Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of days...just a little busy.
Yesterday was a pretty quiet flying day. As Kyle was off at work, I did some ground school work with a different instructor, reviewing pilotage (flying to a destination by following visual references on the sectional (map)), cross country flight planning, VFR charts, lost procedures, emergency descents and emergency procedures. I then had a 1.3 hour sortie with the instructor to see if I could follow my planned flight. I was able to pick out my checkpoints and follow them and we did a couple of practice descents and landings.
Today, however, had a bit more excitement. As Kyle was still traveling for his other job, the other instructor signed me off for a solo flight out to our practice area to the southeast of Front Range Airport while he was conducting a short flight northwards. We reviewed some additional ground school materials while we waited for the airplane (N98407) from a training sortie.
As we were waiting, we saw that a beautiful old biplane had apparently ground-looped on Runway 26 while landing and had collapsed the left landing wheel. No one was injured, but the gorgeous (and I'm sure meticulously refurbished) bird was definitely looking wounded and lonesome out on the runway as airport crews and mechanics worked to try to minimize the damage and get her back to a ramp area. As I taxied out for my solo flight, I went right past her and couldn't help but feel a moment of sadness for the poor guy's plight. Such a tragedy to see a beautiful old plane like that injured....
I made a nice short field takeoff on Runway 17 and headed out to the south east to practice my steep turns, turns around a point, S-turns, power on and power-off stalls, slow flight maneuvering and forward slips to a landing. One of my power-off stalls was a bit ugly--I kept the nose up well, but the plane just wanted to change heading 20-30 degrees, which is not great. So after she finally stalled out and I had gotten back full power and started climbing again, I set up for another shot. This time, she was textbook, holding wings level and heading nailed, before she nosed over in the actual stall.
After satisfying myself that I was getting the maneuvers all down fairly well, I headed back to the airport to practice some more short field and soft-field landings. The first landing was a bit tough but I stuck her down on the ground without too much of a bounce. The second landing was bit smoother and I felt pretty good about it--the approach had been at all the right airspeeds, the wind was right and I had a good flare--though she just wanted to continue to fly, so I floated down the runway a bit.
On my third landing, as I took off again, I heard the tower calling an airplane. "Aircraft 3 to 3.5 miles south east of Front Range, you are in Class Delta airspace. Identify yourself." As there was no answer, I got a bit nervous--an aircraft only 3 miles to the southeast of the airport was pretty near to where my upwind and crosswind turns in the pattern would be. Not knowing which direction the unidentified intruder was heading, I didn't want him to blunder into my pattern without my being able to see him!
Not getting an answer from the other aircraft, the tower called me and instructed me to make a left turn and proceed to Skipi. (NOTE: Skipi is a radio beacon and final approach fix for the ILS approach to Runway 26. The final approach fix is a navigational checkpoint for planes shooting an instrument landing into an airport.) I've seen Skipi from the air a couple of times--it's a little shed with a small antenna about 5 miles east of Runway 26--but having just taken off, I was more focused on flying the airplane. I called back the tower quickly: "Front Range Tower, 407 is a student--I'm not sure exactly where Skipi is, but I know it's east of the airport if you can give me a vector." They immediately complied and steered me towards the beacon and away from the unidentified aircraft. Before I got to the beacon though, the tower changed their mind and put me in behind another Cessna in the landing pattern. The rest of my landings (7 all told for the day and 1.7 hours of solo flight) were not too bad, but only one was really good.
This afternoon was to include some more solo flight, which we were going to combine with a small cross country flight to Limon Airport, about 51 miles to the southeast. But as we flew out along my pilotage route, we found that the winds were alot stronger than forecast and that at Limon, they were gusting beyond my capabilities/limitations as a student pilot. So we turned around about halfway there and headed back to Front Range. As a test of my lost procedures, the instructor had me put my head down for a few minutes while he maneuvered the plane around. Then he had me look up and try to pinpoint on the sectional chart where I was. I put the plane into a 360 degree shallow turn and looked around me for landmarks. I gotta tell you--east of Denver, Colorado is pretty damn flat and featureless! But I was able to pick out a major paved road, which led down to I-70, which was located next to a town without a grain tower--so I was quickly able to figure out where I was just north of Strasburg. Then the instructor had me tune in the Byers VOR (vhf omni range radio navigation beacon) and fly towards it. You can use different VORs to triangulate your position to figure out where you are if you need to.
This afternoon/evening, I got a chance to take a ground instruction class with a couple of CFI (certificated flight instructors) as they trained on the use of the Garmin 1000 glass cockpit in the Diamond DA40. Though the class was primarily to familiarize the instructors, I was able to keep up and learned alot about the flight instrumentation, radios and navigational aids on the G1000--it's amazing how much information is crammed into the two screens--all of your flight instruments, engine gauges, comm and navigational radios, GPS, VORs, terrain maps, traffic warning, weather maps, flight planning pages--it even has XM Radio for the passengers! The class was about 5 hours long and included not only presentation of the G1000, but a full preflight walkaround of the Diamond Star, as well sitting in the cockpit learning to use the G1000. We also looked at the emergency procedures should the Garmin system fail--and what you'll have available for battery backup or other non-electric instruments to rely on to get you safely on the ground.
As I hope to eventually be flying a Cessna 182 with glass cockpit that CAP is getting back in New York, the introduction was a great first step in understanding the system. Hopefully later this week, I'll start on my own training in the Diamond and with the G1000.
Tomorrow, Kyle and I will be tackling some short cross country flights in the Denver area and visiting a couple of the airports around the city. Later in the week, I'll have a big cross country flight coming up--150 miles, with one leg having to be at least 50 miles long, and full stop landings at each airport, plus 3 touch and go landings at a towered airport. Kyle and I will also do little night flying this week, which I always enjoy.
That's it for now--time to grab some sleep before another early day tomorrow.
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