Solo'd (Can you believe it?!)

Solo’d!! Finally,

Went to Alice to do some T/G’S - wind was about 20° off the Right. Did several what I thought were good landings, but Tim didn’t say a word. Then he told me to pull of the runway. I just assumed he wanted to talk I but he got out instead. Told me to go on up. I was amazed, thought we were at least a week away.

Taxied back to do runup and had a chance to think. Don’t recall being concerned, maybe a little excited. Take off was easy as was climbout and the pattern. Approach smooth. Flare went ok –decent landing. Tim waved me out three more times. Did 2 more landings and a go-around (at his request).

Felt very very good to see myself really making progress. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever solo. For the first time I’m confident I’m gonna make it.

Flight #18 Tres / IFR @ CRP T&G's

Tres & I went up in IFR conditions @ CRP about 8 AM .. ceiling @ 400' .. did two instrument approaches which went very well ..

The landings were .. hmm .. 'acceptable' ...

Anyway first morning flight .. and I've been off a week .. no complaints .. no one around this afternoon or I'd go up again ...

Flight #17 T&G and IFR @ RKP (Rockport)

Tim & I left CRP in IFR ( 1000' ceilings 2mi vis ) .. got in my first IFR time (need 2 hrs?) .. not bad at all ... climbed out of the C airspace IFR then got on VOR to RKP.

Did 3? T&G's at RKP and then went to TB McAmbell and did some more .. I did much better .. than ever .. finally getting the site picture .. looking midway down the runway ...

Got very gusty .. that's when I decided to quite while I was ahead ..

Flew back to CRP .. near IFR .. had to work down thru the clouds to stay VFR .. long very ugly approach to CRP 13 .. way too fact and late on the turn .. but salvaged not bad Xlanding .. not bad at all ...!

Plan to fly again tomorrow morning .. hopefully it'll be calm .. Tim wants to know if I want to solo tomorrow .. no way ... yet.

Flight #16 w/ Pate @ Robstown .. T&G's

Met Robert about 4:30 PM .. tite on time but spent 1 hour doing T&G's at Robstown .. very short runway .. better than before .. actually 'saw' how high I was for the first time I can recall by looking midway ...

Pate showed me the wiggle the elevator to drop height .. carrier pilots use when they're coming in high .. this guy is full of tricks.

Flight #15 T&G's Alice w/ Tim

Flew over to Alice to do T&G's there with a headwind on Rwy 13 .. got back at dark and made a pseudo instrument approach into 13 at CRP ...

Things that went well .. trimming to hold speed .. patterns more square .. time for cklists .. holding altitide .. radio work

Still flaring high w/ some hard landings ...

We did do several flyovers Rwy 13 at 2 to 10 feet .. this is helping to get the elusive site picture .. need to continue to do these until it sticks ..

Wind developed into a fairly strong headwind .. blowing me downwind on the baseleg .. had to stretch my finals several times .. maybe too far ... another thing to remember is turning onto base much soon with strong headwinds ... and crabbing on base to hold the distance ..

Overall about 2+ hours ..

Learning about my GPS system

Spent all morning reading the manuals on my KLN 94 Bendix GPS system... also found a good generic online tutorial on GPS. Then Jae & I went to the A/P so I could sit in the plane and test out some of the features ( on the ground of course).

The more I learn about my little 172 the more I realize I've got a cool little plane here .. one with a lot of features I need to learn how to use.

The GPS I realize now could be a great aid no only in Xcountry .. but also in practicing my maneuvers like ground patterns (circles, etc) as it will provide reatime feedback as to how well I'm holding a circle in a cross wind for example.

Another neat feature I didn't realize I had was the ability to load frequencies directly from the GPS into the Com1 / VOR1 ..

I've got to check with Tres .. not sure if the GPS is getting digital compass and/or altitude info ( my guess is it is or how would the autopilot work). Also it appears the data loaded is for all of the America's which in addition to Canada would include all of Central and So America .. cool.

Next on my list is to learn how the autopilot works .. Pate demonstrated this on Saturday on the way back from Alice ... it worked great!!

Flight #14 Alice w/ Judge Robert Pate

Robert met me at Mercury at about 11 AM .. sat down and discussed what we were going to do and then headed out. The weather was overcast with 1500' ceilings .. but little wind ... 100 @ 8

We went to Alice but on the way did some maneuvers .. slow flight ... slow turns .. steep banks .. power off stalls ..

Once we got to Alice we got in the pattern and did 7 T&G's .. overall I did better than I'd been doing .. some things that might explain this ..

1) Started 10 deg flaps @ 80 knts at the beginning of the downleg to get the plane stable
2) Left some power in all the way to flare .. even then came off power easy .. no chop
3) Used power trim ( so I could leave my hand on the throttle ) all the way around the pattern
4) Not much wind

Still flaring a little early but the steps above seemed to make it work anyway .. allowed the plane to settle in without stalling high ..

Robert also demonstrated a soft field take-off, short field take-off and short field landing .. on the way back to Crp he demo'd the autopilot feature .. decending from 2500' to pattern altitude as we approched CRP .. he even showed me how to use the IFR approach to rwy 13 .. very cool.

We spent about 2+ hours in the air .. really enjoyed it .. he offered to go again.

Although Robert doensn't do PPL instruction he does IFR .. he offered to go again ... probably take him up on it when I've made some progress ...

I REALLY liked Alice .. once I've solo'd I'll want to use it .. wide runway .. no one there ( outside of hunting season ).

Flight #13 McAmbell & Mustang Beach T&G's

Spent 2.7 hours .. longest yet doing 10 T&G's .. @ Mc Campbell & Mustang ..
ATIS @ Crp had wind @ 090 @ 15 gusting 21 when we left on rwy 13 .. so 40 deg left for Crp and McCampbell .. Mustang about the same w/ active rwy 12. It seemed winds had picked up while we were up .. a LOT of aileron on landings and takeoffs.

The 10 landing excluded a few go-arounds. Problems included staying lined up with the Xwinds and flaring too high... some bounces and drops. I mostly stayed with a crap on approach coverting to a slip near flare point .. I think I should try slip earlier to test alignment .. just need practice slipping .. maybe some low approaches to test my ability to stay lined up with slips.

On the flare .. hmm .. maybe someday a magic light will come on and I'll know when I'm 10' instead of 40' .. just doesn't seem to want to come. Tim also pointed out that the stall horn went off several times on high flares .. I don't recall even hearing it .. something else I need to pay attention to ...

Seemed to do better holding patterns, although my downwind turn to final isn't nearly tite enough .. which may have caused me to turn late to final and endup downwind .. requiring major turn back .. poor setup for short final.

Ended things by ignoring (not listening) to Corpus Appoach on headings given after entering the C space .. Approach chewed me out and Tim my instructor let me suffer as he should have .. that won't happen again.

Surprisingly .. although the whole thing was painful I was ok .. I am committed to making this work even though I may set a record for hours logged before SOLO!!

I'm building a list of 'flying buddies' .. need to go up with them on a regular basis .. fly right seat .. watch and relax... and learn.

Diamond Twin?

Had Tres checkout the new Diamond twin .. it sure it hot and about the same price as the Columbia 400 ..

Anyway Tres made it clear there is no way he wants me to consider a twin .. in fact he's concerned that the 400 may be too hot and wants me to consider pushing off delivery to later in the year (vs May). He may be right .. something to think about.

Tres says forget the Diamond

Tres told me it would not be a good idea to try to jump directly to a twin ( Diamond ) ...

In fact he's suggested that we push off delivery on the Columbia 400 to give me time to really learn the 172 .. based upon the slow progress I'm making he's probably right ...

I'm going to give it another week and then decide .. lottsa air time for 7 days with Tim and flying buddies .. see if I have a breakthrough ...

Flight #12 T&G's @ CRP

Been almost a month since I last flew .. lottsa travel .. and nasty weather .. but this has put me way behind my schedule.

Went up with Tres today at lunch to do T&G's at CRP .. did 3 with 15-20 knots 40 degrees off the nose .. I'll have to admit I didn't do bad!! Still flaring a little high .. and drifted off center a couple times .. but not bad all things considered.

Actually I'm not counting a flight with some T&G's about 2 weeks ago .. it was so bad I'm still trying to forget it .. at least the plane is still in one piece... so I mention it here so I'm not cheating.