Karma and the FAA

Since passing my Private Pilot checkride back in April, I have anxiously awaited the arrival of my "real" certificate. It may just be a piece of plastic, but it is solid piece of material that says I'm a pilot. On Thursday, a large envelope was waiting in my mailbox. Was this it? Unfortunately, no. It was a survey from CAMI asking me to fill in a bunch of bubbles about how my training and checkride went.

"To better serve aviation safety, the FAA is conducting a national survey on the overall quality of flight training and testing experiences to see if they meet the FAA's current standards. The enclosed questionnaire is voluntary and anonymous, so please be open and candid."

Great. Just like the FAA to produce even more paperwork, and send me the paperwork before they even send me my certificate! In order to protect my karma with the Feds, I went ahead and filled it out and had the Chief Photographer drop it in the mail on her way to work. Amazingly enough, it worked. When I got home from work on Friday, there was a nice little envelope with my certificate in it! Yeah!

Since work is going to be busy over the next few weeks, this weekend was my last opportunity to fly until the beginning of July. I really wanted to get a few hours on the new certificate before I had to start the slave grind. It didn't look like the weather gods were going to allow that. The past few days have been "June Gloom" here in San Diego, low ceilings 24/7 with haze and fog, and today was forecast to be more of the same. On our way back from a photo shoot (unlike yours truly, the Chief Photographer does make real money with her hobby), I looked up and the skies were clearing. Hallelujah!

My plan for the afternoon had been to drive the Chief Photographer to the mini-camp for the San Diego Chargers so she could shoot pictures. As I am not an NFL fan, preferring college sports, this would have been about as exciting as cleaning my toe jam. Since the Chargers training facility is right underneath final for 28R at KMYF, I would have spent the entire time watching the IFR guys fly in while I sat on the ground. In fact, the photo at the top was taken from the camp (not me in the plane).



Very quickly, the Chief Photographer (my long suffering wife) and I reached a compromise. She dropped me off at KMYF so I could get a hop in while she took pictures around the corner, then she would come back and pick me up. I was able to get a Piper, so I got a quick brief from DUATS and off I went.

In my quest to pick up XC PIC time towards my Instrument prerequisites, I had planned to scoot up to HMT and back. However, HMT was closed by NOTAM for a parachute demo. Time for Plan B. I left MYF, flew south to SDM for a touch and go, then north to F70 for a touch and go (the distance from SDM to F70 making it a legal XC), then back to MYF.

This was my first time flying this particular plane, and definitely my last. Since all Cherokee names are related to Indian terms, I have decided to dub this particular airframe "The Crooked Indian." Preflight was fine, but when I started her up there was a problem with the radio. I could hear myself on I/C fine, but I couldn't hear anything on the frequency. I figured maybe ground was just quiet for a minute, so I called ground for a radio check, no joy. Toggled the COM1/COM2 switch, tried COM 2, no joy. I finally resorted to shutting off and restarting the radio and IC stack, then got good comms. I also got a chewing from ground control for stepping on other people while I was trying to get positive comms. I then apologized to ground, explaining I had had radio problems. After my apology, some nameless, helpful soul (not ground) got on the air and said "Listen first, then talk." Gee thanks, buddy. If I could have listened, I would have. Karma again, he'll get his one day.

After I was airborne, I had this weird sensation during part of the flight that the plane was flying crooked. I was flying visually, but cross checking my instruments. When I held the "straight and level" picture, the airplane would turn. When I held the instruments solid (AI vertical and on the line, DG steady, Turn Coordinator level, ball centered, altimeter steady), the visual picture looked as if I was in a slightly nose down left bank. Weird. Hence the name "Crooked Indian."

Flight was fine, if a little bumpy. Due to the sudden change in the forecast, from crap to good, there were few planes in the air, so it wasn't crowded. The warming of the rocks did lead to a good bit of light chop, but nothing scary. 1.8 hrs of XC PIC in the log.

Once back at MYF, I put the Crooked Indian to bed and went in to pay the tab. As I was signing the credit card receipt, I noticed someone else's credit card on the table, with no one else around. Several weeks ago, I had left my checkbook in an airplane and the good soul who found it had left it with the counter staff at the FBO (instead of stealing it) and had called me to let me know where it was. In consideration of this favor, I decided to pay it forward to the owner of the credit card. I looked up the owner of the card on our club roster, turned the card in at the counter, then stepped outside to call the owner. When a female voice answered, I asked for the male name of the card owner. The student pilot at the next table over said "That's me!" His card got returned, his CFI thanked me for my honesty, and I made an exit. Doing the right thing may sometimes be a tad inconvenient, but it isn't that hard and will always come back to you. Good karma.

The Chief Photographer swung by and picked me up, then it was back to the hacienda for the traditional family Saturday night hamburgers. On the way home, I told her that if I ever told her we were going to fly The Crooked Indian, she was to hit me over the head until I changed my mind.

Will probably be a few weeks until my next post. Until then, keep the shiny side up and fly safe.

Big Country

Private Pilot Maneuvers

Since I have started flying Pipers, with the exception of my club checkout I have only done point to point trips. The chief photographer and I had to cancel the long XC to Sin City (work issues), so I decided I needed to do some Private Pilot maneuvers in the Piper to really get the feel of the aircraft. I figured I could hit HMT (55 nm from MYF) to log it as XC PIC, then do some maneuvers (sans the chief photographer, who decided that yanking and banking wasn't her idea of a good time).

It was clear and sunny in SOCAL, but hot. When I got to MYF, it was about 90F. I took a good look at the performance charts for 06N, the Piper Cadet I would be flying today, to make sure I wouldn't have any issues with density altitude. MYF is about 400MSL, so no problem there, but at HMT it was 100F with a field elevation of 1500MSL, so the density altitude was 4500 ft. With a 4000 ft runway at that density altitude, I didn't want to take any chances.

I did a soft field takeoff from MYF, then got the NKX Class B transition direct northbound. Climbed up to 6500MSL, where it was a cool 80F, then headed to HMT. Picked up VFR flight following enroute, then descended over the lake south of HMT to TPA, where I entered the pattern on the 45. I did a soft field landing to a full stop (take no chances when I eat up that much runway at that density altitude), taxied back for a short field takeoff, lap around the pattern, short field landing to touch and go. My decision point was that if I didn't stick it on the numbers or was slow to reconfigure, it would be a full stop. If everything went right, I would roll with the T&G. I put it on the numbers, reconfigured quickly, and was airborne before the halfway point on the runway. From there, I made a left 45 departure back towards San Diego.

I climbed to 5500MSL on a heading of 150 until I got to Pauma Valley, the north practice area for San Diego. Once over Pauma Valley, I did two sets of steep turns (left, right, left, right), clean slow flight, dirty slow flight, power off stall, another set of steep turns, then an engine out (yes, I did clearing turns and a self announce before each maneuver). All of the maneuvers were well within PTS standards, except for the engine out.

From 5500MSL, that Piper will glide forever. I flew around losing altitude for a few minutes, with multiple fields to choose from, then decided to make my "emergency landing" to Pauma Valley Airpark, a private strip. As I turned from base to final, I realized I was WAY too high (yet not high enough for another pass), so I slipped like a madman to get back on glideslope. I didn't want to put the flaps in yet because once I put them in, I don't like to take them out again, so I would rather wait till the last minute to put the flaps in, slipping beforehand if needed. Once I was on glideslope at 100AGL, I went around and climbed back up to 35ooMSL to head for home. I was tempted to actually land it, but it is a private strip and I didn't have permission, so I didn't want to piss off the locals.

Once back at altitude, I made one final self announce, then called up SOCAL to get flight following and clearance through the Class B back to MYF. Smooth ride home, okay landing on the numbers, shut her down and called it a day.

Given that this was the first time I had done PPL Maneuvers in a Piper, I was happy with the results. All of my airwork was well within PTS (+/- 50 ft altitude, +/- 5kts airspeed, +/- 5 deg heading), but the short/soft field landings still need a little work (I have to refine my sight picture and power settings for the Pipers).

As far as the engine out is concerned, I am still having a little trouble with the glide characteristics of the Piper. Once I realized I was high, I figured I had several options:
A. Slip to get back on glideslope (the one I chose)
B. Put in a notch or two of flaps (the one I decided against since I don't like to screw with the lift/drag configuration until I know I have the field made)
C. S-turns or a 360 (scared to death of the dreaded spin/stall at low altitude trying to stretch a glide or maneuver significantly)

If any of you experienced folks/CFI's out there have any suggestions to make, I'm all ears.

Fly safe!

Big Country