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Still waiting to do my last solo. What stinks is that I can’t go onto the next lesson until I fly my third and final solo. The course is designed so that stage 1 is soloing, stage 2 is cross country and stage 3 is passing the private pilot solo flight. So because I can’t do the last solo, I can’t move on to the next stage. The only reason I didn’t do it today was because the weather didn’t allow it. The skies were clear up to FL180, but the winds were strong, and gusty. There was even a low level wind shear advisory for the airport. So instead of my solo, I practiced stage 1 maneuvers with my instructors. Last time up, which was the first time in over 6 weeks, I was a bit rusty. Today, however, went much better. Also last time, I didn’t show my new instructor any ground reference maneuvers. Because he’s a new instructor for me, he needs to see where I’m at in my ability to fly an airplane. Which means that I need to show him everything I know how to do. So today I did both turns around a point, and S turns.

 

The flight started out good. I did a right downwind departure so I could go south, out over the ocean. Since the runway we were using today, runway 32, faces north, northwest, a downwind departure means I stay in the pattern until I’m in a downwind for the runway but continue to climb up to whatever I want. So after doing the departure, Drew gave me his foggles so I could practice instrument flight. Private pilots need a minimum of 3 hours instrument time before they can pass the FAA test to get their license. I climbed, and headed out to the Atlantic Ocean while “under the hood” (the term for wearing the foggles.) After we got to the practice grounds, about 10 minutes after takeoff, Drew had me do slow flight, which went better than last time, a power off stall and a power on stall. Since we were at 3000 feet for these maneuvers, he cut the engine so I could practice an in flight engine failure landing. When I got to 1000 feet, I leveled off so that I could do the ground reference maneuvers.

I did the circle around a point first. I picked the Jones Beach water tower and set the plane up for 90 knots, and 1000 feet. I got the weather reports so I could enter the maneuver in the downwind. After preparing the plane, I headed towards the water tower to start the maneuver. Once I was abeam the point, I banked into a steep turn because I was going with the wind. (While in the downwind, the speed is greatest. So in order to not get blown too far downwind, a steep bank allows the circle to be turned tight). I got 90 degrees through the turn and took some bank out (while in the upwind, speed is reduced due to a headwind. This means that in order to not make the turn too tight, and spiral into the reference point, bank must come out).

It was when I was about halfway around the first turn when something happened. As I was looking at the tower to keep myself equidistance throughout the turn, I heard “O Shit” from my instructor. He said it loud and firm, so I snapped my head forward to be looking directly at a Cessna 172, within 100 feet of my Piper Warrior III. As my head was turning to look forward, Drew had taken the controls from me and banked the opposite direction of the turn I had been doing. He opened the throttle full and quickly sped us away from the area. It took us another 20 seconds to make visual contact with the Cessna again. He was flying low over the inner shore line. We were over the outer shoreline at this point; meaning we were almost 2 miles safely away from him.

What happened was that while I was doing my turn, the Cessna dropped right in front of us. It’s weird that it happened because the Cessna has high wings. This means they have good visuals below the aircraft, which we were. I had done my clearing turns to make sure no other planes were in the area. Later in my flight while I was on an 8 mile final, we saw the same Cessna again flying across out flight path, just below our attitude. We couldn’t ID the plane, but it wasn’t company traffic (company traffic simply means it was from the same company as me. Our company is Farmingdale Aerospace flight school. Often, when telling pilots who to follow in the traffic pattern, the tower controller will tell us to “follow company traffic 2 miles ahead.” That means that we’re following another Farmingdale airplane who is 2 miles ahead of me.)

The close call was the closest I’ve been to another airplane while flying since I began my flying career five months ago.

What I Learned Today:
Make sure to do clearing turns before every maneuver. Even though I did both of mine, the other pilot seems to not have done his clearing turns; or he /she might have lost their bearings. Either way, it’s imperative to know where you are at all times, and who or what is around you. This is called situational awareness.

It’s been 1 month, 2 weeks and 3 days since my last flight; it felt like 3 when I got up there today. Today was the first day that I got to fly for the new spring semester. This means a few things. One thing is that I was in the plane, for the first time, without Chris, my former instructor. My new instructor Drew is just as cool as Chris was. Drew graduated from Embry Riddle Aeronautical College, Daytona Beach FL, and moved back up here once he graduated to work his hours up. I personally like that because most of the instructors at Farmingdale are alumni of the program. The experience and advice I get from Drew is a little different, allowing me to see how flying is done from school to school. All flight schools in the United States teach the same exact materials, but each school goes about teaching with their own style.

A small example of this was when descending to go back to the airport. I got to the checkpoint, a beach just south of the airspace, and radioed the tower: “Republic Tower, Farmingdale State 22 at Captree with information Juliet.” This is how I was accustomed to radioing the tower that I was ready to land last semester. However drew told me that he personally states his altitude. This way if other planes are near Captree and want to go back to Republic, then the tower knows which one I am, the one at the reported altitude.

Today’s lesson was primarily to get the rust off. I ended last semester by doing two of my three solos. It was a good spot to end because once a student pilot solos, he or she is able to continue to the next stage of the private pilot course. However, I still have the third solo to do before I can start learning new things. The third solo is the most fun (from what I hear from friends who’ve already done it). Unlike the first two, the third solo flight is unsupervised. This means that my instructor won’t be listening to my calls on a radio back in the briefing room. I’m all on my own, and I get to leave the airspace and fly out over the ocean! In order for Drew to let me solo he needs to see my fly. Chris was satisfied how I flew for him, but because Drew is a new instructor he must sign off for me to solo. Besides getting the rust off, I showed drew my level of skill. During our post flight brief, Drew said that he was confident I’ll only need one more flight before I can do the last solo.

My flight block is at 1515 zulu, or 12:30pm. I was anxious all morning, just waiting to get in the plane. I wasn’t nervous, but I was just hoping that I hadn’t forgotten too much of flying. The moment I started the engine, it felt like I flew yesterday. Everything started to come back to me; and I was even doing things without thinking of them. The muscle memory I gained from flying last semester had stayed with me all winter break long. A good example of this was when I did a power off stall. This is where I induce a stall while approaching the runway for a landing (of course, we practice the stall and recovery at altitude so if we mess up, we don’t crash.) On the climb out of the airport, and airspace, Drew told me what he wanted me to do stalls and slow flight. I realized that I haven’t a single stall, nor read up on one, in 6 weeks. We got to the practice ground and I got the plane configured for practicing maneuvers. As I slowed down the plane and threw the flaps in to practice the approach to a landing, I realized that I was doing things, and manipulating the controls, without really thinking of what I was doing. I just did it. It surprised me how much came back the moment I needed to do something.

No touch and goes today, or new maneuvers, but a good first lesson for the semester. I’m excited about having a new instructor (a different mind to teach me), dong the last solo, and getting ready for cross country flight.

What I Learned Today:
Today, even though it was a refresher lesson, I learned more than I thought I was going to. Something my last instructor never told me, which Drew must have said half a dozen times was “fly the airplane, don’t let the airplane fly you.” What this means is that students don’t need to be so subtle with the controls. The plane won’t fall apart if I’m firm with control inputs. If the planes doing something I don’t want it to do, I’ll make it stop. If I want the plane to descend, climb, or hold altitude, I’ll make it happen. It’s important to know this because if you let the plane “fly” itself it’ll fall right out of the sky.

This video was posted only a few weeks ago. It has some great, nail biting, crosswind landings and takeoffs. The airport is Dusseldorf Airport, located in Germany.

Finally! Today was the first day of classes for the spring semester. Along with classes which meet on the campus, I’ll be flying on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays at 12:15 pm to 2:30 pm (1215 to 1530 or 1715 to 1930 zulu time). Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fly today. The weather was below the VFR minimums for student pilots (3 SM visibility and 1000 feet ceiling) so I had the chance to brush up on flying. I haven’t flown in about 5 weeks and some of the information has slipped my mind. I ended the last semester by doing two solo flights and leaving it at that since my flight debit account ran out of money.

This semester, I have a new flight instructor, whom I met with today, and went over key aeronautical points. Because he is a new instructor, he cannot just let me go out on a solos. He has to endorse me that I’m ready to solo because, previously, my old instructor endorsed me. Since the new guy hasn’t seen me fly yet he’ll have to make sure, himself, that I’m ready to go. To do this, we went over the written test I took for the Stage I check ride. I had gotten a 95% on the test, but we still went over each answer to make sure I knew what was on it. I did well, only needing help on one or two questions, and my new instructor, Drew, said that all we need to do now is fly so I can show him my skill level. I want to fly twice before soloing again, but if all goes well without first flight, I’ll solo after that.

After we went over the test, and reviewed a few more things, I had to update the documents which expired while I wasn’t flying. One of the things I needed was the new FAR-AIM (federal Aviation Regulations – Aeronautical Information Manual). This book comes out every year on New Year ’s Day and is updated with changes from the past year’s edition. Generally, only a few changes are made, and the ‘meat’ of the information contained in the book stays the same. More information HERE about the FAR-AIM. Another thing I had to get was the new aeronautical charts. These come out every few months for the same reason as a new FAR-AIM. Changes are made to the charts from the old ones. Changes could include the demolition of a building, or a new building, changes to airspace, or airport information. It’s illegal to fly with outdated charts so getting the newest ones is something all pilots must be on top of. Another document which I could have gotten was the Airport/ Facility Directory, or the A/FD. This book contains information about all the airports in the specific region. For me, it would be the northeast region of the United States; with a total of 8 regions. I decided not to get this yet since I won’t be needed it until later in the semester.

Hopefully Wednesday will come with better weather and I’ll be set to take to the skies once again. 

One of the first things which made me feel “cool” to be flying airplanes was using the phonetic alphabet. In aviation, the phonetic alphabet is the method used in order to speak different letters without causing confusion. For example, when saying the letter ‘D’ out loud, it can be misunderstood as ‘B.’ To cancel out the confusion, pilots, controllers, and people within the aviation industry use whole words for each letter of the alphabet. So to make sure ‘D’ and ‘B’ don’t get confused, we say Delta and Bravo. All 26 letters each have their own word, which doesn’t take a long time to memorize. Even when giving the tower or ground control an entire flight plan, each letter of each word must be said with its’ corresponding phonetic word. This causes a flight plan to take some time to open, but also makes it safer in that no confusion will occur.

The first time I experienced using the phonetic alphabet was on the very first lesson of flight training. I didn’t get to fly that day, but I was shown how to fill out departure paperwork. The first thing to write down on the paperwork is the tail number of the plane. At Farmingdale Aerospace, the Piper Warriors are numbered from 148 through 159 and have LH at the end. Each airplane registered in the United States always starts with an N. So when I use N153LH, I have to contact ground and tell them that “153 Lima Hotel” is ready to taxi. Because we’re operating in the United States, with a US registered airplane, the N, or November, isn’t necessary to say.

The phonetic alphabet is as follows:

A-   Alpha

B-   Bravo
C-   Charlie
D-   Delta
E-   Echo
F-    Foxtrot
G-   Golf
H-   Hotel
I-     India
J-    Juliet
K-   Kilo
L-    Lima
M-  Mike
N-   November
O-   Oscar
P-   Papa
Q-   Quebec
R-   Romeo
S-   Sierra
T-    Tango
U-   Uniform
V-   Vector
W-  Whisky
X-   X-ray
Y-   Yankee
Z-    Zulu

Anything from airplane tail numbers, airport identifiers (Republic is KFRG or Kilo Foxtrot Romeo Golf), taxiways, and ramp locations are designated with a letter of the alphabet. The name however, of any of these things is named after the appropriate phonetic alphabet letter. So when I leave the ramp which Farmingdale keeps its planes, I usually say something like “Farmingdale state 153 Lima Hotel is at Echo (we’re located on ramp E) with information Charlie (the name of the hourly weather report) ready to taxi to Golf (the closest taxiway to the Echo ramp).” At that point the ground control tells me what to do and where to go.

Learning the phonetic alphabet is just one of the small, but largely important, aspects of learning how the aviation industry works.

Ground school teaches student pilots everything they need to know about flying an airplane, regulations, and safety of flight. However, until the student actually experiences the lessons taught in ground school, they cannot relate to the material. For example, we learned in class about light gun signals. The light gun signals are different colored lights which the tower flashes towards an airplane, with an inoperative radio, to communicate. The signals instruct the pilot if it’s safe to land, to continue circling, or other instructions the pilots must be ready for. However, until a pilot actually has a broken radio, and needs to communicate by light gun signals, it can be hard for him or her to imagine what that experience would be like.

Something which I recently experienced firsthand, which is taught over and over again in the classroom, is wake turbulence. While an airplane is generating lift, it generates wake turbulence. This turbulence is invisible, but can damage an airplane greatly. The turbulence rotates from the bottom of each wingtip, to the outside of the wingtip, then back over the wing. While looking at an airplane from the rear, the right wingtip creates a counterclockwise vortex, while the left wingtip generates a clockwise vortex. These vortices trail the plane and sink below the aircraft’s flight path. Planes from as large at the space shuttle, to training airplanes like the Piper I use, all generate wake turbulence, however it is the size of the plane which dictates the strength of the turbulence. As you may have guessed, the larger and heavier the plane, the greater the wake turbulence. Planes which are heavy, clean (meaning no landing gear or flaps extended) and slow, produce the greatest wake turbulence.

The day I got firsthand experience of wake turbulence was on a nice clear day, when I was practicing touch and goes. My instructor and I decided to fly over to MacArthur Airport (check out the airports I’ve flown to, to see what MacArthur looks like) to practice landings so I can get use to flying to different paces. There are 4 runways there, but only one of the runways can facilitate the takeoffs, and landings of the heavy Boeing 737’s, which are operated by Southwest Airlines. (It is common to see 737’s flying in and out of MacArthur, while training there.) After I had done 5 or 6 touch and goes, the tower instructed me to change the runway which I would be using. I radioed back my change of course for the new runway. The reason for this (which I was about to find out) was because a Southwest jet needed to use the longer runway, which I had been using, for a takeoff. It was a little tricky getting into the downwind for the new runway assignment because the two runways, the first runway I used and the new one, are perpendicular of one another. This caused my downwind leg to be almost 2 miles wide. My instructor told me that the wide downwind leg wasn’t a concern so I continued. I entered base at the proper spot, and then eventually turned to final. The turn to final ended up being about 4 miles out, so I had a clear view of the whole airport, and all its’ runway surfaces. The runway I was using was parallel with another runway, which was also in use, and I could see the first runway I had been using now had a large orange and blue 737 sitting at the one end. Because the final was so long, I had expected the 737 to takeoff before I was close to my runway’s threshold. However, at the mile and a quarter mark, the tower radioed to me to caution for wake turbulence from the departing 737, and at that moment, the 737 started rolling down the runway. (The threshold of the runway I was using is located about 4/5ths, down the runway of the perpendicular runway, which the 737 was using. The two runways don’t intersect; however, the far edge of the 737’s runway is where my runway started.) I acknowledged the wake turbulence warning and watched the 737 pick up speed. The jet rotated almost directly in front of me, while I was about a mile away from my runway. This may sound like a close call, but when on final, the airspeed is slow enough that this distance is sufficient for both airplanes to continue flying normally. Because the rotation of the 737 occurred in front of me, my instructor told me not to worry about the wake turbulence of the heavy jet. We expected that because the wake sinks below the airplane, we would miss it. We were wrong. While at an altitude of about 80 feet, and a speed of 70 knots, we hit the wake turbulence. My little piper warrior shuttered and dropped 50 feet in less than a second. The force caused my instructor to instinctually grab the control. I was less than 10 seconds away from wheels on the runway when we hit the 737’s wake. Because my Warrior dropped dramatically from the wake, my head hit the roof of the cockpit and my headset flew off. After only a second or two, I knew what had happened. My instructor knew it sooner than me and was already realigning our plane with the runway. He knew that the encounter with the wake threw me off. However, I was still able to land the plane myself for another touch and go.

What both my instructor and I didn’t take into account was the wind. Planes generally take off into the wind in order to produce lift more easily that with a tailwind. However, since the 737 was taking off into a crosswind, (I was doing touch and goes into a head wind) the wind blew its’ wake into my flight path. I would say it was the first major “non-planned” lesson of my flying career, and one that I’ll never forget!