Training for the private pilot license involves accumulating specific amounts of different types of aeronautical experience. In a nutshell, the private pilot candidate must log 40 hours of training, 10 of which are solo, 15 of which are cross country, 3 of which are at night and 20 of which are with an instructor.
As I knock down tasks that will count toward these requirements, the path that I need to walk toward my license is getting narrower. I'm working very purposefully toward earning my rating, not just taking the plane and flying around (that will come later, after I have my license ;), especially now that we're in the home stretch.
At this point, all I still need to complete toward the aeronautical experience requirements of my training are a couple of XC flights. Then I'll do a few checkride prep flights and be ready for the practical test.
Today, I was looking forward to a solo cross-country flight. My plan was to fly out to Hana for the purpose of repositioning the airplane to make a cross-country flight from Hana to Lanai, then back to Maui. Unfortunately, the weather was uncooperative and getting worse. As I drove down the hill to the airport, there was a scattered layer at about 3000' over the south/west shore and lots of clouds on the upper slopes of both mountains. I got to the hangar and planned my flight, got a weather briefing and filed my plan...then Fletch and I walked down to the end of the hangars to look west at the sky. It had totally filled in with clouds...ugly. We decided that a highly unstable day with rapid changes and cloud development was probably not he best day for a solo cross-country.
So, I asked Fletch if he wanted to go fly. We do still have some more flying under the hood to complete, and I could practice maneuvers for my checkride. He checked the schedule and found that he was free so we got 32Lima preflighted, fueled and ready to go.
It's neat flying with Fletch these days. Not that long ago, I was totally new and absolutely overwhelmed by everything that went on in the airplane. I remember just trying to steer the plane on the ground was next to impossible. Much less fly and talk to the controllers in the tower on the radio at the same time. I'm a pilot now, it's fun to show Fletch when he comes that I can not just fly, but safely conduct flight operations from preflight planning to parking. Sure, I'm a beginner...but it's neat to see the progression from when I first started my training. It really is encouraging as I look toward the next step in training (Instrument Rating), it's really, really daunting. Well, when I first started my PPL, taxiing the plane was really, really daunting.
After takeoff we were cleared offshore, 1000' to the Northwest and headed across the water toward Kahaukaloa. As soon as we were at cruising altitude, Fletch put me under the hood and started giving me vectors. After about 2.5 hours of this, it's still really new and hard. I can tell flying by instruments is going to take a lot of practice. After reading some of the instrument flying manual and taking the tips for maintaining my scan and good practices for attitude instrument flying, I still can't maintain a heading and altitude. I get fixated on my heading, and then realize I'm in a climb...which I fix with pitch/power reductions while looking at the tachometer and altimeter...only to find myself in a 15° turn...which turns into a climb when I correct it...and so on and so on.
It's hard even in calm air. In windy, choppy air like today...it's really, really challenging. As soon as you put the plane in a bank, a gust wants to steepen the bank dramatically, you correct for that and the gust then comes from the other way, throwing you into a bank in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, the instruments are bouncing around in your field of view. I can't even imagine how you'd begin to try to determine the wind direction and offer any sort of drift correction...I guess you can only do that with some sort of ground track reference (VOR radial, GPS ground track, etc).
So, I got more practice with bouncing around blind. I followed Fletch's headings in cruise flight over to Lahaina. Offshore the West Maui Mountains, we worked on slow flight, standard rate turns, climbs and descents...all solely by reference to instruments. I was able to manage, but have a long way to go before I'll feel like I'm 'in control' of the airplane by reference to instruments.
After 45 minutes or so I'd had enough and took off the hood. We climbed up to 3000 in a hole in the clouds and practiced some steep turns with full reversals. I'm still having trouble with the turns to the right so we practiced those a few times to the point where I was nailing them.
Mission accomplished. We called up approach on the radio and let them know we were inbound. Crossing MacGregor point we got hammered by some turbulence generated by the wind coming over the mountain. Heh, turbulence in an (even small) airplane is nothing! I told Fletch about going totally weightless in my hang straps flying hang gliders and how THAT is scary turbulence. You never get the feeling in the airplane that it's going to pitch over either...
Cleared to land RWY 2. Fly the approach nice and stabilized, light on the flaps. Over the threshold, power to idle, hold pitch and slow down. Gently touchdown with hardly any side loading and that's it for another day.
Dual received: 1.3
Landings: 1
Simulated IMC .8