My instructor landing on a HWY

This is taken from a post from liveatc.net
I must say I feel lucky to have Mr. Denning(leaning on the cop cruiser) as my instructor, can't wait until we fly again. Hopefully soon and get that first dual cross country done!
Well here it is enjoy!!


Globe and Mail (Toronto) -

"The plane (C-GSCZ) was gliding only 15 metres above two transport trucks before Mr. Denning brought the plane down safely on Interstate 87, close to the town of North Hudson, near Lake Placid."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080904.wsenecaflight0904/BNStory/National/home

Photo: T.J. HOOKER THE POST-STAR


Firemen and state troopers were able to move the aircraft off one lane, allowing traffic to flow past the disabled plane.
"They just pushed it off to one side," Bessey said.
As they waited for NTSB officials, the pilot and passengers leaned against the side of the plane, Bessey said.
"They were chuckling, everybody was chuckling with them. His instruments told him he was 15 minutes from Burlington.
He said at least he got to see Vermont. We told him he wasn't in Vermont."

http://www.pressrepublican.com/homepage/local_story_248000048.html?keyword=topstory





Original Audio File: BTV-App-Sep-03-2008-2000-2030Z
Download is edited, removing great whopping gaps of dead air

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BTV-App-Sep-03-2008-2030Z_CGSCZ.mp3 (704.8 KB - downloaded 21 times.)

Diversions

So today's flight was all about diversions!
We departed local north and went up to the town of Sharon, just north of the top of HWY 404.
My instructor helped me fly the airplane while I did my rough planning.
There are a few things you need to do in a diversion, and some should be in a certain order.
Draw your freehand trackline.
Estimate your heading using either the lines of longitude and latitude or a nearby VOR. This is critical you get this first because you want to be circling your landmark in a way that when you finish your planning you should already be around the heading you estimated.
Next is the distance to destination and time elapse. So the rule of thumb is 90kts = 1.5 NM/min and 120 kts = 2NM/min.
Next up is pick a halfway point and do the same things, distance and time. When you reach this halfway point, you will check if you arrive early or late, on track or drifted. This would give you your groundspeed and revised ETA and if necessary revised heading.

You should do all of these planning while flying the airplane, constantly looking out and in, out and in.
Then when your approximately over the landmark you started your trackline over. You should do these in order. (You also need to make sure your heading is set, because no point of doing any planning if you have the wrong heading)

TIME - write down the time you were over landmark
TURN - turn to your heading (use heading bug as well)
TRACK - see if you're actually on track using navigation (big picture -> small picture)
THROTTLE - adjust Throttle to cruise if you're not already in it.
ETA (to destination and halfway point)
TALK - contact london FSS or your company to let them know about the diversion

There were a couple of great tips my instructor gave me.
1. Always think ahead, always question yourself "whats next?"
It could be planning for arrival, checking the CFS, or completing a checklist

2. WATCH, MAP, OUTSIDE
a. Check time, see your ETA and what you should be looking for and where at certain times,
b. look at your map and look for Big picture-small picture of what you should be looking for outside.
c. Look outside and orient where you are from what you see.

Anyways my next flight is another diversion, but all by myself. So I have to fly the airplane while planning. I would probably be asked to divert to an uncontrolled airport and do uncontrolled procedures there.
The flight after that is a solo practice of diversion and uncontrolled procedures.

AND THEN! I should be doing my dual cross country after that.
I can't wait!

Phase 2 Check "A"

So we have classes again, but now flying is thrown in the mix, so it should be one hectic last 3 years of school. Our fall semester classes are:
Avionics and Instrument Fundamentals
Differential Equations
Material Science
Thermodynamics
Chemistry
An elective - which I chose was Food For Thought.

It's definitely less classes than before but the workload will probably be the same, if not more. And so the need for hoping to have a good year is definitely ..well still needed. There was also an orientation for 1st year students today. From what I've heard there's 106 new students! That's a lot. Well, they better stay motivated if they want to make it to the airport.


Tomorrow is my phase check for phase two before I can begin solo airwork flights in phase 2.
This flight is basically a review of all the airwork that was introduced and practiced in Phase 1, to see if I can do them safely by myself.
So the basic airwork stuff covered tomorrow are:
Steep Turns - two 360 degree turns made at 45 degree angle of bank maintaing altitude
Slow Flight - manoeuvre in the slow flight speed range, 5kts above stall speed.
Stalls - perform proper entry and recovery of power off and power on stalls
Spins- perform proper entry and recovery of a spin both ways, using ofcourse the proper procedures
Spiral Dives - properly recover a spiral dive, without exceeding the manufacturer's recommended speeds.
Precautionary approach - perform a precautionary approach (probably on a field) according to the situation given by instructor
Short Field Takeoff & Landing - practice short field takeoffs and landings

So it is quite a lot to cover in 1.4hrs flight time. Hopefully I don't mess anything up considering I haven't done them in so long. And if all goes well, (crossfingers, or just praying that it does, or both), I would be able to do 3 solo airwork flights after that.

WOOTS!

First Solo

It took a long time but I made it. I've finally gone for my first solo. Now all those incomplete (cause of weather) and unsat flight of I.14 (pre-solo) don't even matter.

So of course I gotta tell the stories in those 8 little minutes I was alone in the air.

With a slight crosswind from the right took off from Buttonville Runway 33, following C-FRFI a Cessna 150. Now I had my eye on him because he was the traffic to follow. I somewhat caught up to him so I had to extend a bit before turning crosswind. As I was about to turn crosswind, I see raindrops on the windshield, I was like oh yEAH! but it didn't matter. On downwind, I did all my checks and did the before landing briefing as I would with an instructor. I heard over the radio about Media 1 coming in for RWY 03, but tower didn't tell me anything so I was good.

Abeam the threshold of RWY 33, I slowly decreased power for base, and trimmed it. Then as I was about to turn base, tower told me to extend downwind for another 10 seconds for spacing, I guess for Media 1 landing RWY 03. So as I turned back to downwind, I had to pull up a little bit. And as I did, my airspeed dropped just below 60 and I heard the stall horn, I got scared for that tiny second but quickly added power up to 2000 RPM. Counting in my head I turned base after 10 seconds. Told tower I was on base and I was number 1.

Final approach was the best I've had. The piano keys or the numbers of the threshold didn't move from the windscreen and my airspeed steady at 65. Tower cleared me for a touch and go and I said, uhh FULL STOP for Sierra Charlie Romeo.

On the round out, slowly reducing power, looking beyond the end of the runway, started my flare and ...that's right no BOOM! on landing. My landing was so smooth, I just smiled after touchdown. Almost to get on the brakes..exited Bravo1 and taxiied back.
I must say this was my best landing so far.

Then after I shutdown and got a bunch of my "colleagues" congratulating me. It was awesome, they then soaked me in water.

After my soaking, mandatory picture with airplane

Almost there...

So my internet has been down for a few days and I felt so helpless because nowadays it's so vital in most of the things we do. But now I have it back and all is well again.

Today was my second last lesson that I have to do before going for my first solo (which is the lesson before the solo and then the instructor steps out and all of that). The other is the emergency procedures lesson in the simulator. That shouldn't be a problem because I've got most of the main emergencies down.

The only thing holding me off, are the hold offs (round outs) and flares... mostly the stronger crosswind types.

My approach is getting better: crabbing to eliminate drift and getting set up early (just the minor adjustments there) and then sideslipping when short final.

Sideslip is when rudder is used to align the nose to flight path which should be the centreline for landings and ailerons into the wind to eliminate the drift. All of these are pretty straight forward and again just minor adjustments and improvements needed for those.

As soon as I start to level out for the round out - looking for the cruise attitude and at the end of the runway - my nose starts to go all over the place, mostly go left when I had left rudder input in the sideslip. So then I guess I'd have to put in more right rudder. I don't know why I didn't think of this before but I guess it's because I've slowed down and I'd have to put less rudder input?

Anyways, the other thing is I would either flare too early/too high or too late/too low. So then I would sometimes balloon (so i add a bit of power) but still land hard, or I land flat.

These things I need to work on a little bit more and I'm not pressured by other people solo-ing before me because I'd rather feel comfortable to do these things all by myself before solo-ing than just getting it over with.

In other news, about 7 people from my class have already gotten their PPL, and 6+ more are waiting to get flight tested. Contrast this to a few people who are still in the simulator phase of the training. That seems like a big spread but it's actually better than some years in the past.

My friend was showing me his logbook and I saw that his first two flights were almost back to back and all of the sudden, his third flight was 3 months later. That's pretty long for in between flights. The reason was they grouped his class into 2 groups and they wanted everyone from the first group to solo first before they started the second group, which is pretty weird but I guess now they've improved it quite a bit.

Also, the first airplane (and the 2nd and 3rd) C-GSEQ just finished getting it's new engine. Now I'm not sure why they had to put a new engine on the airplane but I shall find out soon. It took them about three weeks and today it had its first run-up. So that's pretty exciting.

Take her for a spin...

"round and round she goes, where she lands nobody knows?"

well technically you should have recovered a spin at 2000' AGL, but for Seneca and a lot more others they make it 4000' AGL.

So today's flight was awesome, got to do spins and steep turns, was also going to do Spiral Dives but that would just push me to my limits.
I even had to have some straight and level flight in between spins so yeah.

Unfortunately, Seneca College doesn't allow photopgraphic devices in the airplane so I couldn't capture it, but here is a video that is similar, except that I wasn't in formation with anyone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX4lK-ud1fI

On another note:
Yesterday, a captain of a Boeing 747 that graduated from Seneca in 1980 randomly dropped by the hangar today just to visit and talk to students. He said he was lucky that he made it as far as he did and the key was to become a HUMBLE FIGHTER. Fight enough that you make it out alive and remain humble once you get out because we, pilots, never ever stop learning.

I think that was the greatest thing he said that day, anyways he also talked about the bad rep that Seneca pilots have because of past and/or present graduates.
I think it's more of the past graduates that come out thinking they know everything and that they're Multi-IFR rated with their CPLs. It's sad that I have to agree to that because I know SOME, not ALL, graduates come out with an attitude and unfortunately it has given the whole school and the whole program a bad reputation (for some at least)

I'd like to think that bad rep or not, what he said about being a humble fighter is key to being succesful in this industry, whatever school you are from.

Anyways just a few more lessons before my first solo. Still gotta cover: spiral dives, overshoots, runway changes, comm failures, engine failures in the cct. And I think I need more practice in normal circuits.

With the traffic...

So ever since my first flight, I haven't gone up as much as I wanted, but that's okay I guess. My last flight I believe was my best one so far, I felt mostly in control of the aircraft and the situation. I think this is my situational awareness building :)

This flight was all about stalls and steep turns and man, you could really feel the G's in those steep turns. My instructor said I did it as well as he did and it was good enough because we had limited horizon.

What I was really proud of though, was spotting traffic. On all my previous flights, it took me forever to find traffic around me. This time I even spotted them before my instructor did, without any assistance from ATC. hehe.

On the way back to buttonville, I was calling up from the area of Preston Lake, and with just my initial call, tower told me to report over Victoria Square right away, I guess it wasn't busy yet! I love mornings.

So after that I was told to join the right base for RWY 21 and to follow a C150 just turning left base. I thought, okay traffic spotted and it shouldn't be hard to follow, but once I was close to my final, it was still mid left base, so my instructor asked tower if S turns were allowed. So we planned to extend our base and somewhat make a 180 to rejoin the left base behind the 150. I thought okay, things are good, focusing on the traffic to follow, then BAM! Instructor said, uh AIRSPEED. And I was like oh shoot, I was at 48 kts, and I had full flaps down. So close to the stall. I was focusing TOO much on the traffic that I forgot to maintain management inside the airplane. So I corrected that, and went to final and landed, it wasn't great because I tried to round out and flare to early but in time I will learn to hold off the flare.

And that has been my most interesting flight so far, other than the one before that in which I spotted a hangglider to my right which was pretty cool.