Lesson 10 - Getting Over Stalls and Spins

Flight Time: 1.6 hours
Total Time: 13.1 hours

I showed up about an hour early for today’s flight to give myself time to go through 738VJ’s flight manual to write down some of the more important numbers – normal climb out speed, best rate-of-climb speed, best angle of climb speed, and some of the numbers along those lines. I got through that pretty quickly, snapped a few photos and finished my pre-flight ahead of time, so by the time Ed showed up we were ready to fly.

N738VJ

We’re definitely moving into Seattle winter weather now, and we had some light gusting and broken/scattered clouds at 4,000 feet today. Since our plan was to practice stalls, spins and steep turns, we needed to find a gap in the clouds large enough to stay between 4,000 and 5,000 feet and still stay clear of clouds. We decided to head southeast, where it looked like there were some breaks in the cloud cover.

We flew out on the short runway, northbound towards Seattle, and turned 180 at 500 feet to head southeast towards Enumclaw – a town that’s about halfway between Seattle and Mt. Rainier. There we found a clearing that was about 10 or 15 miles wide – large enough for what we needed.

Prior to going up, I’d told Ed that I was feeling too uncomfortable with stalls and steep turns, so I told him that I’d like to go up and practice them repetitively until I started to feel more comfortable. As we got into the clearing, facing Mt. Rainier and the sun, we started with power off stalls.

We repeated power on and power off stalls for the next half hour or so, throwing in variations with and without flaps, as well as in left and right hand turns. At one point, I let us continue stalling longer than is normal to get a feel for the later stages of a stall.

Ed called me on leaving us in stall for too long, and I explained that even though I know the point is to recognize and get out of a stall, I just wanted to show myself that going into a stall was not the end of the world. He continued this training by showing me a continued stall. Ed took control of the rudder and ailerons, while letting me control the rudders. He then put us into a stall and had me keep us straight using the rudders while we dropped continuously for about thirty seconds. This exercise left me feeling much more comfortable with practice stalls and maneuvering because it showed me how to recover from situations that had previously scared me.

Once we recovered from the stall, we went back up to 5,000 feet, where Ed had me try a few 45 to 50 degree steep turns – which I’m getting much more confident with – and then asked me if I was ready to see a spin. I thought it for a second, and even though I was nervous, said yes. My goal this flight was to face all of the maneuvers that had previously made me nervous, and a spins just plain scared me.

Ed took the controls and put us into a power-on stall configuration. As we stalled, instead of shuddering and dropping the nose slightly, we dropped quickly off to the right and then straight down into a spin. When we started dropping, I felt fear, and once we were in a downward spiral, I had just enough time to look at the ground in front of me, say a quick exclamation and think, “That’s the ground in front of me,” before Ed had us straightened out. I’ve seen plenty of movies where a pilot experiences g-forces and I’ve even experienced it a little on rides at Six Flags, but none of them prepared me for the real thing. I felt like I weighed a couple of thousand pounds as I was pushed into my seat when we pulled up – and that is just a fraction of what someone flying high-g’s in fighter plane feels.

We did two spins after that – one in each direction – and on the last one I thought to pull out my camera and take a few pictures.

Entering the Spin

In the Spin

Stopping the Spin

Pulling Out

I ended all three dives and spins laughing and found that the fear I had felt at the beginning of the first quickly becoming exhilaration and pure enjoyment. Ed told me that there’s a few ways people react to their first spins – they freeze, scream, or have fun. I fell into the third category, even if I was shaking a little from the adrenaline when we pulled back into level flight.

From there, we flew back to the northeast towards Boeing, where Ed had me find Crest Field (a small airport south of Renton) using his aeronautical chart and landmarks. After some searching, we found Crest, and he had me line up to get into the pattern about a thousand feet too high. He then pulled the throttle to idle, and had me glide down, simulating an emergency landing. The breeze blowing over the treetops by the airport was higher than I expected, and I ended up having to do a go-around. The runway was much narrower than any runway I’ve landed on previously, but I put the plane down on the centerline the next time I landed. We pulled the plane off onto the taxiway, and taxi’d back around to the beginning of the runway, and watched another Cessna (a taildragger) land a perfect landing in front of us.

After that, we did a soft-field landing (my best yet) and we were on our way back to Boeing Field, where we did a few uneventful touch-and-goes before calling it a day.

Renton Airport

Sea-Tac Airport

Straight in to Boeing Field I

Straight in to Boeing Field II

Straight in to Boeing Field III

Straight in to Boeing Field IV

Waiting for Traffic at A3

Waiting for one of Galvin Flight School's Diamond DA-20s at A3

This was my best flight so far. I'm feeling much more confident in control of the plane and I gained a lot of confidence in areas that had previously intimidated me. I can’t wait to go up again.

Google Earth Map of Today's Flight

Lesson 9 - Stop-and-Goes at Renton

Flight Time: 1.1 hours
Total Time: 11.5 hours

I took a little bit of time off of work today to get in one more flight to make up for the last one that didn’t go so well. Bremerton was clouded in with ceilings well below 1,000 feet, so we headed southwest towards Renton, where we had 4,000 ceilings.

Renton is so close to Boeing field, that when you take off to the south at Boeing and turn base in the pattern, you are instantly on the crosswind leg of the pattern at Renton. That’s how we took off today.

It's a fun airport to land out because as you’re coming in on final, you’re flying over water. The runway begins right where the water ends, so you feel like you should be in a seaplane.

We stayed in the pattern at Renton for the duration of the flight, practicing soft field, short field and emergency landing stop-and-goes. Unlike touch-and-goes, where you instantly raise flaps and push in full throttle after barely touching down, as the name implies, with stop-and-goes, you come to complete stop and prepare to take off from that point on the runway.

Stop-and-Goes at Renton

We needed the extra time because we were practicing not only the short and soft field landings, which I’d done before, but also the takeoffs, which I’d never done.

Both types of takeoffs take a little bit of getting used to. Short field landings require you to take off as soon as you can and climb out at 65 knots – almost stall speed for the takeoff configuration.

For soft field takeoffs, you take off as soon as the plane gets lift. You can do this because “ground effect” will keep you suspended at low speeds when you’re within a wingspan of the ground. You use ground affect to float above the ground and accelerate in the air, and once you hit 65 knots, you start climbing. Taking off at the slower speeds means that you’re above any bumps, rocks or ruts that might otherwise bog down or damage the plane on a soft field.

We did a total of seven stop-and-goes - with one go around because I was much too high on one of the landings. Today was a very good flight, and the repetition of different types of takeoffs and landings got me feeling much more comfortable, which left me feeling much better than I did after my past few flights.

Google Earth Map of Today's Flight

Lesson 8 - An "Off" Day

Flight Time: 1.2 hours
Total Time: 10.4 hours

We flew out towards Bremerton again today to review some maneuvers I've already learned. While flying over the "bad haircut" and the West Seattle Resevoir - two landmarks used to line up your westbound departure - I realized that every time I fly on that departure, I'm flying over my first Seattle apartment from when I was living with Brian and Brandon and working for the Seattle Mariners in 2000.

Many of you who know me know that this apartment - in an area of Seattle called White Center - has one of the highest crime rates in the city. Both of my roommates during this time had their cars stolen within a one month period. I avoided a similar fate by disconnecting my car battery whenever I parked the car. Drug dealers and prostitutes were pretty common around our apartment, and a few weeks after I moved in, someone was shot across the street.

It's odd to see the neighborhood from above, because it really does look like a decent area from that perspective.

Typical Flight Path and the White Center Apartment

Once over the Puget Sound, we practiced a few more steep turns, which I'm getting more comfortable with. I still need more practice, but they are definately more consistent than they were last time.

Steep Turns

We followed that up with a little bit of slow flight and stalls. I did terribly today. Rather than stalling, I ended up in a nose high attitude while I lost altitude. I just couldn't get a stall to happen. Ed told me it was because I was starting with a speed that was too high and going into it too gradually.

Today was not a good day, and I just couldn't seem to get my head in the game. Rather than being distracted and wasting my time, I moved on to Bremerton National for a few mediocre touch-and-goes before calling it an early day.

Touch-and-Goes at Bremerton National

Google Earth Map of Today's Flight