I think it was the seat belt

In the words of my CFI, quoted by another of his students who got his pilot's license recently,

I never taught you to land an airplane...  Eyes at the end of the runway and don't let it land.

 When my former student pilot friend pointed that out to me, it finally clicked. I've been trying to land since I was first shown soft field landings, shortly after I solo'd. I have been getting worse and worse at landing, trying to land. It shows up the most on soft field landings for me because you have to land in a particular way, softly, with the nose up off the ground. I can do short field landings no problem, because there is no time to try to land, you just set up, round out and *plunk* you're on the ground. 

I've never been taught how to land.. I've been taught how to fly a pattern, a stabilized approach, power off approach usually, and hold the plane off the runway 'til it settles to the ground on its own. No wonder I suck at landing. Given that thought, I determined to not try to land next time.

My next flight my CFI and I decided to do another mock checkride. I wanted to go through all maneuvers. When we went out to the plane there were bees on it, very interested bees. I was concerned they may try to get into the cockpit with us. So when I got into the plane I immediately closed the door, at which point I figured out I had sat on my seat belt. *sigh* Well, I decided this time I wasn't going to let it throw me off. One very minor misstep was not going to stop me on this flight. I picked my butt up off the seat, opened the door, pulled out the seat belt and didn't worry about the bees. I just went through my normal start up and got going.

You may be wondering, did the realization about landing help? Yeah.. I think it did. I really do.  I didn't land the soft field landing (my nemesis) because we landed at Tracy (KTCY) on runway 30, which, being 100' wide sucked me into an illusion of being lower than I was so I flared early (KRHV's runways are only 75' wide) In spite of the fact that I dropped the plane on the runway down because of flaring too early... I kept flying the whole way.  That was a big improvement.

After that we came back around on 26 and did a crosswind landing. The winds were 310 at 10 gusting higher. My pattern was really bad, but I did a crosswind landing... I wasn't thinking about landing, I was focused on keeping the plane aligned with the runway come hell or high water. I had the rudder to the stop to do it too. The landing wasn't super smooth and I was slightly off the centerline when I touched down. My CFI just said, "Stop the plane." .. right there on the runway. So I put the plane back on the centerline and stopped.  I thought I must have screwed something else up. He proceeded to spend a couple minutes (it seemed) saying what a fantastic landing that was. How that was what he was looking for for the last six months!

Overall I did well on some stuff, but kept messing up in the pattern at the Tracy airport.. the strong crosswinds kept blowing me off course, I kept forgetting to look for a target to turn to. I had 900 ft on the brain when pattern altitude was 993 ft (almost 1000) so I went over 100' out of tolerance there. I would have busted on that. So on one hand, I screwed up a lot. On the other hand, my CFI pointed out, this time, instead of getting all frustrated and giving up, crying or blowing up at him (I've done all 3 at different times before) I just got more determined to fix it.

We did simulated instrument on the way back to our home base ... and it was relatively turbulent over the hills between Calaveras and Tracy. That was hard. It was much more disturbing to be bouncing around without anything but instruments to keep the plane straight and level or turning, etc. However, I kept it to spec. He said that experience was much more like real instrument conditions rather than what its like when its calm (which is pretty easy for me).

When we came back in to land at RHV I screwed up the short field landing, just a bit. But it wasn't a screw up because I was trying to land.. it was a misjudgement of the power I needed to reach the touchdown point. I had to add a bit of power just before touch down, got distracted and landed awkwardly. I could have pulled it off, but I jumped on the brakes instead of putting up the flaps first. That bothered me a bit, but I know I can do that landing right.

On the taxi back to parking my CFI was very generous with his positive critique of my flying. Not of the flight itself - I would have failed the check ride many times over. But of my cross wind landing and my attitude... how I didn't get frustrated and quit. I got frustrated and got better and more stubborn about making it right. He said if I could just bottle up whatever it was that I did that day and that way, I would be the pilot I could be.

I thought about it more that day.. and the following night.. and today. I've been high on what happened, I think its a breakthrough of sorts. And I think I know what it was that made the change of attitude happen. I think it was the seat belt. The training flight before this one, I had problems with the seat belt, and I let it just snowball and get worse and worse. This time the same seat belt bothered me, but I decided right there, I wasn't going to let it make my day bad. I think, perhaps, that decision flowed over the entire flight. If I can keep that attitude, I believe I really will be the pilot I can be.

Oral PTS Prep

This morning it was too foggy to fly, which was actually good. This morning my CFI and I were going to do "oral prep work". Which simply means he walks me through the questions I can expect on the oral portion of the PTS checkride and makes sure I know the answers.

I found out a couple things.

• I know my aerodynamics and airplane systems much better than I expected
• I second guess myself a bit too much, my first answer is usually right
• No matter if I second guess or not, if I verbally walk through the concepts behind each answer, I get to the right answer

Here's an example of the last item:

Low to High, Clear the Sky

You are in straight and level flight at 3000 MSL and pressure is 29.92, you fly into an area with pressure at 30.08, what will happen?

I got stuck on what the altimeter would read, which is if you remained physically at the same altitude, the altimeter would read lower than you are actually at. This is true. But what you would actually do in the plane is you would climb, as the altimeter reads lower and lower, you would start adjusting your altitude to ensure the altimeter reads 3000 MSL if you didn't re-adjust the altimeter for the new pressure. When I through it through carefully, it made sense. I've heard the "High to low, look out below" thing.. but I didn't quite "get it". But when my CFI explained what you would logically do in the plane as a result of the pressure change, THEN I got it. He also told me something I'd never heard before. "Low to high, clear the sky." If you are flying from an area of lower pressure to higher pressure in "straight and level flight", you will climb... clear the sky.

Pitot-Static Fun

Of course we covered the pitot-static system very carefully. I did well on that. I have a good understanding of the concepts behind it, and, once again, as long as I walked through the scenario I came out with the right answers.

Apparently this was the week of the pitot tube for my CFI. He told me a couple interesting stories about blocked pitot tubes. One where he flew a plane earlier this week, and then two days later he found some interesting mud on the pitot tube opening. So he looked inside the tube and pulled out a dozen or more insect larva!

The fun part was when he was doing his standard drawing of the pitot-static system and then drew a bird with its beak over the pitot tube opening to suggest a bird flew into the pitot tube. What happens in this case he asks? I answer. Then he explains why he was halfway laughing when he asked. He said a couple years ago he was doing his standard drawing and asked the question of another PPL student. The student answered, "That depends. Is the bird sucking or blowing?" That's a very good question :)

First Bird Strike

You hear of bird strikes taking down airliners - Miracle on the Hudson anyone? causing major damage on planes, etc. Maybe you saw on Flying Wild Alaska when a bird shredded itself in a prop and got smeared all over one of the planes there. Well, I don't know if chances are good for people to have a bird strike just because or what, but I had my first bird strike today. I'm pleased to report my experience was not at all dramatic.

I was nervous about this flight. It was my first solo flight to anywhere not RHV since my solo cross countries at the beginning of June. As planned I was flying down by South County Airport (E16) practicing flying in that non-towered airport environment. First was flying into the pattern correctly, flying a good pattern and landing at E16. I did good in the pattern, did my radio calls, overshot final a little, but fixed that and landed. It wasn't a bad landing, but it wasn't the soft field landing I wanted. I cleared the runway and taxied back to the start of the runway and took off from the airport to the west.

I flew slightly west of E16 to my usual practice area to practice slow flight and steep turns. In the mock check ride I didn't maintain my altitude in slow flight and I didn't roll out of the steep turns on the right headings. So, I worked on that and got to the point where I nailed it consistently. Which wasn't so hard. All I had to do for slow flight was pay more attention and move a bit faster. For the steep turns, pick a heading that had an obvious landmark to roll in and out at, then it was easy to roll in and out at that landmark.

Practicing done it was time to turn back to E16 and do an approach crossing midfield and then going back in on the 45 and landing again. I did my radio call and just short of midfield I see a couple smallish birds fly by on my right. Then I see another one on the left just as it flew up and into the plane. *THUNK!* I blinked and waited. No blood, no feathers, engine was running normally, prop was spinning normally, no vibration. From the angle the bird approached on I thought it could have ended up in the engine cowling and be blocking the cooling there. I made quick note of the current oil temp and pressure and monitored that carefully.

Well, now what. I'm right over E16. I've practiced emergency landings there over and over recently, so one instinct was to land there now. On the other hand, everything was running normal, oil temp and pressure were normal. My biggest risk was a bird in the engine cowling, if that's where it hit. The longer I flew the more I thought that wasn't the case. I decided to fly the 16 NM back to Reid-Hillview, my home base, more repair facilities there, if needed. If I saw the oil temp/pressure rise I'd return to E16 if I was closest to that airport, or RHV if I was closest to that.

With that decision made, I made a beeline for RHV (nice you can do that in a plane). I kept monitoring the engine and instruments closely and everything remained normal. I did a normal approach into RHV and had a normal landing. When I landed the front wheel seemed to shimmy a bit when I landed, but it stopped quickly. So far so good. Taxied back to Squadron2 and shutdown. I was anxious to see what mess the bird made.

When I got out of the plane I carefully examined the prop, cowling, engine, nose gear. All fine, not a feather, not a spec of blood, not even a clean spot. There was one very minor new looking dent on the lower portion of the cowling at a spot that could have been where the bird hit, but that could have been an old dent too. The plane I fly is a trainer and trainers aren't always pristine.

OK then. I called the owner of the club and let him know what happened, buttoned up the plane and went home. If you're going to have a bird hit your plane, hope for a small bird.