chamois
|  | | | | | May 14th, 2012 | | |  |
| | > Tyson's airplane |
12:29 pm 5/14/12
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I got to fly Tyson's airplane (an RV-4). Last Saturday, my instructor and Tyson went out to practice for a bit so my instructor could get used to flying from the back seat. Then it was my turn to fly up front. I could tell my instructor was less comfortable instructing in the RV-4 because he started by listing all the things he could not save me from. That and he asked a half dozen times about which gas tank we were using because he could not see himself.
Landing on grass is a lot more forgiving than landing on pavement, so we headed to Orange, a semi-local airport with good grass runways. It's actually the airport where Tyson and I bought the plane. Compared to how long it would have taken the Cherokee to get there, the RV-4 got there a lot faster. Tyson had let me fly the airplane in the air a little bit from the back seat before, so I already had an idea of how it handled in the air. I still did a little maneuvering to get comfortable
There was another experimental, a Quickie, in the pattern when we got there. It is a tandem wing, which means that rather than having a small tail elevator, it has a second wing a little further forward.
We did two landings on the grass. They went well enough that I decided to switch to the pavement. That did not go quite so well. My directional control was fine. It must have carried over from the Citabria, but I was allowing the airplane to hit the runway a little too hard and bounce back up. I did several variations on that including one where I over corrected badly enough that I started porpoising and the instructor had to save it. Another one we ended up doing a go around. Eventually I declared it time for a break. We watched the sky divers landing on the other side of the airport as we taxied to the main office.
We actually ran into the guy who had sold us the airplane, so we stopped to chit chat a bit. My instructor seemed to think it was kind of cool that he was getting to teach the wife of the new owner of the RV-4 how to fly it. Guess that does not happen too often. During our break, we reviewed the landings and discussed some approaches to make them better.
We went back out freshened up for a second try. This time my landings were much better. I had my instructor count off the distance to the ground so I could get a better idea of my descent profile. The idea is to be flying almost parallel to the runway when you touch it. Then he was silent for a few and I got one perfect. My instructor would have jumped in glee were he not securely attached by his harness. He thought we should just quit there to end on a high note, but I wanted to keep working that approach into my memory, so we did a few more. We were having enough fun we pushed until sunset and I got tired enough that I fishtailed on landing and my instructor had to save it. Then we flew home.
For me, it was a great day because I was learning to fly a new airplane and a tricky one at that. My instructor got to learn how to teach in a new airplane. By the end of the evening, he seemed much more confident is his abilities. And, apparently, he was enjoying the more sporting trip around the traffic pattern unlike in the Cherokee where he corrects me every time I bank more than 20 degrees. Guess different airplanes have different rules.
Flying back home, the setting sun turned the clouds to the west red and pink. To the east, the brilliant full moon was rising through the clouds. We crossed one ridge and found a solid bank of clouds. Descended under the clouds we disappeared into the gloom. On the flight back we discussed different airplanes I have flown. I think right now the Citabria is my favorite. It is forgiving, unlike the Maule and the RV-4. But it is also playful, unlike the Cherokee and Cub which are just forgiving. Once I get better, my favorite airplane will continue evolving with my skills, but for now, both my instructor and Tyson are disappointed their airplane isn't first. I got a little bit lost coming home -- combination of coming from a different airport, and a much faster airplane. But I did fine on the landing into Brookline with some coaching. We taxied back to the hangar, and Tyson got a picture of the two of us just grinning from the fun of the evening.
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| | > First rock climb of the year |
08:18 am 5/14/12
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Saturday, we went on the AMC rock climbing trip to Marlow. For most of us, it was the first time out, so everyone was a little behind on their form. Neither Tyson nor I were officially leading the trip, but we helped out with setting up anchors to get some practice and make the trip run smoother.
Since I did not climb much last year, I was expecting to be really out of practice. But the technique came back after a climb or two. Though, I did not bother attempting the one 5.10 that was set up. I have done it before and know it requires some really good foot work and strong fingers for little crimps.
At least on the mix of cracks on that cliff, I seem to rely too much on laybacks and high stepping.
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| | > Citabria landings |
08:11 am 5/14/12
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I made it out twice last week and then once Monday. The weather the rest of the week has not been conducive to flying. None of them were me going out solo, so I really need to go practice that more. Middle of last week, the clouds were far too low for practicing more spins, so my flight instructor and I took the Citabria out to work on tailwheel takeoffs and landings. We did a very abbreviated pattern to get more landings in. I will say that one of the benefits of tandem (front-rear) seating is my instructor can't see the airspeed indicator through my head, so I don't have to worry about him correcting me for being slightly off. While that means I was not flying the airplane as precisely, the benefit that I did not feel like I had to chase the instruments which is one of my bad habits. Our funky, lollipop pattern was a little more free form too.
We did some three point (same attitude as my normal plane) landings, some of those with the instruments completely covered over. Then I upped the ante and started trying to do wheel landings. For these landings, the airplane lands in a much more horizontal attitude with just the main gear touching. Supposedly they are better for stopping quickly. For me, they are just practice widening the envelope of my skills. I found it really hard to break my standard landing sequence. I ended up having to have my instructor talk me through when to flare for a bunch of them. In the end, I got a few good ones.
Flying around our free form pattern was pretty fun. My instructor did think I was being more cautious of the terrain than I needed to be, but I suppose that's not the worst thing. Since I was having fun, I offered my instructor the last takeoff and landing of the day so he could have some fun too. In all, we did 18 landings. That's quite a lot for one session.
After all those landings, my instructor said I was ready to try flying Tyson's airplane. First, though, he and Tyson needed to go out and practice.
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| | | May 9th, 2012 | | | |
| | > Weekend |
08:27 am 5/9/12
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Last weekend I tried to fit too much in. So I got a whole bunch of stuff done, but I also did not get a whole bunch of stuff done. There were household chores to catch up on, the remaining plants to plant, practice flying, motorcycle repairs, and hopefully a day of kayaking.
I got some of the household chores done, though not nearly all of them. Tyson helped out one of the neighbors with his projects, and then they went flying. I only managed to get 5 more plants planted. There is so little top soil around our house that I am digging up a large hole and filling it with a wheelbarrow full of top soil from the pile for each plant. I have 12 plants left to go, so that's another two weekends or so at this rate.
I gave up on working on my motorcycle myself and just took it into the shop. Of course I only barely managed to quite gardening in time to get to the shop before they closed. Then we ran more errands.
Finally back from that, I went out flying, but I'll leave that for another post.
Sunday I had been hoping to go kayaking all day, but first I had to clean up the gardening mess. Tyson was still working on our ventilator and he wanted the ladder out of the garage and mounted. It was after noon by the time we had all that done. That nixed any plans of going to the coast. It was supposed to have been a really nice day - 12 second period, one to two foot waves, blue skies, and not much wind. Once we counted prep and cleanup time, the only thing we had time left for was a local hike.
So we did a 5 mile section of the Wapack trail. It included the only section I had not done yet. Some of the trillium were in full bloom, another type was past its prime. We saw one jack in the pulpit. The blueberries were all blooming. Unfortunately, ATVs were abusing one part of the trail, so that ended my idyllic relaxation and enjoyment of nature.
I wish I could say next weekend will be more relaxing, but I don't think it will be. I yet again have a full day of kayaking on the agenda. It is frustrating that I have had it there for a month and a half and we have not yet managed more than occasional half day. trips. Saturday we are signed up for the first of the AMC rock climbing trips which should be fun. And, of course there are all the chores we are already behind on.
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| | | May 4th, 2012 | | | |
| | > spins |
01:19 pm 5/4/12
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Spins are, depending on whom you ask, a deadly event which can occur on landing, or a fun and fairly tame aerobatic maneuver. They are not required to become a private pilot, but training is generally recommended. So, I decided, to better myself as a pilot and take the training. To those who do not know what a spin is, it is a maneuver where you stall both wings of the airplane, one of them more so than the other. That sets the airplane spiraling (non-aviation definition) towards the ground -- much like a falling maple seed. Except in the airplane, you recover before hitting the ground.
My primary airplane, a Cherokee, is not certified for aerobatic flight, so we borrowed one of the other airplanes on the field, a Citabria. That airplane is a tail dragger so it was also an excuse to get me current again with a tail wheel. It turns out, the airplane is just plain fun too which might have been part of my instructor's reasoning for choosing that plane.
After reviewing everything with my instructor, I did the takeoff unaided. I was pleasantly impressed with how much I remembered of how to fly a tail wheel. It was not perfect, but not as bad as I feared.
For spins, we wanted to start respectably high. On the climb up, I familiarized myself with the airplane -- aileron and rudder coordination, power on stalls and recovery, etc. Then we got up to altitude. My instructor again reviewed the sequence of events for the spin, and then said "here let me demonstrate one."
And I promptly freaked out.
I had thought by reading extensively on spins beforehand that I had prepared myself for controlling the airplane through, what was described as, a reasonably predictable sequence of events. Now I was faced with someone else sending the airplane I was sitting in spinning and tumbling out of the sky, and it was too much for my little monkey brain to handle. From past experience flying with Tyson I knew that if we did the demonstration spin right then, I would just freak out worse and not be willing to do any more aerobatic flight that day, and quite possibly make it even harder the next time I tried to take a spins class. I have also noticed that some days I am more paranoid about aerobatics than others. So I was thinking that maybe today was not the day to learn spins. We could still do a few landings and takeoffs before heading home. Spins might have to wait for another day.
Before I decided to totally give up, I figured I would make an attempt to calm down. Just sitting there was not helping. The one thing I could think of that might rebuild my confidence was for me to fly the airplane in some unusual attitudes and see if that would convince my monkey brain we weren't going to die. So, I did a couple wing-overs. They weren't pretty, but I was in control of the airplane and pointing it in various directions distinctly different from straight and level flight. Throughout, the airplane behaved just fine. I felt a little better after the wing-overs, but I was not sure if I was enough calmer that trying a spin would not be a permanently scaring event. This put me in the situation where not only was I anxious about the spin, but now I was also worried that I might still be too nervous to do the spin.
My instructor came up with a little encouragement and said we should just do it. So he pitched the nose up, kicked left rudder, the nose fell over to the left, and then we started spinning. That was the scary part. Luckily, it did not last too long before he recovered. While the spin had been scary, I was relieved to find afterwards that I was less nervous than before. I was headed in the right direction, towards a frame of mind where I might be able to learn something.
Then it was my turn. I pulled the nose up to a stall, pushed the left rudder and around we went. I was ok while the nose was still generally up, but as we started rotating and headed down, I was terrified. I shoved full might on the right rudder, pushed the stick forward, and squeezed my eyes shut to make it go away. The correct recovery technique in that airplane is just a little bit of right rudder and release back pressure on the stick. I heard later that my instructor had to help the recovery a little. Once we were out of the spin and I just had to pull out of the dive, I was back in the realm of flying I know. So I was able to fly the airplane out and finish the recovery.
We regained our altitude and reviewed what I needed to improve for the second try. This time my legs were shaking, but I was still game. Pitch the nose up, kick left rudder, nose drops off to the left, shriek in terror, world spins around, instructor's count makes it to one full turn, push the right rudder a little more gently, shove the stick forward, pull out, and relax. It came out a little better, and needed less help. My instructor did note that I pitched the airplane forward too fast and probably got to zero g's. I never even noticed what with the rest of the whirling and diving.
The next spin was similar. My recovery sequence was a little better, but my terror level was about the same. After that spin, I remembered a suggestion from a book to look at reference points farther out, not just at the ground directly under the airplane. That helped. The first half turn, basically as long as I could see the horizon plus a second, was no longer very scary. The second half, was still too much for me. I noticed when my instructor demonstrated another spin that his had a smoother entry and stayed slower, and thus less scary, throughout.
From talking with Tyson later, I realized the last quarter to half turn, I was really going into tunnel vision from being scared. This ment I did not see the airplane's responses to my control inputs. For example, I never actually saw the airplane stop rotating. Instead, on the climb between spins, I took the feedback from my instructor and improved my rote recovery sequence.
We did a bunch more spins. Each one I recovered a little better. That also ment we stayed in the terrifying nose down, twirling around state a little less long. I got to the point where pretty much as soon as the spin was broken, it was no bigger deal than a stall recovery. I ended the session with "just one more" spin which turned out really nicely. The spins themselves I still find scary, but the sense of accomplishment of learning to do a nice recovery made me happy. My instructor wanted to do one more demonstration. I said no. I had my sense of accomplishment, but I had no desire to sit through another bout of fear just for him to have fun.
Since we had the Citabria, we went on to do some landings at a local airport. The first landing we had a little issue with me thinking the airplane was lined up with the runway when my instructor was sure it needed to point farther left. This actually matters quite a bit in a tail wheel since it can lead to ground looping. Once we got that sorted out, the landing itself was so-so, but it worked out. On takeoff I did some high speed wheel taxiing to get the feel for how the airplane should look and handle on takeoff. We repeated more landings and takeoffs with wheel taxis. Flying around the airport was where I discovered that airplane was fun. After a few increasingly better landings, we started pushing sunset and had to head home.
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| | | May 2nd, 2012 | | | |
| | > Transportation woes |
12:44 pm 5/2/12
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Monday I rode my motorcycle to work. That is not anything out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary was the smoke I saw coming off the motorcycle when I parked it. There was some fluid dripping onto the exhaust pipe and then burning off. Not being particularly savvy about the internals of my motorcycle, I noted the color of the fluid (blue/green) and location of the drip and figured I would ask around.
That afternoon, I got one of the other engineers who used to own the same model motorcycle to come look at it. The fluid was coolant coming out of an overflow hose. We checked the reservoir and it had plenty left. So the other engineer pretty much shrugged and said, it happens some times. I wasn't particularly convinced by any of the plausible scenarios - the reservoir hadn't been too full because it had not been filled for a number of rides. I didn't think it would have overheated since it was below freezing for a good part of the ride in. In any event, it looked safe to ride home.
On the ride home, I did not notice anything special. I usually drain the carburetors every time I park the motorcycle for the night because they gunk up with ethanol if I don't ride the motorcycle for a week. Some times I remember to turn the gas switch off far enough out that the engine putters out not long after I arrive, other times I forget and have to wait a couple minutes. Monday was the latter case. As the engine was puttering out, I heard splashing on the floor and saw coolant pouring out. The temperature gage read high, and I realized I was not hearing the cooling fan. So it looks like I need to go figure out what is wrong with my motorcycle before I ride it again.
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| | | May 1st, 2012 | | | |
| | > Kayaking Sunday - lake Contoocook |
10:13 pm 5/1/12
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I forget the exact wind forecast for sunday, but in general recently it has been gusting 25mph. The wind was offshore, and the wave forecast was miniscule. So we decided that local lake paddling was a more interesting idea. We ended up picking the particular lake based on it being an excuse to visit Tyson's grandmother who lives right on it. Beyond that we did not really have a plan, and it showed. I set off paddling and Tyson started practicing rolls. Then I switched to putzing around and he decided to go for paddling distance. Finally we both ended up putzing, but the area we were exploring was too shallow because the dam on the lake was set low. Over lunch we regrouped and formed a plan. Putzing did not really seem that interesting. It was a bit too chilly for lots of roll practice to be fun (though I did do several reverse sweeps and sculling forward finish practices. The first few used way too much arm strength. I tried concentrating on my leg and hip motion, but that made it worse. Then I tried concentrating on keeping my shoulders horizontal and that made an immense improvement. I also did an offside hand roll for variety. I obviously don't do it often enough because it felt wierd, but I came up just fine.) In any event, that left us with distance paddling or strength training. We had the wind to fight which really just reframes the problem. So we headed off down the lake. We found some almost fun waves to play in. The wind was whiping up white crests, but unfortunately the fetch was short so their period was fairly short. Also, they were going slow enough that a reasonable paddling rate outpaced the waves thus minimizing any surfing benefit. As usual, I could almost but not quite keep up with Tyson. So I had him attach a tow line to me. It turned out that the extra drag from the tow line was enough that I could keep up with him just fine. We made it down most of the length of the lake before he declared that he was tired of dragging the rope around in the water. So we hauled it in and then both set a good pace back. It felt good to push myself to really make some speed in the kayak. I also think I was doing a little better on paddle technique. I will definitely need more strength training before I can sustain a racing pace with a reverse cant stroke for more than a short distance. As mentioned before, after the sustained workout in the kayak and the yard work the day before, I fell asleep in no time flat in the car.
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| | > Sunday Flying |
09:42 pm 5/1/12
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Sunday morning there was a brief moment of calm winds. It was not long enough to get the neighborhood together for breakfast as one of the other student pilots and I had been discussing. But it was long enough for Tyson and I to roll out of bed at 6 am and head for one of the nearby airports with a diner. We took the airplane I usually fly. I did most of the flying, but we also took the opportunity to give Tyson a little bit of practice in it so that if ever we end up out in conditions above my head, he could safely get us home. Having a passenger is definitely distracting, having an S.O. along is doubly so. Therefore I did not do as much technique practice as I normally do on my flights. Before breakfast I did two soft field landings. Somehow, subtly changing my landing strategy to have a slower rate of decent, and thus a softer touch down, is hard. The standard approach is to use a little extra power at the flare. I did a little bit better at landing softly than previous times, though there was still a noticeable tap. However, I floated a good long way down the runway. I suppose that's why I was practicing at a larger airport. At breakfast, there was a kid behind us wondering where the fighter jet was. I guess you can't meet everyone's expectations. After breakfast, the winds had picked up. Tyson decided I should go work on cross wind landings and takeoffs. There was no one else around flying, so we were ok using a crossing runway to normal traffic. Takeoff is much easier than landing. You basically just keep the airplane going straight until it takes off and then you turn into a crab (or ferry angle if you were a kayaker). For landing, you have to keep the nose pointed straight down the runway and the airplane moving parallel to the runway. You do this by dropping the upwind wing and flying the airplane kind of sideways compared to the air mass (otherwise known as a slip). Farther out on the approach, I am fine doing the slip. When I get right down ready to land, I chicken out about keeping the wing down even though I still need to. Tyson noticed that in between, I would slip until I got the airplane nice and lined up, and then I would lift the wing and swing off course. He said it was almost like I had no integral term in my PID controller. I did three takeoffs and landings and then called it quits. I was about full up on trying to be patient enough to learn from an SO. All of the landings were fine in the airplane I was flying, but Tyson was concerned none of them were good enough to transition to a tailwheel airplane including his.
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| | > weekend update |
08:21 am 5/1/12
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We had a very effective weekend. I started Saturday by planting the hardiest of the plants I had bought. There is not much top soil around our house, so I had to import a bunch from the loam pile at the other end of the yard. That pile is well over my head, so it may just be that we need to bring it all back to the house and spread it around. I worry about messing up drainage, though by bringing the ground around the house up too much. While I was working with the loam pile, I noticed there were some blueberries growing on top. So I transplanted one of them to the front of the house. There was not much more I could do with the plants given the frost warnings, but I did line the one walkway through the future plant bed with rocks. Then I switched to cleaning up the yard. Our yard has a lot of dead fall. About 30 or 40 years ago (guessing from tree ages), the property was logged, so there is old debris lying around from that opperation. Then when we moved in, we had all the pine logged and made a new mess. Then last fall we had the early snow storm which cracked all our oaks in half or worse. Since I did not have the power tools out to deal with the still half attached oaks, I concentrated on the downed debris in one area. I also found an old metal fence post. It is slow work, so it ended up being a postage size area I cleaned up. Then Tyson and I took our trash and recycling to the dump (including the fence post). On the way back I showed Tyson an old mill dam in one of the state forests. I had missed it last time I was there, but some of the old gears are lying in the stream a little ways below the dam. That afternoon, I switched to staining a wood access ladder we are going to put up in the house. I had procrastinated on that until the garage warmed up. Meanwhile Tyson got out the chain saw and worked on the worst of the oaks that had actually fallen into the airport property. He made great progress chopping them up, but when I finished staining he was still hauling piles of branches. With two of us the cleanup went faster. There is still tons more to do in that area, but with the worst of the storm damage removed, it looks better from the house and from the airport. All that yard work pretty well tired us out. My legs were quite sore. So we treated ourselves to dinner out. Sunday morning, there was a break in the prevalent windy conditions, so I flew Tyson to breakfast. Then we went over to his grandmother's to go kayaking. I fell asleep on the ride home. My body was really hoping I could be lazy the rest of the evening, but no, I varnished the ladder. So now all that project needs is to be mounted to the wall.
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| | | April 27th, 2012 | | | |
| | > yard improvement |
10:33 pm 4/27/12
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I finally found time to go down to the New England Wildflower Society to get some native plants for the bare spots in the yard. Apparently at this time of the year, most of what they have is more woodland and shade oriented species. The meadow type plants do not sprout for another month. Most of the yard is on the sunny southern side of the house, but I do have two shadier areas alongside the house, so I picked plants for there. I am really not much of a gardener, so I picked plants by a mixture of what I recognized and what sounded interesting from the label. I ended up with some blood root, ferns, columbine, false salomon seal, and red chokeberry that I regonize. And then blue-eyed grass and jacobs ladder, both unknown to me. Almost all of them should have some sort of flower, and the chokeberry should be good fall folliage. Of course, now that I have the plants, the next three evenings it is supposed to frost. So, I think that means I have to keep them inside?
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