Last airbone lesson.

I am alone. My closest companion is the gentle rumbling of the engine, an assurance that it will keep me airborne throughout my flight. A few miles behind me is the airport, yet today the traffic is low and I am simply counting down the distance until I am permitted to climb to a higher altitude. I soon spot the 3 mile mark outside my window; a large colourful shopping complex that serves as good reminder as to when I am once again allowed to climb higher into the sky. Today’s airplane is one of the Aero Club’s best; a shiny blue C152 that desperately wants to climb skyward. I give in to it’s request, and the engine burbles as we climb and level off at 3,500 feet.

Up here the air is chilly, yet the powerful heater keeps the cabin warm as I lazily swoop around the training area, simply enjoying the view.  Lessons are a lot more demanding, as you’re constantly being asked to put the airplane in unusual attitudes and practice all that can go wrong in the air. Today though I’m a free pilot, able to just buzz around the training area and generally enjoy being airborne. The weather today is far from perfect, but it’s easily good enough to fly in, as I dodge around rain showers and occasionally the airplane gets a wash.

Clouds however, are a big no-no. Countless pilots have flown into them straight and level, and exited them in a spiral dive. While our sense of balance is wonderful on the ground, it is near useless and deceiving in the air. A change in airspeed can trick the mind into thinking that you’re in a climb or descent, and you can never be certain as to the position of the wings in a cloud with only your sense of balance to rely on. The mind screams at you “You’ve become inverted! Bank hard or you’re doomed to end up in a crater!” You roll the aircraft, and before you know it you really are inverted, and the instruments don’t work upside-down. Another danger is the vacuum pump failure. Flying using the artificial horizon is simple; whatever the plane on the instrument is doing the real one is doing as well. It’s so simple a child could do it. But should it fail, pilots become so fixated on it that they don’t realise it’s lying to them and the compass is spinning in circles. Soon the altitude unwinds and airspeed increases, and you pull back to counter this. A split second later your wings are no longer attached to your airplane.

None of these things concern me today. I steer clear of cloud, and am confident in my skills of getting out of one should it ever happen, having practised the procedure many times under the IFR hood. I circle another rain shower, watching the mass of water fall onto the houses below, and listen to the radio chatter of the Qantas’ and international aircraft as they fly overhead at higher altitudes. They sound at ease, while the controller calmly guides them to the foot of the Melbourne runway. I look at my watch and see I’ve been here for 40 minutes, and the fuel load is decreasing. I make my final circle of the training area and head back towards the airport.

I’m soon overhead GMH, the old General-Motors-Holden factory, which we use as an inbound ATC reporting point. I make my radio call, and almost immediately another airplane reports being in exactly the same position. I become a swivel-head, and spot the aircraft not far behind me, it’s landing light shining through my back window. I turn back to the controls and apply more power to try and create some distance between us. The now shiny airplane reacts with a bark from the engine, and the airspeed quickly builds. Yet this is only a 152, and I suspect the airplane behind is faster. It only gets closer, and soon the controller is asking us of what our intentions are. Before I have a chance to chip in, the other pilot says he’s going to overtake me.  The controller asks me if I have him in sight, and I do, as he silently whisks past my window in his faster 172. We acknowledge each other’s presence, and all returns back to normal.

Before I know it I’m lowering the flaps on final approach to the runway. Speed is good, aim-point is good and centreline is good. I can make out far more details on the ground now as I fly low over a golf course, then the boundary fence. Landing clearance is received, power is pulled back and runway is underneath me. I ease back on the controls, gently letting the airplane dissipate it’s energy and land itself. A pilot can never force a plane to land; it will only bounce back up if forced. You have to treat it gently, let it lose speed and energy and it will settle on the runway.

I touch down and taxi back to the parking slot. Only 1 more ground lesson left, then I tackle the flying exam from my restricted license. Wish me luck

Crash Landing at Sioux City

Many flights in history have been labelled as miracles and amazing, such as the Hudson River landing. Yet one certain aviation incident is a head and shoulders above all else; United flight 232. On July 19th, 1989, Denny Fitch was walking through the terminal building in Denver airport, looking for a flight to Chicago. Denny always dreamt of flying, and was a highly successful Douglas DC-10 check training captain. There was a flight to Chicago leaving from the gate he was standing at, a Boeing 727, or he could walk for an extra gate and take a United DC-10. He chose the DC-10, and to this day does not know why he did. He boarded United flight 232 and settled into his first class seat. The aircraft took off and climbed out uneventfully.

He recalls that the flight was routine until they were established in the cruise. The cabin crew were serving lunch, when a very loud and muffled explosion was heard from the rear of the cabin. The airplane yawed violently to the right for about 10 seconds, and he found himself sitting on his left armrest. After that however, the airplane began flying smoothly again, although he noticed that it began to bank to the right; steeper, and steeper, and steeper. It got to 40 degrees of bank until it finally raised up again, and the captain came onto the intercom to the passengers. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have shut down the number 2 engine, and we will be a few minutes late arriving in Chicago’. Then he hung up.

Denny Fitch was confused at this. The DC-10 has three engines, two under the wing and one in the tail. From the violent yawing and bank, he thought there must have been a problem in the right engine as the tail engine does nothing aerodynamically to the aircraft. The captain had said though, that he had shut down the number two engine. He looked out his window, and noticed that the airplane was climbing, which gave him more concerns. At this altitude, the aircraft cannot fly with only two engine, to do so you must descend to thicker air. However, they were doing the opposite an climbing. In other words, they were going the wrong way.  A flight attendant walked past him, and he tapped her arm for her attention. She looked worried, so he said to her “Don’t worry, we can fly on two engines, we just need to descend and we’ll be ok”. She just gave him a focused look and said “Oh no Danny. Both the pilots are trying to fly the plane, and the captain has just told us that we’ve lost all hydraulics”.

A DC-10 will not fly without hydraulics. Period. Control surfaces on airplanes such as ailerons, rudders and elevators, can be the size of barn doors and cannot be moved physically with control cables; they are just too heavy. Instead, they are moved with pressurised hydraulic fluid. Naturally, when you remove a system like control cables, you must ensure that the new system (hydraulic fluid) is extremely reliable. The system on the DC-10 did in fact have triple redundancy, in other words it was a one in a billion chance that all three independent hydraulic systems would fail. Yet, on that day in 1989, the number two engine had fractured and punctured all of the hydraulic lines. There had never in history been a situation where all hydraulics were lost and people survived the flight. Not one person ever got off a plane in that situation alive.

Denny said back to the flight attendant to tell the captain that he was on board and if they needed any assistance. She went to the cockpit, and came running out gesturing furiously that they wanted him on the flight-deck.  He walked into an amazing sight; both pilots had the yokes pushed over fully to the left. They were wearing short sleeve shirts, and he could see the tendons in their arms straining from the force they had to put on the yokes. They were also trying to get the plane to descend by pushing downwards on the yokes, and the first officer was slouched and had his knee pressed against it to put as much force on it as possible. Despite this, the right wing kept dropping downwards and the plane continued to climb. He glanced over at the flight-engineers panel and saw that they did indeed have no hydraulic pressure left in any of the systems.

The captain asked Denny to go back to the cabin and look at the control surfaces on the wing. By design, if one set of ailerons raise up, the ailerons on the other side fall down. That is how an aircraft banks. It is impossible by design for both ailerons to either fall or raise; the don’t work like that. When he looked out the window he saw that both ailerons on either side of the plane were upright. He then knew that they had really lost all the hydraulic fluid, and that they were in very serious trouble.

The plane began climbing and descending uncontrollably, and the flight crew quickly realised the only real way of controlling it was with the engines. Denny said to the captain “would you like me to work the throttles for you?” and he replied yes. Denny had to try and keep the plane flying by simply varying engine power on either side of the plane, an extremely difficult thing to do. Amidst all that was happening, the captain took one hand of the yoke and reached outwards over his shoulder to Denny and said “I’m captain Al Haynes. Nice to meet you”.

They decided to call the United Airlines Maintenance line, who knew the DC-10 inside and out and would know any trick check-lists or back-doors to try to get control back to the aircraft. They called them on the radio, and told them they had no hydraulic fluid at all. The maintenance team however thought they had a communication problem. They thought they mustn’t have fluid in system 1, or maybe system 2. They simply couldn’t believe they had none at all. Captain Haynes said to them “Listen, number 1 hydraulic quantity. Zero. Got it? Number 2 quantity. Zero. Number 3 quantity. Zero”. Later on in post accident investigation, they said “We didn’t know what to say to you. We were talking to four dead men”.

They began talking about the prospect of lowering the landing gear. They new that there would be some extra hydraulic fluid that would be trapped in the raised landing gear that would be released into the system if they lowered it. However, there is a golden rule in aviation. If you ever find yourself upstairs with minimum control of your airplane, don’t change it’s configuration. In other words, don’t put flaps down or lower landing gear, because you could lose complete control of it. You know the devil you have now, if you change something, you might not like the devil you get.

They decided to try it though. Partly because they couldn’t really see how they could have any less control than they already did, and even if it did go wrong the gear would be extra cushioning when they hit the ground. The extra fluid sadly went straight overboard, but the airplane did seem a little more stable with it down. The airplane was losing height fast, but they decided to try to make it to Sioux city airport, as that was close by and that’s the direction that the plane was heading towards. The found themselves lined up with runway 22, and the controller told them they were cleared to land on any runway. Captain Haynes just laughed, and said back “You want to make it a runway huh?”

They approached runway 22 at about 100mph faster than usual, and had no brakes to stop with. They hit the runway hard, and the landing gear was torn off. The airplane broke into pieces and rolled over multiple times. The cockpit separated from the rest of the plane and became a rolling ball at 200mph. When everything finally came to a stop, rescue teams arrived and amazingly 184 people survived the crash, while 111 died.

The flight crew also survived the crash. After the accident, the data from the black boxes was placed into a simulator. The chief DC-10 test pilot and head DC-10 training captain was called in to fly the exact same scenario as the crew of 232 did. They crashed short of the runway 28 times. On the 29th attempt, they called in Denny to help, and with his advice they finally got it to a runway. It really is amazing how well Denny flew the airplane with nothing but engine power, and how the crew as a whole worked together to get a survivable outcome out of a situation in which really, 296 people should not be alive.

United flight 232 on final descent. Damage to the tail cone and horizontal stabilizer can be seen.

Engine Failure

Bang. “Engine Failure” says Andrew, with a hint of urgency. Procedures instantly kick in; trim for best glide speed, carburettor heat on, start looking for a field. We are downwind (parallel) to Torraddin’s runway 22 at this point, and I have 2000ft to play with. Time to try and get this engine going again. “Carby heat on, Fuel on and quantity checked, Mixture rich and Magnetos both”. I keep glancing outside my window, eyes glued to the runway we may be forced to put down on. “Fuel checked, Mixture Rich, Oil temperatures and pressures in green, switches both, cycle through throttle range”. Still no dice, and altitude is beginning to unwind quickly.

Time to concede defeat and prepare for a forced landing. Set the transponder to the emergency code of 7700 followed by the infamous radio call. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Mike Juliet Golf, engine failure, conducting a forced landing at Torraddin airport, 2 people on board, we will contact you again on the ground.” I shut all fuel lines, cut off the mixture and in case of a rough landing, we open the doors to prevent them from becoming jammed. Now for the critical stage of the landing, timing the turn onto the runway. Turn too early and we’ll be too high and overrun the runway, but too low and we won’t make it. I have to time it just right so we have just enough altitude to make the runway. I make the critical turn at about 1000ft above the ground.

Things are looking good, the runway is now ahead and it seems like we are going to make it. “Add the flaps, add the flaps” Andrew suggests, thinking that we are definitely going to make it now and need to lose some height. The cessna descends fast towards the runway, but it seems my timing was right, and soon we are right over the start of the runway. Shortly afterwards the wheels make contact right on the threshold for a perfect landing (woop woop!). Andrew is evidently pleased that the airplane is down in one piece.

I should now point out that the engine did not actually fail, we just reduced thrust to idle to simulate an engine failure and went on from there. It’s a great way to prepare for the unlikely but possible scenario of an engine failure, and I should also point out that while I nailed that forced landing, the previous attempt on a small field didn’t quite go to plan and I ended up being far too high. It takes a lot of practice to get them right consistently, and a bit of luck helps too. However, I am now very confident that should an engine ever fail (and it is a 1 in 17,000 hour event) then I will bring the aircraft down safely. Which is nice for passengers to know.

That was my last lesson for the moment with Andrew, and my next lesson is a pre-licence check with another instructor. On that same day (in about 2 weeks) I shall sit my theoretical test, and then the following lesson shall be the test to gain the licence. Estimated time until licence: 3 weeks. Wish me luck

US Airways flight 1549

I am writing this post at Lorne, as it is the 1 year anniversary of the famed US Air 1549 incident, so I decided to write about it for my post. On January 15th 2009, US Air flight 1549 was parked at the gate, whilst its 150 passengers walked through the boarding tunnels and through the Airbus A320s large doors. They were to be exiting via these same doors far sooner than anyone could have expected. The commander of the flight, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, was in the left hand seat, asking for ATC clearance as the two, Rolls Royce engines spooled up. It didn’t take long for the flight to get underway, and soon the Airbus was at rotation speed on the runway at La Guardia airport. It was the last time the airplane would ever take off.

Nothing was out of the ordinary initially on climbout, however. It was a cold yet clear day, and the flight was proceeding normally.  The airplane was on autopilot, the crew dialling in the many ATC instructions they were receiving into it. As Sullenberger looked up from his instruments, he was alarmed to see that his windscreen was filled with dozens of large geese. They could hear them slamming into the aircraft, and entering the engines. They began to lose power on the engines, and Sullenberger said that he knew they were going to lose both of them. Sure enough, both engines quickly died, and they became a glider.

Now above one of the most densly populated cities in the world, at a mere altitude of 3000ft, Sullenberger and first officer Jeffrey B. Skiles had to find some way of saving the airplane. He told ATC they would be returning immediately to La Guardia, but it was soon clear that they wouldn’t make it. He requested directions to a closer airport, Tettorborro, but he decided that even that was too far for their crippled airplane. Sully then made the decision that almost certainly saved the lives of all on board; the decision to abandon an attempt at an airport and land on the Hudson River.

He quickly told ATC that “we’re gonna be in the Hudson”, and the co-pilot started the ditch checklist. With the engines stubbornly refusing to start, Sully lined the Airbus up with the river and told the passengers just a mere sentence; “Brace for impact”. The airplane hit the water, and very quickly came to a stop. “Well that wasn’t so bad” were Sully’s first words. The attendants quickly evacuated the passengers out of the emergency exits onto life rafts or the wings. Within moments ferries pulled up alongside the airplane and rescued the passengers. Not a single person died in the incident.

What also makes this incident all the more memorable is how composed the flight crew were. Airline pilots are generally cool by nature, but Sullenberger was something else. He almost seemed relaxed on the descent towards the river, something that being totally confident in being able to land the aircraft safely had something to do with. I’m half surprised he didn’t have a little snooze on the way down. He remained ice cool even after it had landed on the river, as it filled with water. The passengers were outside the aircraft, but Sully walked the aisle of the aircraft multiple times to check that it was empty. He was still wearing his flying jacket for god’s sake, and it wasn’t even crinkled.

Few flight crews can admit to remaining so composed in such a dire situation. However, there are some. Air Canada 143 was a flight on a Boeing 767, which was incorrectly fuelled with 20,000 pounds of fuel instead of 20,000kg of fuel. Consequently, halfway through their flight, the pilots heard a distinctive ‘Bong’ that they had never heard in the simulator before. It indicated that both engines had shut down due to a lack of fuel. They were not in gliding distance of an airfield, and so improvised and landed the aircraft on a drag strip, in front of some surprised spectators. Captain Robert Pearson famously said “I’ll just have to slip it” before sideslipping a Boeing 767 to an extreme angle to make it down to the drag strip. Another ice-cool flight crew saved the situation, but in my mind, no-one has yet beaten Sully at composure. Cool? Cooler than a Penguin Sorbet.

“Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III had just performed a remarkable feat of flying. Some were calling it a miracle. But there he stood, calmly, inside the glass waiting room at the New York Waterway terminal on Pier 79, speaking to police officials. His fine gray hair was unruffled, and his navy blue pilot’s uniform had barely a wrinkle.”

Ozzyfrog’s view on AF447

On June 1st of 2009, and Airbus A330-200 operated by Air France pushed back at Rio de Janeiro, bound for Paris. 3 pilots, 9 cabin crew and 216 passengers were on board the evenings flight, which departed half an hour late. The plane flew along the coast of South America without incident, and began its crossing of the very unforgiving Atlantic Ocean. Midway across the Atlantic, and only 3 and a half hours into the flight, Air France 447 was lost on radar screens. It didn’t turn up over Europe at its assigned time either. Much of the world held its breath, waiting for the airplane to turn up somewhere, possibly even Africa.  The Airbus with 228 people on board never did turn up though. A search and rescue operation was started, and the aviation world was stunned at how an event like this could have happened. The Airbus A330 had an excellent safety record, and it was being flown by one of the biggest and safest airlines in the world. The notion that it had just disappeared over the Atlantic was almost ridiculous.

Pieces of the aircraft were soon found though. Pieces of metal, seats and fuel was found floating in the ocean, and soon bodies were recovered. The rescue operation quickly became a salvage operation. Months after the crash, we are starting to get an idea of what happened on the flight, however it is still an accident shrouded in mystery. The crew onboard AF447 were experienced, however they did run into very bad weather. The severity of the storms they flew through were most likely underestimated, as they found themselves in severe turbulence and no outside visibility. This alone however, is not enough to cause an accident. The aircraft would have easily withstood the forces of the storm. The Airbus did, however, send out automated messages to Air France before it crashed. The exact reasoning behind many of the messages is still unknown, but they have given investigators many clues to the cause of the accident.

The message of greatest concern told us that there was a problem with the pitot tubes. These are external tubes found on the side of the nose of the airplane, and they give the aircraft it’s airspeed information. They were known to have caused several incidents on the Airbus A330, due to their occasional tendency to freeze for some time. At 35,000 feet in bad weather, one or more of the pitot tubes could have failed, which has potentially catastrophic consequences for the flight. Imagine the scenario. In very rough weather, the pilots are being bounced around when a pitot tube fails. The captain now has one airspeed indicator that is wrong, and one that may be correct. Problem is, unless he is lucky and it is an obvious failure, he does not know which one to believe. Or worse, all of his airspeed data could be wrong. The autopilot cannot handle conflicting information, and so it switches off, leaving the pilots in control of the airplane at their time of greatest confusion.

Without any automation at their disposal, they are now flying the airplane in severe turbulence with no airspeed data. At 35,000 feet, it is a very fine line between flying too fast and the aircraft breaking up, or flying too slow and falling out of the sky. Worse, should they have lost more instruments, they would no longer know which way is up or down. In severe turbulence with no outside visibility, and possibly no airspeed information, they would have had next to no chance of keeping the airplane under control. It would have easily stalled or rolled over, after which it would be nearly impossible to recover control before hitting the water. The automated messages are still not fully explained however, although they do indicate many dangerous failures. There was no Mayday declared by the crew before the crash, indicating that it happened quickly and they were too busy to call ATC.

I’ve done a similar situation in a simulator before, the loss of reliable airspeed in poor visibility, and it’s a pilot’s nightmare. You try to keep the airplane flying safely while trying to diagnose which airspeed is correct. It’s all good to say that we would keep the airspeed high and diagnose the problem if we were in the situation, while we talk amongst each other during a sunny and warm day. Doing it overhead the Atlantic in a fierce storm during the night, with instruments failing all over the place and 216 passengers relying on you, it’s a different story. All old pitot tubes have now been replaced throughout the AF fleet, but it sadly came too late for AF447. Hopefully the black boxes will be found, and the accident will be cleared up so it will never happen again to another unlucky airliner.

A change in direction

After realising that I haven’t posted on this blog for sometime, I’ve decided to spice it up a bit. This post, unlike the others, will not just be full of acronyms that no-one but myself understands, I have instead dedicated it to some of the more amazing and amusing stories that aviation has offered over the years. If you like these stories, then make a comment about them and I can write more.

British Airways flight 5390: To this day, this flight remains to be one of the most amazing aviation incidents in history. On 10th June, 1990, this British Airways flight took of from Birmingham bound for Spain. The aircraft made a routine takeoff, and was climbing through 17,000 feet as the crew were preparing the meal service. Captain Tim Lancaster was in command, and both pilots had released their shoulder harnesses, and Tim had also loosened his lap belt as well. Unexpectedly, the captain’s cockpit window begun to shake, and after an exchange of brief puzzled looks between the flight crew, there was an enormous bang and the entire cabin filled with condensation.

The plane went into an immediate steep descent, and paper whirled around the cockpit. After a few chaotic seconds, the copilot, Alastair Atchison, grabbed the yoke and turned towards his captain. He found himself  looking at an empty seat. Tim Lancaster was no longer inside the airplane. His window had catastrophically failed, and he had been pulled out of his window by the decompression. Luckily for him, his feet got caught on the yoke, so his legs were still in the cockpit, while his body was against the roof of the airplane. The side effect of his feet being on the yoke however, was the airplane was now in a steep dive, one that the copilot was trying to get out of.

The cabin crew, having no real idea of what was happening, were dealing with the passengers when one looked through the cockpit door, and saw the captains legs dangling through his window. She and another attendant rushed and grabbed hold of him, allowing the copilot to recover from the dive. Try as they did, they couldn’t pull Tim back into the cockpit, so just decided to hold onto him for the rest of the journey. After a stressful landing by the copilot at the nearest airport, ambulances arrived to aid the now presumed dead captain Tim Lancaster. However, even after being on the exterior of an airplane for nearly 20 minutes, Tim Lancaster survived, and there wasn’t a single fatality on flight 5390.

And now for a more amusing of the stories I’ve personally heard:

Some time ago, a Cessna 150 (same aircraft I fly ^_^) had an incident involving an overrun and was in need of serious repairs. So it was in the hanger, literally in two pieces getting its repairs done. The entire right-wing was removed, leaving an exposed cockpit and engine bay. After doing repairs on the engine, the maintenance engineer wanted to test the engine before putting the right-wing back on. So, where do you test the engine? In the run-up area, near the runway of course. So, one morning when the airport was quiet, a transmission was heard to ATC.

“Tower, 2131 Bravo, Parsons air, request taxi to the run up bay”

“2131 Bravo, cleared to taxi to run up bay”.

I ask you to try to imagine the sight picture of this. The controller looks out of the tower to see half a Cessna 150 (more commonly called a Cessna 75) taxi past the tower. His jaw hits the floor, and he urgently calls the other controllers over to his window. There must have been about 30 eyeballs pressed against the screen as the aircraft taxied past. The controller reaches for his mike, and somewhat uncertainly asks:

“Erm, 2131 Bravo, are you experiencing any difficulties?”

“Nope.”

“Well don’t worry, you will!”

The aircraft then reaches the run up bay, and pulls along side a student and instructor in another airplane, doing their pre-takeoff checks. The student looks beside him, and then loses all ability to speak. He frantically pulls on his instructors shoulder, saying “bad thing, bad thing!” The instructor then looks out the students window, and is stunned, after seeing half an airplane next to him, with the pilot acting normally, doing his usual engines checks. The student asks “wha…what is it?” to which the instructor replies “b..bad thing!” They then see the other pilot change radio frequencies, so they also change to the tower frequency. The pilot in the severed airplane then taxied to the runway, and says cooly over the radio:

“Tower, 2131 Bravo, done with the run-ups, ready for takeoff”.

To which the tower replies:
“Right.., and I suppose you want a left turn after departure too!”

 

 

A bumpy flight to Torrabbin (again)

Today was to be my last flight with Andrew before starting the training area solos, so I was ready to try and focus on the small things as much as possible. Today was also the first time I was flying a new Cessna to the Aero Club, MJG. This plane is owned by a maintenance engineer, so it was amazing. Every dial and lever was sparkling, and for once I could actually tell which light I was switching on in the instrument panel. It also had a Garmin GPS system installed, which is always lots of fun to play around with. So, I did the pre-flight, and the little blue Cessna was fit to take to the sky. The sky today, however, was looking very windy, with a wind of 25-30 knots straight down runway 35. So we hopped in, started the very smooth engine, and took of on runway 35R.

VH-MJG

Striped Seats

Turned out that the wind was also causing fairly heavy turbulence, which made for a bumpy climb up to about 3,000ft. Things weren’t getting any smoother, so I put the hood on to fly by the instruments in fairly rough conditions. We rode through it for about 15 mins, and then ho behold Tooraddin was coming into view. As per last time, we were not to overfly the airfield because of the parachutists in nearby proximity. As Andrew and I were discussing the arrival into the airport, something black whizzed past the plane on my side. ‘****’ was the response from Andrew, as he thought it was another plane. On closer inspection though, it was too small for a plane, but too shiny for a bird. We guessed it was just a balloon, or a UFO. With that aside, it was time for the approach to Toorrabbin.

Today’s touch-and-go (landing, and taking off in one motion without stopping) was to be a shortfield one. Because of the wind, we were using runway 32, a very short gravel runway. The turbulence wasn’t easing up, which wasn’t going to make it any easier. Lining up with the runway, it looks *very* short, and the bumps were putting us all over the shop. That first approach was a wild one. I was never really centered with the runway, and it felt like a rollercoaster coming in to land. I will admit, that was the first time I felt slightly nervous at the controls. The swamp just to the right of the runway didn’t help either. But, after saying that, the we touched down allright, and quickly applied power. At just 60kts I lifted the nose back into the air, and we had just done a landing and takeoff in probably under 300 meters. Lots of fun. We did three more of those, and then headed back to Moorabbin.

On the way back we did another PFL (practice forced landing), some steep turns (45 degrees) and a stall. Before reaching Moorabbin though, the professional and somewhat spooky controllers at Melbourne Center contacted us and asked us where we were heading and what our altitude was. After making sure we weren’t going to play peek-a-boo with their Boeings, they wished us a good trip back to the airport and let us continue on. After doing another overfly, we came in to runway 35L for a normal landing and taxi back to the RVAC. Next lesson will be my first training area solo, which will probably mean 1 hour solo time in the air. Should be lots of fun

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P.S If the font size in the last paragraph is larger than the rest, I’m sorry. WordPress is being silly and I can’t fix it :S

A very windy flight.

On arriving at the airport today the weather was taking a turn for the worst, with strong winds and cold temperatures. Thankfully, it was ok for flying, so after meeting with my instructor Andrew, we started pre-flighting the Cessna. Fuel was good, the aircraft was fit to fly until we got to the oil stick. Which we had no success in opening. Why must people do this to us? They screw the oil meter in so tightly that it took Andrew and I ten minutes to open with pliers. Not happy Jan. With the airplane finally fully checked out though, I asked for start clearance, and we began our taxi. Today we were going to do a couple of circuits, then head out into the training area for a PFL (practice forced landing) and then finally return for an overfly (the thing I talked about last lesson). With the run-up checks done, we got to the holding point of 35R. The wind today was at 15-25 knots straight down the runway, which meant the groundspeed of landing aircraft was incredibly slow. You can hear us laughing in the video below at the holding point, because the airplanes we’re going so slowly through the air. We got takeoff clearance, took to the sky and did a few circuits. The landings today were a little rusty because it’s been awhile since I’ve flown, but nothing dramatic.

After 3 circuits, we headed out to the training area to practice some forced landings. We found a nice private airstip to practice lining up with, began setting up for a practice run. Suddenly though, out my window I saw another aircraft, which was headed straight towards us. I noticed it was an aircraft from Tristar Aviation, a little single engined Lockheed that are absolute rubbish (it’s actually the same blue and white plane that taxied past us early in the video). They didn’t seem to have seen us, so I quickly applied full power to try to climb away from them. The way they flew you would have thought they were trying to hit us, but thankfully we managed to climb about 500 feet before they passed underneath us. With the Kamikazes gone, we flew around the field and prepared for the PFL.

At 2500 feet, I pulled the power back to idle, to simulate an engine failure. I then trimmed the airplane for it’s best glide speed, 60 knots, and began flying a circuit around our selected field. I carried out the forced landings checklist, and then we simulated a Mayday call.

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Tango November Uniform, Tango November Uniform, Tango November Uniform, engine failure, we’re conducting a forced landing in a field, just south of Carrum. Two people on board, we’ll contact you again on the ground”

Then it’s time to practice the passenger briefing, which prepares and reassures your now very worried passengers for the emergency landing. We turned base, completed the engine shut down checklist, and lined up for a landing in the field. With everything looking good, and confident we would make the field with our altitude, I applied full power and began our climb out at about 700 feet. We then headed back to Moorabbin, made our Overfly and came in for a nice landing on 35L. Estimated time until carriage of passengers: 3 months

You can blame Windows Movie Maker for the skinnyness of the video, and the poor editing. Well, actually the editing was just mushing the vids together, so I guess you can blame me for that. But I would rather you blame Movie Maker 

A flight to Torrabbin

Today’s flight was to be the first flight in some time where I wasn’t going to be flying in circles around the airport. Instead of doing circuits, we were flying to Toorrabbin, next to French Island. Naturally, before a flight like this one, Andrew gave me a full briefing before the flight. We looked at the VMC (fancy acronym for a map) and he gave me an overview of our route for that day. After all the necessary planning had been covered, we walked out to our airplane, VH-KKW. I called for fuel, and topped up the oil, and then did the pre-flight walk-around. The Cessna looked fit to fly, so we climbed in and started the engine. Today’s departure was to be off runway 35L, for a bit of a change. Instead of the usual climb out over land, we would be flying out over the water, and then coming back in to meet the land. This runway also calls for greater situational awareness in regards to other traffic. Because inbound aircraft are also over the water, and heading directly towards you, a quick climb out is very necessary before you start intercepting their flight-paths.

VH-KKW

After receiving our takeoff clearance, I lined up on the center-line and applied full throttle. The little Cessna quickly accelerated, and as all was fine with the engine, at 65kts (roughly 120 kph) I lifted the nose into the air. So much for a quick climb-out. The airplane decided today that it didn’t feel like climbing terribly quickly, or as Andrew put it, “it’s climbing like a dog”. We did, however, eventually reach 2,500 ft and then we had to wait until we were outside 5 miles from the airport to climb any higher. After levelling off at 3,000 ft, it was time for some instrument flying. I was given a ‘hood’, which is almost like a non-transparent sun visor, which stops you from seeing out of the windows. This forces you to fly by just looking at your instruments, which is harder than it might sound. After a good 20 minutes of that, French Island was coming into view (well, not for me) so I took off the hood.

Torrabbin has a small quirk to it; Parachuting is a common activity to the north of the airfield, which is right where we would normally fly over it. This meant that we would have to make a wide arc around the back of the airport, and swing around to join the Downwind leg for landing. So, after a nice scenic fly over of French Island, we joined Downwind for runway 04. Torrabbin also has no control tower, so the radio procedures are quite different. But, they were fairly simple to pick up, and we made a total of about 3 touch and go’s at Torrabbin. On the last climb out, Andrew got a large scare when his door opened while he was leaning on it, which is a good reminder to always wear a seat belt! It was now time though, for some more instrument flying. I was under the hood again for a lot of the trip back, until we were approaching dandenong. At this point, I took the hood off so I could get orientated to where I was so we could set up the approach. Today’s approach, however, was going to be quite different, because we were going to do an ‘overfly’.

Me: Moorabbin Tower, Kilo Kilo Whisky, Cessna 152, is GMH 1500, received Sierra, Inbound Request Overfly.

Tower: Kilo Kilo Whisky, Maintain 1500, when overhead switch to 118.1

Me: Maintaining 1500, when overhead switch to 118.1, Kilo Kilo Whisky.

With clearance from ATC, we maintained 1500 ft a flew right overhead the airport, at only 500ft above other traffic. Then we very quickly descended to join Downwind, then Base, and before you knew it the back wheels touched down on runway 35L. With a quick taxi back to the RVAC, the lesson was over. The GFPT is looming ever so close, with only about 5 hours left to go, and then I will be able to take passengers up with me. If they’re brave enough, that is.

A rare chance to practice those pesky Crosswinds.

Today’s lesson had an unusual twist to it. Usually, we either takeoff and land either on Runways 35L/R or 17L/R. However, the wind today was blowing strongly in an rare direction, so we were to use 31R. The twist if this runway is that one I’m not used to it at all, and two it cuts across the airport almost diagonally, which makes it a strange runway to fly a circuit on.

This meant that it was probably not the best day to do another solo flight. Never mind, it was still going very good practice for me. So my instructor, Andrew, and I walked out to the aircraft, and ho behold, and brand new aircraft was waiting for us. This one had all the bells and whistles, including a Garmin GPS system, and even a red button on the dashboard that would activate an Emergency Distress Beacon. Snazzy stuff. So we did all of our pre-flight inspection, got some fuel and oil in the plane, and were ready to start the engine. Interestingly, on climbing into the cockpit I found in my bag a Lidnt Chocolate Bunny that I forgot to give to my instructor at Easter. It’s never too late for chocolate though!

“Preflight Inspection: Complete.”

“Seats and Seatbelts: Adjusted upright and Locked”

“Brakes: On”

“Fuel: On”

“Circuit Breakers: In”

“Throttle: 1/4 Open”

“Mixture: Rich”

“Carburettor Heat: Cold”

“Master Switch: On”

“Beacon: On”

“CLEAR PROP”

“Magnetos: Both”

“Starter: Engage”

The engine started with ease, far more easily than I can ever remember. We both started fiddling with the radios, only to hear the engine splutter and die on us. So we enage the starter motor again. The propeller turns, but only slowly. Try again. Close, but no banana. After priming the engine and being gentle with it (and after calling “Clear Prop” about 1000 times) we got the engine running again.  This time we kept a good eye on the RPM, and it stayed stable. After sorting out a problem with my microphone, we taxied out to Runway 31R.

Me: “Moorabbin Tower, Echo Whisky November is ready at 31R for circuits, dual.”

M’ Tower: “Echo Whisky November, hold short of Runway”

Upon hearing that, I decided to put my aviators on, because of the glare. You need to at least look like you know what you’re doing. Then we saw the reason why we were holding short of the runway; a beautiful private jet flew past our windshield to land on the runway, its engines making that high pitched whine.

M’ Tower: “Echo Whisky November, Line up”

M’ Tower: Echo Whisky November, Cleared for Takeoff”

Me: “Cleared for Takeoff, Echo Whisky November”

Finally, we were destined to the sky. I applied full power, and at 65kts the Cessna lifted into the air. We climbed to 500 feet, turned crosswind, and then downwind. It takes getting used to, flying the diagonal runway, but after a few circuits it becomes fairly straightforward. Time for the pre-landing checklist:

“Brakes: Off and operating”

“Undercarriage: Down”

“Mixture: Rich”

“Master: On”

“Magnetos: Both:

“Oil Temperature and Pressure: Checked in Green”

“Autopilot: Off”

“Hatches and Harnesses: Secure”

With that sorted out, I turned the Carby heat on, reduced power and turned base. The upside of flying this circuit is that it is very scenic, you get nice views of the Melbourne CBD when climbing, and get to fly low over golf courses when descending. Things were going well, but that airspeed kept creeping up to nearly 80 knots at times. But, by the time we got on final for the runway, it had sorted itself out.

M’ Tower: “Echo Whisky November, Cleared Touch and Go.

Me: “Cleared Touch and Go, Echo Whisky November”

Now for the trickiest bit, the crosswind landing. The idea is to roll the ailerons into the wind, and then apply opposite rudder to keep the nose straight with the runway center-line. The crosswinds today were 10 knots, but this was not the strongest I had flown in before. Last year, with my old instructor Eduardo, we had flown through light rain, heavy to severe turbulence and strong crosswinds all at once. Compared to that, today should be easy as pie. Well, in theory anyway. The first landing wasn’t bad, but I didn’t quite flare enough, so it was a bit rough. Andrew suggested I don’t continually make small adjustments with the yoke, and rather just hold it in place. This worked nicely, and the landings got smoother as the circuits went on.

The final circuits went smoothly, although we were following a Piper Warrior that made extremely wide circuits. This is by far the most common annoyance that occurs in the pattern; aircraft flying extremely wide circuits which put you all out of whack. Never mind, we soldiered on an I came in to make a slightly sideways, but smooth final touchdown. We taxied back to the Aero Club, and parked the aircraft. The solo flight should go ahead next weekend, and then we will move on to the Training Area solo’s. Which will be a nice change from flying endless circuits.