ET's Info-Stew

I've planned a fun flight this Friday for Jenny and me. We're going south to Harris Ranch for lunch. The route goes from Hayward (KHWD) to Tracy (KTCY), then nearly direct to Coalinga (3O8). The flight comes from a recommendation by Jenny's friend Crystal's parents, who fly there occasionally for breakfast. Mike Nichols is the guy who (probably unbeknownst to him) encouraged me to stop putting off my flight training. I have some pictures with us flying his Ercoupe.

Today I flew for the first time in 2 1/2 months. With such a long break I was worried I would be very rusty, in organization, communication, and landing technique. But I actually did rather well, especially since it was the first time I've flown in a Cessna 152 in 5 1/2 months.

Today Jenny and I did an impromptu flight, planning to go to Salinas (KSNS) then Watsonville (KWVI), then back. This is the flight that we were going to take at night a couple weeks ago, but scrubbed due to lack of proper planning. I learned my lesson and last week came up with a good plan for the flight. Today the weather was forecast to be great, and I was much better prepared, so this was an excellent day. I would be testing myself because it was my first ever attempt to transition some of the complex Bay Area airspace.

For some reason, I keep forgetting what night means with respect to the FAA regulations. I'm adding that info here for permanent record.

Night is the time between civil evening twilight and civil morning twilight. Any regulation reference to the term night relates to this. Training and equipment requirements come to mind here.

However, some regulations refer to the time between an hour after sunset and an hour before sunrise. For example, the regulations for maintaining proficiency to carry passengers at night refers to this time period.

It is often said that aviation accidents happen as a result of a chain of errors, not just a single failure. Tonight, Jenny and I were going to make a night flight down to the Monterey Bay area and back. The entire day there was error after error, yet the flight was still on track despite my being nervous about it. It was only when we got to the plane and it hadn't been re-fueled that I finally called it off. Here is a summary of the negative chain of events:

Jenny and I took a fun flight up to Sacramento Executive airport (KSAC). This was my first time flying in and actually staying for a short amount of time at an unfamiliar airport. It's also the first time I've flown in nearly four weeks, so I was worried that I was going to have too much rust.

Today was my first flight as a Private Pilot. I took up Jenny and though the air was smooth, the winds were high and gusty at the ground. She got freaked out during the landings, but I landed them pretty well anyway. I also showed her a steep turn and a power-off stall. She thought a stall was what happened if the engine stopped running. So when she got the sinking feeling in her stomach, she was...surprised.

Despite my belief that the weather would not be good enough to take my check ride, I did it today and I passed! I performed sub standard in a couple areas and above standard in many others. Recounting the negative aspects of my flight is not fun, but it is instructive. Nonetheless, I'm not going to discuss them here. Hopefully the lessons were well learned and I am a better pilot as a result.

Tomorrow is my last training flight before my scheduled checkride. I've been doing checkride preparation for the last couple weeks and Nick seems to think I'm good enough to pass. I've been studying like crazy and I still need to continue to study. These last two weeks have shown me that even though I may be proficient enough to take the checkride, I should continuously keep learning.

After yesterday's and today's flights, I'm now at 39.9 hours. I'm scheduled to fly with Nick again on Tuesday, so hopefully I made noticeable progress today. I went to the practice area for a short while practicing steep turns, slow flight, and stalls, then came back and did 18 landings. The primary goal was to practice soft and short field landings, but I also added in a no-flaps and power-off landing. The quality of my shorts and softs varied. I did an excellent job of fine-tuning my approach speed and angle and waiting until I was low to flare.