I’m done with my private ground school class. This is good, since I doubt I would be able to stay awake if I had to go to class after getting up at 4:30am tomorrow to take Joanna to the airport. Dale finished up talking about Stability today, which is what he started talking about the day I started. So now I just have to concentrate on the flying until I get enough flight time and skills in order to pass a checkride. D. and I stood outside and talked awhile, and I figured we probably wouldn’t fly. But, I got…
It was a good day for flying today, I like flying later in the evening; it was about 7pm by the time we were ready to takeoff today. Since it was later, Joanna was at home when I left to go fly. She asked if she could listen to ATC, so I turned it on for her before I left. D. had me practice slow flight, right at MCA or, minimum controllable airspeed. MCA is defined as that speed at which any increase in angle of attack or decrease in airspeed will result in a stall. It’s really good practice,…
I’m listening to Berck fly. You can too here. I don’t get to hear him very often because he’s usually flying while I’m working. But today he flew at 6:30 p.m. after he picked me up for work. The air traffic controller in the tower tonight sounds like quite a character. You’re not supposed to chit-chat on the radio, but he’s been flirting with the girls and admonishing the guys up in the air tonight. All within the bounds of what he’s supposed to be saying, of course. I can’t understand a lot of what anyone says…it’s too fuzzy and…
Landing is hard. At least, landing both safely and comfortably. It’s relatively easy to muscle a Cessna 172 on the ground in most any attitude and get it stopped, particularly on a 5000 foot runway, which is about 3500 more than I would need if I were any good. D. rang up this afternoon and said, “We’ve got ceilings around 3,000 feet, let’s go do some pattern work.” It was pretty marginal VFR, but just fine for flying the pattern. If it deteriorates while you’re flying circles around the airport, it’s hard for much to go bad. I had to…
My speed for pulling this week was 92%, and that’s not adjusted for taking our breaks at weird times one day (which cut my percentages in half for a few of my runs). My very last run on Friday I pulled 254 pieces in an hour in a department where the minimum standard is 220! I think we’re getting used to having to wake up at 6:45 each morning, for me to drive to work and for Berck to bicycle to class. The bike shop is tuning his bike this week, so on Monday and Tuesday, I guess he’ll have…