneuvers and didnt care. It decided to buzz 700ft above me; I was pushing the stick hard to get below him and he didnt do anything, just kept coming down right on top of me. An no, i wasnt in any IFR approaches where he would have been following an approach chart. Probably had it on auto pilot going into hayward and figured i would get out of the way for him. 

I have been in this case a few times and it can be a dicy one. There is a solid chance that at his speed and from his point of view he simply couldn't see you. Its both parties responsibility to see and avoid. Even if he was not on approach that does not mean he was not being vectored by ATC at the time, here is an in interesting note on right of way.

Safe Flying out there!

[bonal]

Keep up the good work Husk, the practice area for LVK is on the east side of Mt Diablo and usually not much congestion there just let the tower know you are working in the space and they do a good job of looking out for you.

[Danb]

57 minutes ago, Samurai Husky said:

i felt reallly guilty taking the plane by my self for the first time... It was like something was missing  I probably should have just gone out for a joy ride, but i went out to practice. So i think that killed some of the joy.

I think i will like it more when i have more freedom to go outside the area. Which is why i rushed solo XC. When i went over to the training grounds there were about 10 other people, every time i would do a steep turn i had someone pop up on my traffic scope. The worst was the citation jet that probably saw me doing maneuvers and didnt care. It decided to buzz 700ft above me; I was pushing the stick hard to get below him and he didnt do anything, just kept coming down right on top of me. An no, i wasnt in any IFR approaches where he would have been following an approach chart. Probably had it on auto pilot going into hayward and figured i would get out of the way for him. 

I would have thought with the weather being so hot that no one would be out... I was wrong

Anyway, now that i have XC, i can go farther than livermore area and maybe to practice over halfmoon bay or other areas that will have a lot less congestion.  It takes longer to get there, but the time spent going there will be time saved aborting maneuvers because of other people being in the way. 

Oh and steep right turns for some reason still evade me. I have no idea what it is. I can do a perfect left turn, +/- 20ft, but right turn I am all over the place. If i do it at 38* then i am fine, but exactly 45* things go bad. I dont know why.

SH your doing the exactly the correct stuff, your always learning, I know a cliche, I'm also sure you had a blast

 

 

[Samurai Husky]

1 minute ago, Danb said:

SH your doing the exactly the correct stuff, your always learning, I know a cliche, I'm also sure you had a blast

I should have asked for more gas

 

[Guest Mike261]

5 hours ago, Samurai Husky said:

i felt reallly guilty taking the plane by my self for the first time... It was like something was missing  I probably should have just gone out for a joy ride, but i went out to practice. So i think that killed some of the joy.

I think i will like it more when i have more freedom to go outside the area. Which is why i rushed solo XC. When i went over to the training grounds there were about 10 other people, every time i would do a steep turn i had someone pop up on my traffic scope. The worst was the citation jet that probably saw me doing maneuvers and didnt care. It decided to buzz 700ft above me; I was pushing the stick hard to get below him and he didnt do anything, just kept coming down right on top of me. An no, i wasnt in any IFR approaches where he would have been following an approach chart. Probably had it on auto pilot going into hayward and figured i would get out of the way for him. 

I would have thought with the weather being so hot that no one would be out... I was wrong

Anyway, now that i have XC, i can go farther than livermore area and maybe to practice over halfmoon bay or other areas that will have a lot less congestion.  It takes longer to get there, but the time spent going there will be time saved aborting maneuvers because of other people being in the way. 

Oh and steep right turns for some reason still evade me. I have no idea what it is. I can do a perfect left turn, +/- 20ft, but right turn I am all over the place. If i do it at 38* then i am fine, but exactly 45* things go bad. I dont know why.

Steep turns...There are two schools of thought on steep turns. thought 1 is use muscle to maintain altitude during the turn, relax when leveling out and changing direction to the other steep turn. Thought 2 is use trim and use muscle during the transition to the opposite turn.

I have taught both methods...depends on the student, by far I've had the most success with having the student trim. I wholeheartedly endorse trimming for steep turns. i don't know which method you are using, but if you are not using trim, try it.

mike

 

[Samurai Husky]

ok; The only problem with trim is that the cirrus doesnt have a manual trim wheel; its a electronic trim and its pretty sloppy. But its something i can try the next time i go up. 

[Mcoyne34]

Lots of nose up trim and looking for the proper "sight picture" makes steep turns easy. I used to have a more difficult time with the turn to the right too. And be ready to push the nose down when rolling out of the turn. 

[carl]

On 5/31/2016 at 10:36 PM, HRM said:

Craig Steffen?

This is craig steffen 

[bradp]

So Carl is Craig?  

[Samurai Husky]

uh. then no. I thought it was a rhetorical question like 'are you Neil Armstrong'

 

[Skates97]

3 hours ago, Mcoyne34 said:

Lots of nose up trim and looking for the proper "sight picture" makes steep turns easy. I used to have a more difficult time with the turn to the right too. And be ready to push the nose down when rolling out of the turn. 

I'm just a rookie with a few hours under my belt so take this with a giant grain of salt. The first time I was doing steep turns going to the left was easy and going to the right was more difficult to hold my angle. I kept rolling back to about 35 degrees. My problem was looking too much out the right side which to me "felt" like I was banking too steep and I would shallow out. Yesterday I was back up and we were practicing steep turns again. This time I only glanced out the right side very briefly and spent most of my time looking out the front with glances down to my VSI and my attitude indicator to verify I was staying at the correct bank and altitude. Steep turns yesterday were spot on for me.

[Samurai Husky]

hmmm; 

I spend a lot of time looking at the AI because the VSI has about a 5 sec lag; Also part of my problem is that we dont have a clean horizon to look at; Where i go to practice there are tons of hills and mountains, so i will be doing fine and then all the sudden look at a bunch of mountains and lose my angel. Thats normally when i drop 200ft. I think the only thing that is realtime is the AI. I think everything else has some lag. 

I am sure that it will just take practice. I figure if i do 10hrs of steep turns im bound to get it eventually

After steep turns i just need to work on doing slow flight +/-100ft. I can maintain it while in slow flight, but i was told i have to hold it while also entering slow flight. 

[Hank]

Another reason learning in a 172 was so easy, I just had to turn the elevator trim knob down twice entering the steep turn, lock elbows rolling into the other direction, the. Remove the same two turns when I leveled out. Timing the "crude" electric trim will be difficult.

One (more) thing that I really love about my Mooney is the IVSI. It gives immediate response to any change in altitude, sometimes reacting before the altimeter does. No, I've not seen one in very many other planes, but I sure do like mine!

[carl]

2 hours ago, bradp said:

So Carl is Craig?  

No ,Carl is not Craig!

 

Craig is Craig , he has a blog. his photo came from there. 

 

I don't understand how he got drawn into this. I was just trying to fill in a little.

[Guest Mike261]

2 hours ago, Samurai Husky said:

hmmm; 

I spend a lot of time looking at the AI because the VSI has about a 5 sec lag; Also part of my problem is that we dont have a clean horizon to look at; Where i go to practice there are tons of hills and mountains, so i will be doing fine and then all the sudden look at a bunch of mountains and lose my angel. Thats normally when i drop 200ft. I think the only thing that is realtime is the AI. I think everything else has some lag. 

I am sure that it will just take practice. I figure if i do 10hrs of steep turns im bound to get it eventually

After steep turns i just need to work on doing slow flight +/-100ft. I can maintain it while in slow flight, but i was told i have to hold it while also entering slow flight. 

keep your eyes outside. Trim. Use your ass. eventually you will understand seat of the pants flying, pay attention to your butt cheeks...this takes some time do develop, but remember the sensations they should be the same every time. Didn't Yoda say use your ass luke? maybe not.

mike

[HRM]

2 hours ago, carl said:

I don't understand how he got drawn into this. I was just trying to fill in a little.

[carusoam]

I learned steep turns during my check ride...

i did OK,  oscillating wildly, but the Check ride guy (DER?) demonstrated hands off steep turns.  Set bank, set power, set trim, Sit back and look at student pilot like he is missing something... 

He had a good feeling for all the power and trim settings, generally.  Minor corrections only after that.

The aged C152 is really a precision device in the right hands.  Wish I knew that before taking lessons...

My ancient M20C was even better.

Best regards,

-a-

[Yetti]

I had a little mantra going. Find and mark the point or road, Roll in, add power, pull back a little, Feel the Gs a little, As the point comes up roll out reduce throttle, release hold on yoke.  Line up on point.  That was for the 172

Couple days ago the air was very stable with lots of storms around doing steep turns in the mooney are pretty easy It handles so nice.

 

[bradp]

And then there's that bump that is so much fun.  

[Samurai Husky]

3 hours ago, Hyett6420 said:

None of your flights from now till you get at least two hundred hours will be joy rides, sorry to burst your bubble.  Every ride you will learn something new. 

In sailing we have these rules that power gives way to sail and you give way to everything that cannot manoveur as well as you (ie is bigger). In your citation case it was the case of he is more difficult to manoveur than you, he probably was not looking out the window so always best for YOU to assume he has not seen you  and avoid at all costs.  For here lies the body of Mike O'Shea who died insisting upon his right of way.  

Hot weather produces tons of thermals and so hand flying can b challenging like that but, slow the baby down a bit and it is easier.

ok now the bollocking:- i fly a J, it cruises at 160 odd knots, do i join the pattern at that speed HELL NO, why because everyone else is flying at 105 knots or slower so i need to slow down to thier speed BEFORE i get to the airport so when i am downwid i am at 100 knots.  Moaning that ATC were nasty to you is not correct, you did not join the pattern at pattern speed but at cruise speed.  A jet and some other aircraft, twins etc HAVE to fly at 120-140 knots in the pattern or it will stall, you on the other hand stall at about 55-59 knots so can easily fly slower.  It will make your life so much easier and you wont piss off the other traffic and ATC.  At 4 miles out i have already slowed to at least 110 knots and have gear down and one stage of flap (to keep the nose down). 

Steep turns to the right are just practice, you naturally pull less when going to the ight so you must remember to pull a bit more.  Gently roll into the turn and apply back pressure then roll a bit more and more pressure, roll more and more pressure etc.  It is not a wack on 45 degrees and pull approach, any CFI will let you gradually increase the turn if they are good CFIs. 

Go out have fun, enjoy the XCs, listen to thenother folks on the radio and learn from the profesiomal pilots what they say and why they say it, watch what they do and why.  You will then live long and prosper.  

Andrew

 

i hadnt joined the pattern at that point; I was still 4 miles out and descending. The diamond was 4 miles out to my left and at level 1200 (pattern is 800); I think i was around 2400. 

By the time i got into the pattern i was at 100knt.

Just so that you know i wasnt recklessly speeding in the pattern. 

[Skates97]

4 hours ago, Hyett6420 said:

Go out have fun, enjoy the XCs, listen to the other folks on the radio and learn from the profesiomal pilots what they say and why they say it, watch what they do and why.  You will then live long and prosper.  

Andrew

 

Most of you probably already know about this site, but http://www.liveatc.net/ will let you listen in to towers, ground, and approach for airports all over the world. I may be a bit of a nerd when it comes to this stuff, but it's pretty cool listening in, sometimes entertaining and often educational. KCNO where I am taking lessons from doesn't have a feed, but I have been listening to Burbank, KBUR, during the day off and on when I am in the office. They are a busy airport and have student pilots flying in and out too so you can hear the patience of ATC as they talk them through things at times. It helps me as I am trying to learn how to talk to ATC to hear the interactions, the cadence, what is and isn't said, etc...

Richard

[Samurai Husky]

Oh dont get me wrong, i wasnt on the numbers at all. Actually i was too high and was burning off altitude, which was giving me the speed, i had the power back to 15%; Though I was coming down from 5500ft, then 3500 when i crossed over the hills (4k is the bravo); so i was going pretty fast approaching the airport, but at that point i had a lot of time to slow down and enter on the 45 normally. I just feel i was sequenced wrong, that's all.

At 15% power once i hit my TPA i would have slowed down considerably; But when i sequenced behind the diamond, i had to slow up then and there or run him over. So i was still high and still fast at that point in the approach. Once i was below 120kts i put in the first notch of flaps, even through we were still about 3.5 miles out. Then just flew with 1 notch until they sequenced me behind a cessna, which then i did the 2nd notch and flew the rest of the pattern at 80knts until final.

So yea, not a typical entry, it was my first time

Today was short/soft TO/L; I suck at soft take off, once the SR20 leaves the ground it wants to climb and holding that level flight at 10ft off the ground was almost impossible. Though i did have a 10knt crosswind component and 15knt winds. So it wasnt the best of days to be learning a new technique. All the other stuff was ok; Short field take off was easy, short field landing i need to work on a little more, just because the plane dropped sooner then i wanted it to and came up short. Soft field landings were pretty easy if it werent for the crosswind. 

So now that's done. I need to go on 1 more XC with the CFI and then do my solo XC and then its all PPL practice. Everything else is signed off on.  

[Samurai Husky]

Actually my problem with crosswind is in the flare; As soon as i pull power the thing wants to windmill to the left and i am always slow on letting up on the rudder as we always have a right crosswind.