"Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet." Aristotle

Last week I left you with the hope of a good training session on Thursday. But the aviation gods were not with me and my babysitter had to cancel, so I had to cancel my flight. I may not have been able to go flying, but if I can't fly, hanging out with my boy Seth is just as good. Really. He's just so darn cute, and smart, and funny; all you parents out there understand what I'm saying.

So I had to wait until this last Tuesday to get back in the air. I was ready.

Proof that I'm flying the plane, a photo of me at the controls. Note the demonstration of the three finger technique holding the control yoke.

The big test, for me at least, during Tuesdays lesson was the return of steep turns. If you recall from earlier posts, the first time I tried steep turns I got motion sickness. I was prepared this time, I had in my possession Ginger Chews. So far they are working for me. Not only that, but I preformed the maneuver better. So good in fact that when we came around to our original heading we encountered our own wake turbulence. How cool is that? And I didn't feel a bit of nausea, hooray for me!

We followed that with unusual attitudes. My instructor had me close my eyes and start a left turn. Then a right turn. At the moment of her choice she told me to open my eyes and recover. We were is a nose down turn to the right. The recovery was like this: power off, carb heat on, wings level and raise the nose. When the plane was back to a normal attitude I put the power back on. We did this twice, I couldn't help but peak on the second time and I got in trouble for it. She threw me out.

Based on the ground reference maneuvers I did last time, we did another one this time. A spiral descent. We picked a crossroads under us and I made a left turn spiral 300'/minute descent to 7,500'. Once again I aced the maneuver. We leveled out at our altitude heading straight for the airport. I couldn't have planned it any better, but it just happened that that was our heading when we rolled out.

They were still working on runway 28, so it had a displaced threshold, and we were going to land that direction. Have you ever wondered about the term "threshold"? Leave a comment if you know the origin.

My instructor was pleased as we came within 2 miles of the airport and she checked our speed and altitude. Right at 85kts and 7,000'. We entered the pattern on the left downwind runway 28, midfield. It wasn't easy to tell when I was "abeam the numbers" because of the construction. But she let me know when it was time to begin our descent.

As we turned onto the base leg I looked down to see an airplane that had crashed the evening before. It was upside down in a field. But I was to occupied to say anything to my instructor, opting instead to point. She didn't notice. Moments later we were on final and looking good. A smooth touchdown, well, smooth for me, the student pilot that I am. We taxied back to the hangers where we met up with the owner of 68F who told us about the accident. You can read about it here... http://www.sierrasun.com/article/20090908/NEWS/909089998/1051

I sure hope everyone recovers from this accident, they have my best wishes.

It was an interesting way to end a training session. I didn't scare me off, rather renewed my desire to learn to be the safest pilot; not necessarily the best. I have a philosophy when it comes to skiing. All my calculated risk decisions on the mountain are based on my desire to ski until I'm too old to walk. It keeps me from thinking I'm 28 again and able to withstand the ensuing wipe out. The same can be said for flying, except I want to fly until I'm too old to lift the fuel hose up on my own. I tell my wife that many many more pilots die of old age and car wrecks than in airplane crashes. I don't know if this is true, but it seems right. I sometimes wish the media focused more on these aviators than the ones who die from a mistake in the left seat.

This is Boca reservoir, 2-3 miles NE of Truckee Tahoe airport. It was a calm day as evidenced by the glassy surface of the lake. The area just to the right of the spar in this picture is a Bald Eagle refuge.

Thursday came and I got to the airport early. It was my first time to preflight the airplane without my instructor looking over my shoulder. I did the preflight starting at the left fuel tank sump and worked my way around the airplane from there. Then used the checklist to see what I missed. Only one thing, the carburetor air intake. It was clear. We only had 5.5 gallons and we need at least 22 gallons to do our training. Once she arrived that was the first thing we did, get fuel. I finally got to break out the work gloves I put in my flight bag just for this purpose. They worked great and I didn't get my hands black from reeling in the fuel hose. I win.

On that day runway 10-28 was closed, still due to construction, and we only had 01-19 to choose from. Good thing the winds were calm out of the north, so runway 1 was the best choice. After our run-up we did the usual 360 to spy any traffic in the pattern, and I spotted some. There was traffic on final for runway 19, traffic that had not used their radio to self announce their position and intentions. I'm glad that it is SOP to always scan the pattern before entering any runway at an uncontrolled airport like TRK. Sometimes pilots don't participate and you must keep an eye out for them.

On take off I got a little cross controlled, veered a little too much to the right and failed to rotate well. Once I got uncrossed we climbed out just fine. It was another beautiful Sierra day, not a breath of wind. An uneventful transit to the Sierra Valley training grounds was our reward for being there that day.

Once to the valley we reviewed slow flight maneuvers and power off stalls. Then I got to land at a new airport for me. Beckworth/Nervino was the destination. I use both names because on the sectional chart it's called Nervino, but in the Airport/Facility Directory it's call Bechworth. My instructor likes to use both because Nervino can sound like Reno over the radio. So I abide, it makes sense. Anyways, I made a great approach but ended up bouncing a little on the landing. Learning is fun.

I followed that landing with a much better take off at Nervino than the one earlier at Truckee. Once in the air and out of the traffic pattern it was time to go back. On the way back we worked on radio calls. I have got to work on not "machine gunning" my calls, speak slow and intelligible, Matt. I once made a position report without saying our altitude. This is not good because with out an altitude other aircraft won't know where to look for us. It's hard keeping everything you need to say straight in your head. I know it will become second nature to me, but for now it's difficult to get it right.

The landing at Truckee, on runway 1, was better than at Nervino, but I pulled back a little to much on flair and we nosed up too much for a smooth landing. It wasn't too bad though. One of these days I going to put her down "like a butterfly with sore feet".

Once 68F was put back in her hanger I handed in my pre-solo written exam. I had time to work on it last week as I wasn't flying. Next week I'll let you know if I passed it.

Happy thoughts,

Matt