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LJ Idol 9.27: Solo (open topic)
Nov. 4th, 2014 09:04 amIn an age of mass air travel, I hold the curious distinction of being the first person in my family to have flown on an airplane. The occasion of that flight was my departure for Marine boot camp, and at times, I can recall the rush I felt that day—as the ground fell away beneath my window—as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.
Had my mother been in charge of cutting my orders for boot camp, I suspect she would have specified that I travel from New York to Parris Island by rail, or bus, or bicycle, or even on foot before allowing me to board an aircraft. She believed that heavier-than-air objects were intended by Providence to remain on the ground, and she did her best, in the course of my formative years, to instill in me the same luxurious and deep-rooted fear of flying—and of airplanes—that she had.
It didn't work. Moreover, over the course of a summer job that involved three or four flights a week to various places to visit suppliers on behalf of an engineering company, I resolved that someday, I'd learn to fly. That said, my resolve was held in check by there being no small airport conveniently situated near where I lived, and by the cost of lessons.
That first barrier fell when I landed a job in Scotts Valley, California, which turned out to be a short ride by car from the municipal airport in Watsonville, just south of Santa Cruz and the home of two flight schools. The second barrier–well, it was clear, based on my occasional inquiries over the years, that prices for flying lessons weren't coming down any time soon, and were only likely to go up. So, I enrolled in flight school.
Flying is actually pretty easy. In fact, the way most schools operate, the first time you sit down in an airplane with your instructor, you're pretty much the one who flies the plane, from takeoff all the way to the point where it's time to land, at which point the instructor takes over. But learning to fly involves much more than just the actual flying.
Besides a number of rules and regulations you must become familiar with, there is a bit of skull work you have to do to master the mechanics of what you're doing–things like calculating weight and balance and plotting courses. There is equipment you must learn to use, habits you must develop, and skills you must master.
There are some physics concepts you have to wrap your mind around, as well. For example, a wind that blows from directly behind your plane helps you cover ground quicker; a wind that blows from directly in front slows you down. This may seem simple enough, except that more often than not, the wind will blow from one side or the other—a so-called "crosswind"—which is when things get interesting, because besides affecting your ground speed, such winds will also push your airplane off your intended course.
In any event, after having received the requisite "ground school" instruction and spent a number of hours flying with my instructor, there came a day when we were taxiing back to the school's aircraft parking area when he told me to stop the plane on the taxiway, whereupon he got out and invited me to go take off, fly around the airport's "pattern" (an imaginary rectangle in the sky over an airport's active runway), and then land the plane.
It was time for my first "solo."
I had wanted to savor as much as I could of the experience of taking off in an airplane by myself, but frankly, I was too busy paying attention to what was going on around me and on the instrument panel in front of me to stop and smell whatever might've passed for daisies in that cockpit. I did pause, for a few seconds while flying the "downwind" leg of the pattern, to take a somewhat more leisurely look around, and suppress the urge to yell, "Look, ma, I'm flying!"
As I made my turn onto the "final" leg of the pattern, I became aware that something was not right—I couldn't get lined up with the runway. A glance at the wind sock on the ground told me why: a crosswind, blowing from right to left and very nearly perpendicular to the runway centerline, had sprung up in the time between my takeoff and "turning final," and this crosswind was pushing me sideways as I flew toward the runway. Now awkwardly positioned, I abandoned my attempt to land, applied engine power, and executed what pilots call a "go-around." I would fly around the pattern again, and then land.
I had learned about crosswind landings in class, and had done one or two with my instructor during our time in the air. The trick in a crosswind landing is to point your airplane just enough in the direction from which the wind is blowing to keep the airplane moving along a line that will take it down the runway centerline. This is somewhat disconcerting, because this close to the ground, it's obvious that the direction in which your airplane is pointed is not the direction in which you are traveling. Finally, in the last few seconds before touching down on the runway's surface, you gently turn the airplane to align it with the runway and land.
During my second landing attempt, everything went well until I started to align the airplane while still a bit too high above the runway, so now I was drifting slowly to the left as I descended the final dozen feet or so to the ground. Would the plane touch down before the wind caused it to drift completely off the runway? I decided not to find out, so I did another go-around.
"Cherokee zero-two whisky. Are you okay up there?" came the voice of my instructor over the radio as I gained altitude. I imagined the heartburn my instructor must have been experiencing at that moment, thinking that I'd perhaps lost my nerve and could not bring myself to land the plane.
I picked up the radio's microphone, briefly explained the situation with the unexpected crosswind, and told my instructor there was nothing to worry about. "I'll nail it this time," I told him.
And I did.
It was a beautiful crosswind landing, and quite a memorable milestone for me, a newly minted "solo pilot."
Had my mother been in charge of cutting my orders for boot camp, I suspect she would have specified that I travel from New York to Parris Island by rail, or bus, or bicycle, or even on foot before allowing me to board an aircraft. She believed that heavier-than-air objects were intended by Providence to remain on the ground, and she did her best, in the course of my formative years, to instill in me the same luxurious and deep-rooted fear of flying—and of airplanes—that she had.
It didn't work. Moreover, over the course of a summer job that involved three or four flights a week to various places to visit suppliers on behalf of an engineering company, I resolved that someday, I'd learn to fly. That said, my resolve was held in check by there being no small airport conveniently situated near where I lived, and by the cost of lessons.
That first barrier fell when I landed a job in Scotts Valley, California, which turned out to be a short ride by car from the municipal airport in Watsonville, just south of Santa Cruz and the home of two flight schools. The second barrier–well, it was clear, based on my occasional inquiries over the years, that prices for flying lessons weren't coming down any time soon, and were only likely to go up. So, I enrolled in flight school.
Flying is actually pretty easy. In fact, the way most schools operate, the first time you sit down in an airplane with your instructor, you're pretty much the one who flies the plane, from takeoff all the way to the point where it's time to land, at which point the instructor takes over. But learning to fly involves much more than just the actual flying.
Besides a number of rules and regulations you must become familiar with, there is a bit of skull work you have to do to master the mechanics of what you're doing–things like calculating weight and balance and plotting courses. There is equipment you must learn to use, habits you must develop, and skills you must master.
There are some physics concepts you have to wrap your mind around, as well. For example, a wind that blows from directly behind your plane helps you cover ground quicker; a wind that blows from directly in front slows you down. This may seem simple enough, except that more often than not, the wind will blow from one side or the other—a so-called "crosswind"—which is when things get interesting, because besides affecting your ground speed, such winds will also push your airplane off your intended course.
In any event, after having received the requisite "ground school" instruction and spent a number of hours flying with my instructor, there came a day when we were taxiing back to the school's aircraft parking area when he told me to stop the plane on the taxiway, whereupon he got out and invited me to go take off, fly around the airport's "pattern" (an imaginary rectangle in the sky over an airport's active runway), and then land the plane.
It was time for my first "solo."
I had wanted to savor as much as I could of the experience of taking off in an airplane by myself, but frankly, I was too busy paying attention to what was going on around me and on the instrument panel in front of me to stop and smell whatever might've passed for daisies in that cockpit. I did pause, for a few seconds while flying the "downwind" leg of the pattern, to take a somewhat more leisurely look around, and suppress the urge to yell, "Look, ma, I'm flying!"
As I made my turn onto the "final" leg of the pattern, I became aware that something was not right—I couldn't get lined up with the runway. A glance at the wind sock on the ground told me why: a crosswind, blowing from right to left and very nearly perpendicular to the runway centerline, had sprung up in the time between my takeoff and "turning final," and this crosswind was pushing me sideways as I flew toward the runway. Now awkwardly positioned, I abandoned my attempt to land, applied engine power, and executed what pilots call a "go-around." I would fly around the pattern again, and then land.
I had learned about crosswind landings in class, and had done one or two with my instructor during our time in the air. The trick in a crosswind landing is to point your airplane just enough in the direction from which the wind is blowing to keep the airplane moving along a line that will take it down the runway centerline. This is somewhat disconcerting, because this close to the ground, it's obvious that the direction in which your airplane is pointed is not the direction in which you are traveling. Finally, in the last few seconds before touching down on the runway's surface, you gently turn the airplane to align it with the runway and land.
During my second landing attempt, everything went well until I started to align the airplane while still a bit too high above the runway, so now I was drifting slowly to the left as I descended the final dozen feet or so to the ground. Would the plane touch down before the wind caused it to drift completely off the runway? I decided not to find out, so I did another go-around.
"Cherokee zero-two whisky. Are you okay up there?" came the voice of my instructor over the radio as I gained altitude. I imagined the heartburn my instructor must have been experiencing at that moment, thinking that I'd perhaps lost my nerve and could not bring myself to land the plane.
I picked up the radio's microphone, briefly explained the situation with the unexpected crosswind, and told my instructor there was nothing to worry about. "I'll nail it this time," I told him.
And I did.
It was a beautiful crosswind landing, and quite a memorable milestone for me, a newly minted "solo pilot."
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