Solo Flight to Practice Area

This past Saturday I have my first solo flight to the practice area and back. As nervous as I thought it was going to be, was exactly how not nervous I was when it actually came to the flight. The lack of a instructor, as I was PIC was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. Not once did I doubt myself, get nervous, scared (Ok I can’t say I didn’t get scared but that’s due to circumstances that I will outline below). The entire trip I was handling everything and everything was under control.

I woke up at 9am to check the weather on Saturday Aug 6th, 2011. It was hazy and a few places were showing as IFR or MVFR when I woke up and checked. I was hoping this would burn off and in fact it did exactly that by about 10:30, most of it was gone. There was still a bulk of the haze that hung over the San Fernando Valley the entire time.

I got to the airport a bit early and mike was still with another student. His flight ran a bit behind due to the marine layer and haze in the morning. So about 10:55 he comes in the doors to Pentastar. Hands me the keys, tells me to get her topped off and start my preflight. I asked the attendant to have 9LB topped off and she immediately gets on the radio and makes the call.

As I walk out to the plane, I see the refueling truck pull up, and think WOW. I wish all service was that quick. That is something I appreciate from Pentastar. They are profession, timely, and extremely friendly and helpful. I have talked to some of the employees about everyday stuff while waiting for Mike for a lesson. They definitely know how to run a FBO and set themselves stone throws away from everyone else.

I get to the plane and perform my preflight. As they refuel the plane. About half way through my preflight, mike asks to see my logbook. He just wanted to make sure I have all my endorsements and everything is in order for the flight, which they were. He then tells me “Go to the practice area. Do some maneuvers. Do some steep turns, slow flight. Go sight-seeing, just have fun. Call me when you get back down. Be back by 12.”, then walks back to the FBO.

This is about the time I expected to get nervous but did not happen. I didn’t even think about nervousness until I was back down on the ground after the flight. That is how I know it’s getting to that time that I’m almost ready for my PPL. I knew exactly what to do, how to do it, where I was, where I was going, and where I was going back too. I guess after almost 50 hours it doesn’t make you nervous any longer. It was almost second nature to me.

So once the preflight was done, I got in and got her started up. She ran a little rough on startup and was shaking like crazy, and I leaned her out about 2 finger widths and she ran better. Density Altitude was 1,700’, and the airport was at 800’. So I knew it was because of the density altitude. I checked that before I left my house as I wanted to make sure to know what it was like so I can predict performance. Went to the runup area, but there were already 3 planes in the runup area. So I stopped on the taxi way, ensured no one was behind or around me, and performed my runup there. (Mixture best power, power to 1800 RPM’s, Check gauges, Left mag, Back to both, Right mag, Back to both, Power to idle, ensure no stall, trim set for takeoff, flaps as required, strobe on, landing lights on, check runway with heading and compass readings, ETC).

Taxied just short of the runway and contacted tower for departure clearance. I was approved for a right crosswind departure. So did everything as if Mike was still in the plane. Maintain runway heading, climb at Vy (74 Knots). Departure was awesome. I leveled out at 2500’ as to not break into Burbank’s airspace at 3000’. Once outside of that, I was handed off by ATC and climbed up to 3,500 to get over the mountains to get into Simi Valley. Switched to the Simi Valley CTAF 122.775 and started monitoring to see where people were. I heard a lot of traffic at Santa Clarita practice area, but no one at Simi Valley practice area.

First thing I did as I was flying to the practice area was slow flight for 5 minutes while maintaining heading, altitude and airspeed. (Power to idle, Full Flaps at 85, prevent balloon, at 50 knots apply 1800 RPM’s of power) and hold it right on the cusp of falling out of the sky). It’s amazing how easy it is to keep the plane in the air going this slow. Stall horn blaring in the background the entire time. I did this for about 4 or 5 minutes then I recovered.

So I prepped for slow flight again, and announced on CTAF my position, altitude and what I wanted to do. As I started to get the plane setup for slow flight, the G1000 starts yelling TRAFFIC. I start looking frantically and see someone overfly me within 300 feet or so, directly over me. They were going about 10 or 20 knots faster than I was. I immediately announce on CTAF the exact same thing as I just said a minute ago, and still hear nothing on CTAF from him. I figure he was on another frequency going to the coast. That is a lesson to watch out for traffic at all times.

So once my heart stopped racing and I knew I was ok, I went ahead and setup the plane for slow flight, and performed slow flight for a minute. Satisfied with that, I recover and begin some ground reference maneuvers. There was a water tower that was clearly visible at the top of a hill. So I did some turns around that keeping constant distance from the tower, while maintaining altitude and all the while, turning less and more into the wind to keep it in the same spot. After about 2 turns I was satisfied with that.

Make another call on CTAF just to update anyone in the area. I used Lake Juno as my reference point for steep turns. So I perform my clearing turns just to make sure there is no one about to hit me. Point the nose at Lake Juno, and then perform my steep turns. Lead in with the rudder, then aileron, add a little power, 2 quick nose up trim wheel throws, and then hold at 45 degree and use the rudder to adjust up and down to maintain altitude, but watch the cowling in relation to the horizon helps to keep altitude better than looking at the gauges.

Half way through the steep turns I was about 150 feet off of the target altitude, but the check ride instructors only look at what you go into the turn on and what you come out on. So by the time we finished I would have been within the guidelines, but I want to get it better. Maybe only 20 or 30 feet off altitude is what I want to go for. I finished about 50 feet below my target altitude but performed turns in both directions.

I then cleaned up the airplane and did some sight-seeing. There are some places out there that I have always wanted to check out but never had the time or option to go see them.

Time to head back to Van Nuys as it was now 11:55 and Van Nuys was about a 10 minute flight. The haze was still hanging over the San Fernando Valley but definitely not as bad as it was when I took off. I didn’t see the airport till about 7 miles out. So the haze was still pretty bad, considering it was noon and starting to get really hot. I could tell this as it was getting turbulent in the valley on the way to Van Nuys. There were a few good gust that almost shot me up 300 feet in a matter of seconds.
I was cleared for right traffic runway 16R. I was #2 but could not locate #1 in line to land. Van Nuys was busy that day too. The radio chatter was nonstop. I then saw a little airplane on the runway. So knew I was next. I got the airplane down safe and sound, with little trouble. Pattern was as good as I could get with thermals tossing you every which way. I touched a little harder than I wanted to, but still perfectly safe and normal landing.

All in all it was a good flight and an AWESOME confidence builder for me. Going up by myself and navigating and doing everything, just me, with no help was a huge pat on the back.
This weekend we are flying to Montgomery Field in San Diego Ca. This should be interesting because of the airspace that is SFC – 3200 / 4800 – 100000 around that area. There is a little hole we need to thread ourselves through. Stay tuned for that.