Lesson Zero

Various attempts

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Day 1 - Sunday, January 18, 2004 – Pre Flight

Day 2 - Monday, January 19, 2004 – In a Plane

Day 3 - Tuesday, January 20, 2004 – Bad Weather

Day 4 - Thursday, January 22, 2004 – Too Windy!

 

Day 1 - Sunday, January 18, 2004 – Pre Flight

 

Well, after several years of  putting it off, I finally have no more excuses.  I’ve booked my first flying lesson.  9AM tomorrow morning.

 

I’m a bit nervous.  I think in part because I’ve been thinking of doing this for so long, and maybe I’m afraid I won’t even enjoy it, and just give up after this first lesson.  But something deep inside of me tells me I’m going to enjoy it immensely, and immediately want to book my next lesson.

 

We’ll see…..

 

So, I feel now like I know quite a lot about flying.  But I also know the next few weeks will shine new light onto exactly how little I know. 

 

This state of mind, the state of mine of just starting to learn to fly, is something that will only happen once.  So I thought it would be interesting to document how I feel about it before starting, and to say what my expectations are.

 

My flight instructor for the introductory flight is called Tanya.  My mental picture of her at this point is of a 45 year old woman, short, with short hair, glasses, or average build, wearing comfortable clothes.  Obviously I will be entirely wrong.  It just remains to be seen exactly how entirely wrong I will be.

 

I image she will sit down with me, fill in a few forms, and then discuss the basics of flying for a while.   I’ll discuss what I’ve done in Microsoft Flight Simulator (MFS), and she’ll try to ascertain the limits of my knowledge without actually laughing.

 

I feel I know the fundamentals, at least to a certain simple level. 

 

To take off you:

-         Turn on the engine

-         Take off the brakes.

-         Increase throttle to move forward

-         Move onto the end of the runway

-         Flaps full on

-         Full throttle

-         Accelerate down the runway until above stall speed (like 60K)

-         Pull back on the controller, and the plane will lift off

-         Climb to desired altitude

 

Level flight

-         trim plane (adjust the fixed position of the elevators) until the plane is flying level.  Adjust throttle as needed

 

Climbing

-         Increase throttle, and pull up the nose a bit.

-         If you JUST pull up the nose, the plane will rise, but will loose airspeed

 

Descending

-         Decrease throttle. The plane will descend.  You can help it by pushing the nose down a bit, but watch the airspeed.

 

Turning

-         Use the ailerons to banks the plane, and the rudder to correct for the turning effect generated in the opposite direction.  Now, this is something that I know in theory, but in practice I’ve always just turned by banking, and I’ve never really used the rudder.  You don’t get much feedback.

 

Pattern Flying

-         Air traffic around an airport should enter the “pattern”, which is a rectangular path consisting of left turns that ensures that all landing planes approach the airport from the same direction.  There are four legs (sides of the rectangle), which I can’t say I’ve really memorized the names of, but it’s crosswind, downwind, base and final.  Final is for landing.

 

Landing

            - Got to get lined up with the runway (which you usually do with a slow descending turn from the base leg to the final leg).     Then you need to be at the right height (under 1000 feet when starting to descend), and slow (60K?), on low power you glide in, adjusting throttle as needed, you should ideally land by stalling in level flight about one inch below the ground.  So basically you approach the runway at the shallowest angle you can fly at with throttle off, aimed for a spot near the start of the runway.

 

It’s pretty hard landing in  MSF, as doing the base leg you can’t really look out the window very easily and line up you final turn with runway.  I anticipate this aspect will be a little easier in a real plane, as you have a lot more freedom of vision.

 

Taking off, on the other hand, is very easy in MSF.  This might be harder in Real Life (RL), as the forces acting on the plane will be a lot more real, and distracting.

 

Well, let’s see.  I can hear a plane going overhead right now.  They fly overhead all day, just stopping at 11PM.

 

My flight might be delayed tomorrow if it’s a bit foggy, but we’d just reschedule at 13:00.

 

 

Day 2 - Monday, January 19, 2004 – In a Plane

 

Well, I went for my first flying lesson.  Unfortunately we never got of the ground, but it was still an interesting start.

 

In the morning Tanya called about 8:30AM, to say it was a bit foggy, and she’d call me back in half an hour to see if it had cleared up. 

 

She called back, and it had not cleared up, so we re-scheduled for 1:15PM.  Not a problem.

 

So, I installed Flight Simulator 2004 instead.  Which took up a bit of time, as I had to download new video card drivers.  But I got it working, and took off and landed a few times from SMO (Santa Monica).  I used the Cessna 172 at first, then tried a low wing plane.

 

It was fun, the graphics seem somewhat improved, and a bit faster. Although it’s a lot harder to make out the freeways near SMO than in FS 2002.  Frame rate seems smoother.

 

After lunch I drove up to the airport.  Justice Aviation is in the General Aviation building, on the ground floor in the office right at the right hand end.  I went in, and Tanya was there behind the counter filling in some paperwork.  Somewhat unlike my mental picture formed over the phone.  She looks around 30 years old, tall and thin, no glasses.  Speaks with a  slight accent, can’t place it though. 

 

She said hello, and filled in some paperwork (unrelated to me), and we walked out to the plane.  I didn’t have to sign anything, which I found a bit surprising.  I’d have though at least a waiver, or something.

 

Anyway, all the Justice planes are in a gated area that has access to the runway. We walked up to the plane, and she told me the differenced between a high wing and low wing airplane are that a high wing plane has a gravity fed fuel system, whereas the low wing has a fuel pump.  Low wings are more stable as well, she says. 

 

We walk past a bunch of planes, mostly high wings, like Cessnas, and arrive at our plane. A Piper,   

 

You can look up this plane’s registration at:

 

http://162.58.35.241/acdatabase/NNumSQL.asp?NNumbertxt=8318y

 

It’s a Piper Archer PA-28-181, made in 1980.  Currently for sale.  I think the owner leases it to Justice.

 

Anyway, we get to the plane, and Tanya starts to do the pre-flight check.  First checking the flaps and ailerons move correctly.  She explains something about he elevation being all in on piece.  She checks the fuel by drawing some off at three locations around the plane, and checking it looks right.  She then checks the oil level, and checks the prop for cracks.  All is well.

 

So, we push the plane back.  It’s kind of parked head in, whereas the other planes are all backed into their spots.  We push, but it does not move, someone left the brake on.  Take the brake off. Tanya has a steel shaft with a U shape at one end, and a T shaped handle at the other.  The U shape slots around the nose-wheel, and she pushes with the T shape.  This allows her to steer the plane by turning the nose-wheel.

 

So, we get it into position, she then realizes she’s forgotten my headset, and goes back to get it.  While she is away, I take a couple of photos of the plane, and of the instrument cluster.

 

This shows the plane after we’ve pushed it into position.  There is just one door, on the right.  The stuff on the wing is Tanya’s headset and notebook.

 

Here’s the view in through the door. 

 

Pretty standard looking instrument clusters, not that I got to use them…..

 

 

When she returns, we get in the plane.  I get in first, as I’m in the “Pilot” seat on the left.  We buckle up. 

 

Tanya now attempts to start the plane.  She primes the engine, which I’m not really sure what that is, but seems to be pre loading some fuel into something.  There’s a little plunger that does this.  She then cranks it a few times, and the engine splutters, but nothing happens.  After several attempts she figures its flooded, and uses the “flooded engine start” procedure, and eventually it starts.  It roars into life, and settle down.  It’s not too loud really.

 

It’s getting pretty hot by this point, as you can see in the photo, there’s a lot of glass, and no AC, and we are just sitting there in the sun.  I take of my sweater, and open a little window set in the left side window to let in some air.  

 

Then,  we put on our headsets.  Say “check-check” a few times, but unfortunately nothing happens.  She wiggles the wires for a while, and flips switches and twiddles knobs, but nothing works.  The intercom only works intermittently when she jiggles the wires.   She can’t get it to work, and we can’t fly without working headsets (can’t use the radio, let alone talk to each other).  So she pulls the plug in that plane.

 

We go back to the office to try to set up another plane, but it’s getting late, and it’s a bit cloudy (although I suspect she just wanted something else to say other than “I’ve got another lesson scheduled”).  So we have now rescheduled for 3PM tomorrow (Tuesday).  Tanya was very apologetic.  I was quite disappointed, but it’s not really a problem, it’s like I’m getting into it really slowly.  

 

We’ll probably use a different plane tomorrow. 

 

 

Day 3 - Tuesday, January 20, 2004 – Bad Weather

 

Grr!  Cancelled again!   This time just because of the weather, which is currently:

 

2004-01-20 21:51 KSMO 202151Z 22006KT 10SM BKN048 16/08 A2999 RMK AO2 SLP156 T01560083

 

The “10SM” there means “Visibility 10 miles”, it was at 5 miles when they called.  The weather is improving, so I think they are being overly cautious.  Or perhaps they just want the “demo flight” to be in perfect weather, so I get so amazed at the stunning view that I immediately book twenty lessons.

 

Anyway.  I’m booked again for Thursday at 3:30 that’s not for TWO DAYS!  Grrr!

 

So, I’m playing more flight simulator…

 

That’s me taking off from SMO.  In a Piper, which I had to buy separately from FlightSimulator,  for an extra $20.  Grrr!

 

Supposedly the weather you see above was downloaded in real time.  But it looks a lot worse than that out of the window right now.   But still, basically just haze, with clouds at 4000ft.

 

Here’s a satellite photo of SMO.  Click on it for the full resolution version.

 

 

The General Aviation building is the white rectangle underneath the runway just to the right of the center of the picture.  The area below that has lots of planes lines up.  That’s where I spend my 15 minutes in a plane yesterday, before the mission was aborted.

 

Eventually we will taxi round to the right hand end (runway 21) and head on out.

 

This is what the weather looked like on today (Tuesday):

 

 

Day 4 - Thursday, January 22, 2004 – Too Windy!

 

And here’s what the weather looks like today (Thursday):

 

Brilliant, you can see all the way to Catalina (that’s that strip of land on the horizon, just to the left of center).  Seems like a perfect day.  Just a bit blustery.

 

So I arrive at the airport, into the Justice office and Tanya tells me that we can’t fly today because it’s too windy.  She said even the jets were having difficulty landing.  Bah!  So, we re-scheduled for 11:15 tomorrow morning.  The forecast for tomorrow looks perfect.  Fingers crossed.

 

The weather report (from http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/metar.shtml) is:

 

KSMO 222351Z 36009KT 10SM CLR 23/M07 A3009 RMK AO2 SLP188 T02281067 10244 20183 55012

 

I think that’s 23:51GMT, so 15:51PST, shortly after I got to the airport.    Winds 9KT,  which does not seem to bad, but I think maybe inaccurate earlier it was winds 20K gusting to 40K, and it was pretty gusty at the airport.   Maybe if we could have waited an hour things might have been better.

 

Tanya pointed me in the direction of the observation deck.  This is pretty cool, a nice seating area right next to the runway, where you can watch the planes takeoff and land.  They also pipe the radio traffic to a loudspeaker in the area, so you can hear exactly what is going on.  Soon people will be hearing my quavering voice come over those loudspeakers.

 

So I stayed there for a while and took some photos.  These are all thumbnails as this page is getting rather large for my modem using relatives.  Click on each picture for a bigger one.

 

This is the view down the runway towards the ocean (you can see the ocean glinting behind the guy on the fire escape)

 

And here’s the view the other way.  You can actually see the Hollywood sign, although it’s about two pixels wide.  See the guy with the orange hat?  See the building slight up and to the left of his hat, then the Hollywood sign is the miniscule white dash just to the left of the top of that building.

 

 

Here’s a plane.  I think it’s a Piper.  It had just switched on the engine, and took off a few minutes later.  Bah!  That should have been me!    That’s the control tower on the right.

 

This twin engine plane (a 1979 Cessna 414A, worth $450K)  had just landed on runway 3.   You can see the wind blowing the flag and the trees.  The buildings on the right in the background are where Activision has their offices (I used to work at Neversoft, which is owned by Activision.  Unfortunately Neversoft’s offices were in the Valley).

 

Right – Back to flight simulator…

 

I think one effect of each of these postponements is that I get a little less nervous each time.  I’ve had the build up three times now, and each time nothing has come of it, so it’s kind of like I’ve got the fear out of my system.

 

At least until we get off the ground…….

 

 

Day 5 - Friday, January 23, 2004

 

Weather report before I set off….

 

2004-01-23 17:51 KSMO 231751Z VRB04KT 10SM CLR 18/M03 A3015 RMK AO2 SLP207 T01831028 10183 20083 53009

 

Variable winds at 4 Knots, 10 Miles vis, clear skys.   This has to be the day!!!  What could possibly go wrong?

 

Click here to find out!

 

©2004 Mick West