Padre Solo Photo Shoot

Fun trip! Beautiful morning .. decided to make a fun trip and just fly down the beach and back. Logged 1.5 hrs on the Hobbs.

Left Crp @ 9:30 AM on 17 ( winds 180 @ 12 ) departed north and then east alone the coast. Flew over Aransas Pass .. taking pics of the Offshore rigs under construction. Followed Aransas around .. then jumped across to Port Aransas .. circled and then headed south.

Had flight following from the ATC .. real nice guy .. helped me in / out of the NGP D space .. made it down to Packery Channel and then headed back north along the beach. Got some good pics of a number of land developments going down (need a better camera) .. with AP on.

Got to PortA .. then headed back west working my way around CC Bay .. finally for a straight in on Crp 17 (winds 170 @ 12).

Did not land anywhere .. hmm .. wonder if this counts as XCountry time... doesn't matter because I really enjoyed the flight and it was another time away from Crp solo. I'm gonig to do more of these to keep my interest level up and to remind myself why I'm doing this.

XWinds w/ Tres @ Crp .. it's the rudder baby!

Tres and I went up at lunch to do some XWind T&G's .. squeezed in 3. Wind was 340 @ 12 17G. We used Rwy 31 to get 40 degrees .. so maybe 6 to 9 kts of Xwind.

Overall pretty good .. one revelation was my use of the rudder in XWind landings. Here's what I was doing ...

Crab in until preflare and go to slid slip .. i.e. ... left rudder to align the plane .. right ailereon to hold center .. so far so good ...

Flare .. right wheel touches .. then left .. then the nose .. this is where I've been screwing up ...

I've been leaving left rudder in ( so naturally plane goes left ) .. instead I need to go to neutral rudder after the mains touch and let the nose down .. neutral.

Then as soon as the nose touches .. ease in right rudder to hold the plane against the Xwind on the ground ..

Aileron's should be full right as soon as wheels touch .. I have been doing this but not enough and not consistently ...

The Big Insight today was the rudder thing .. ! Left .. then Neutral ... then Right ( at least for a right cross wind).

B17 Liberty Bell at CRP

Flight #32 Long Solo Cross Country...done!

Corpus to Alice to McAllen to Port Mansfield back to Corpus, 244 miles, 3 hours. Did T&G's at Alice and McAllen. In addition to pilotage I used VORs and GPS, so no problems getting lost. Radios were no problem as I had written down all the frequencies.

Flew ALI to McAllen at 7500',following hwy 44 along with MFE and ALI, VORs. Used Autopilot for the first time, what a huge improvement that was... actually let me do other things like look at the sectional and the ground. Had two Navy jet trainers flying off my left wing, maybe 5 miles-very cool.

Encountered broken clouds about half way, which caused me some concern. Began shallow decent about 25 miles out , dropped under clouds down to pattern altitude flying over the city ( bit nervy) saw runway 13 no problem, major road directly in front of the threshold, not so pretty landing, then off again .

Left turn North to intercept the 51° radial to Port Mansfield. Climbed back through the cloud deck. I was a little concerned that I could climb fast enough to get on top without going into the clouds - a little exciting.

Turned North at Port Mansfield following VOR radials for Brownsville and Corpus at 6500'. Beautiful weather or top but view of beach was obscured by clouds.

After passing over Baffin Bay flew into CRP C space passing on Westside to setup for runway 17 (winds 180 @ 12). That was my first landing on 17 and it sure looked short (only 5000'). Landing was sloppy with a few bounces.... but ..... damn I did it! what a good feeling it was!

This was the first flight since I began this process that I actually enjoyed. Hopefully many more to come.

Today was especially important since I had bailed on this trip yesterday after going out to the airport, pre-flighting,and starting. I had all kinds of reasons (crosswinds, etc.), but more than anything it was a lack of confidence. This was my first Solo trip away from CRP.

VOR Nav; Unusual Attitudes & Night Cross Country!

After about 4 1/2 hrs flying .. getting into Cpr at Midnight .. getting locked out of the FBO .. home at 1 AM .. I'm a beat puppy this morning! My eyes feel like they have sand in them from staring at the Attitude Indicator. Needless to say it was a tough evening but well worthwhile.

Tim & I began a groundschool on all three subjects at 6 PM .. took off around 7 ( I need to get a watch) and worked near the Crp VOR for about 1 hour. After a brief lesson on instrument flying ( we'd done some before ) Tim began play ATC and giving me clearances ( " Turn right and fly outbound on the 090 radial..") After doing this a while he gave me a short lesson in unusual attitudes .. look down maneuver .. now look up and recover. That was a real eye opener .. My body did not know the attiude I was in once I looked up .. then you had to process this info ( not looking outside ) to straight and level flight. After completing this we flew back to Crp for a break.

Checking the weather Victoria was to have scattered at 2500' with Haze. After some discussion I decided to proceed with the night cross country. After takeoff missed the Crp VOR inbound radial but did pick up 029 outbound ok while climbing to 7500' .. instrument flying (dark). Basically got lost near Vct .. said another way I wasnt' sure the city below was Vct .. once I convinced myself it was spent at least 30 minutes trying to find the airport .. it had remote lighting and I was flying around clicking the mic .. and looking.

Finally found it and did a straight in on 14 there .. ok landing .... off again back home to Crp. Better job following the Crp Vor back .. finally landing at Crp .. that one was not pretty ... think I was just exhausted. Oh ya then we were locked out of the FBO .. finally got John on the phone to get gate code.

Lessons Learned .. a lot of them ...

1) Write all the radio & VOR freq's on a card before leaving .. this was a MAJOR issue as it was such a job holding heading / alt on instruments .. everytime I attempted to look at the Sectional ( had to find my reading glasses first) I drifted off heading or altiude .. then had to fight to get it back .. then try to find the freq again ... then .. on and on

2) Trim .. need to practice trimming .. maybe I havn't done enough of this but I was fighting to NOT CLIMB .. not trimmed .. too much power.

3) USE THE BUG .. once I decide where I'm going .. VOR Radial .. ATC clearances, .. whatever .. set bug immediately! and go to the bug!

4) Landings .. needs lots more practice

There were a lot of things about this flight I'm not happy about .. but overall there is no doubt I got some excellent instrument time and many of these techniques are now welded into my brain .. just because there's no better learning situation than to be at 7500' over a dark city ... in haze and clouds .. after 4 hours of flying .. looking for a dark airport .. not even sure your in the right city!!

Solo T&Gs @ Crp

Did 2 T&G's and 1 full stop at Crp with wind 090 @ 6 on 13. A little turbulence but not much. All three were soft but probably flat because I was having some directional control 'issues' after touchdown .. probably on the nose wheel.

ATC chewed on me since I made a full stop on the Option ( although FARs defines the option to include a full stop) .. anyway the lady controller made it very clear I should have told her .. as Tim has told me numerous times.. anyway I won't do that again.

I had hoped to go to Alice to log some Cross Country time but visibility at Crp and ALI were both around 3 SM ...MVFR .. and when I looked west it looked very nasty.

Maybe I'll try this afternoon although TAF predicts strong gusty winds this afternoon and the sky is full of cum's.

I didn't fly yesterday because of nearby T's and heavy overcast. Weather's gonna have to improve for a few days for me to do my solo long cross country .. gonna be tite to be ready for the Check Ride on the 17th.

Self Acessment:

STILL landing flat .. why oh why can't I get my brain to finish the flare?

Also, .. if anything overcommunicate with ATC

Finally .. did see the guy with the Cirrus take it out ( he left right behind me to ALI) .. assume he was going there to practice .. wonder if he's IFR?

Study: Heavy Duty Weather ...

Had hoped to log some Cross Country time today .. but nearby T storms and low ceilings prevented that. So instead I reviewed a lot of material on weather .. mainly the types of reports ( METAR ) and forecasts (TAF) and how to decode them. Spent a good 8 hours laying on the couch trying to soak it all in.

This got me to wonder how accurate the TAF really is .. I need to begin checking it ( predicted winds vs actual ) ...

If anything the amount of information available is overwhelming and the trick would seem to be to decide which resources to use and get a process defined .. you could easily spend a day trying to go to all the available resources.

I not anywhere near the point of enjoying the actual flying part there's a fear factor .. and I think maybe I'm pushing myself to fast... why not wait for these May winds to settle down? .. and the book work is getting very tedious .. I was hoping it would be over after the written test ....Afterall .. I'm not on any critical schedule .. if it takes another month to get my PPL on a pace I'm more comfortable with .. what the hey? Overall I'm a little down ... but that's probably normal.

Flight #29 Dual Cross Country to McAllen

Although Tim signed me to do my cross country solo, this dual trip was overall poor.

To begin, despite having prepared a thorough flight plan using AeroPlanner, with visual ckpoints and times along the beach, the weather was heavy clouds going south.. probably 1800 broken and solid. Added to this Tim turned off the GPS which I had also programmed with the flight plan ( a plus ). So there I was trying to dodge clouds very limited visual checkmarks .. and only the Nav's remaining. I first flew west to find VFR and landmarks. Found Hwy 77 and eventually got a fix using one Nav. I blew off my intermediate stops at So Padre & Brownsville.

Worked our way south into McAllen with a crappy landing and 2 hours in the air. Rested about 30 minutes, refueled, filed new flight plan back .. and oh by the way Tim introduced me to my FAA check ride instructor Charlie McDougle ( he didn't seem the least bit interested in me).

Left McAllen taking a radial north doing a fair job holding the radial while working up through a broken layer (base 1500 tops 5000) up to 5500'. Had to climb to 7500' to stay VFR. Finally spotted Hwy 281 and some landmarks along the highway with a lot of help from Tim.

Decending was a little too exciting .. shooting a hole in the clouds .. pulling all the way off the throttle to keep airspeed below redline. Tim suggested doing slow spiral instead but I didn't think I could keep it tite enough to stay VFR. Next time I'll just look for a larger hole.

Once we were under it got turbulent but not too bad. Although I could see the town of Alice I couldn't see the airport .. Tim suggested staying on the VOR radial and sure enough that led me there. Did field flyover, and a 270 turn into a left downwind for 13 .. landing was pretty good. Took another break.

Flight back to Crp uneventful .. Tim setup autopilot and we got a straight in to 13 .. landing was good.

I of course was very disappointed with my inability to use VOR's .. but learned a lot on this trip. Gonna do some mini cross countrys near Crp before attempting the McAllen trip .. and of course continued T&G practice.

Staying on the necessary schedule for my checkride is going to be hard .. the weather today is again very bad with TStorms predicted for the next few days.