Back Where I Belong at Ryan Says…

In the sky that is :) After a long hiatus I finally took flight again today. The last time I flew was back in January - and that was in Sydney. The last time I flew out of Palo Alto was almost a year ago!

When I arrived at the airport at about 3pm the afternoon winds had picked up. According to ATIS they were at 14 knots, but straight down the runway. Feeling nervous about the 14 knot winds I decided to walk over to the runway and watched a few landings. It seemed the winds were straight down the runway for the most part, and other pilots didn’t seem to be having too much difficulty landing (apart from one guy who couldn’t seem to stick it until the second half of the runway every time, and on one attempt couldnt stick it at all so had to go around!)

Anyway, having assessed the winds and deciding I could handle them (although I would have preferred something gentler for my first flight in 6 months), I made my way over to the plane and gave it a pre-flight inspection. Satisfied that everything looked good, I jumped in and started it up, spent a few minutes re-familiarizing myself with the G-1000 avionics, and then called ground control for taxi clearance.

Garmin G-1000 cockpit
* This is actually a C182T and not the C172SP that I fly - but close enough.

As soon as I started taxiing over to the runway I felt everything come back to me. Again I was at one with the controls and had no trouble making my way to runway 31. I did some run-up checks of the flight controls, engine and instruments, and since everything looked good I called the tower for takeoff clearance.

“November two four five seven victor, right closed traffic approved, cleared for takeoff”

And with that, I advanced the throttle - 1, 2, 3 - added right rudder as I accelerated down the runway, deflected ailerons into the right crosswind and before I knew it I was airborne. Freedom!

As the runway dropped away below I focused on tracking the extended centerline and saw the world open up before me. Ahead the Dumbarton bridge cut across the bay, palo alto and stanford to my left, san francisco off in the distance. I retracted my flaps as I climbed through 200 feet, and at 500 feet I raised my right wing for a peek - no traffic - so I started my climbing crosswind turn to the right.

I forgot how quickly this Skyhawk climbs with only me inside - I reached my pattern altitude of 900ft in no time, and turned downwind parallel to the runway. Now it was time to clear my mind and get ready to land this thing :)

I didn’t have anyone in front of me so I turned a normal base and tried to stabilize my final approach. I managed to stay somewhat on the glide slope and didn’t play with the throttle too much… although the approach was far from perfect. The windsocks were showing a moderate right crosswind… I figure 320-330 @ 16kt. I decided to slip rather than crab because it would give me more time to setup for the crosswind. I seemed to do pretty well at crossing the threshold over the centerline, however by the time I finally stuck my wheels I was significantly left of the centerline. I think while concentrating on trying to kiss the ground lightly I lost focus on my crosswind correction.

Anyway, it was good enough for my first landing, I straightened up, raised flaps to 10 degrees and added full throttle down the remainder of the runway. Before long I was airborne again.

Another trip around the pattern, and my second landing was much the same as the first. Crossed the threshold over the centerline, bounced a bit this time I think, and by the time I stuck I was left of centerline again. I decided I really needed to focus on holding my crosswind correction all the way through the touchdown.

Another trip around the pattern, my third landing was much better. I concentrated on the crosswind correction and managed to end up somewhat in the middle of the runway.

Off again, but this time just as I was about to turn crosswind the tower called and asked me to make left traffic because the airport was becoming busy. A bit of variety would be fun. I turned left and flew my left downwind parallel to the 101. The tower called my traffic on right downwind, and I couldnt see him until he turned base. I called traffic in sight, and began to turn base as my traffic turned final…. or so I thought. I was actually looking at the guy AHEAD of my traffic, and it turned out my traffic was on right base as I was on left base… we were both converging head on. The tower called to inform me, and when I finally saw him I slowed right down and started doing some S-turns to get behind him. This was my worst performance of the day. I let my airspeed get way too low for this critical phase of flight… I really should have turned back downwind to add some more spacing. Anyway, I flew final approach at around 65 knots and made a bunch of S turns, and despite that little drama made a pretty smooth landing on the centerline.

I decided to make it another touch and go, and went around the pattern again - this time right traffic over the bay. The airspace had cleared and so I turned a normal base and final. I advised the tower that I would terminate after this one. I came in nicely over the center line, and touched down pretty smoothly. I tried to make the first exit from the runway as further evidence of a nice landing, but started skidding as I braked (I’m sure I’ve braked harder than that before without skidding… but hey), so I took the second exit.

I called ground control and got clearance to taxi back to parking. After shutting down and parking the plane I called for fuel (I was the last one flying for the day and the tanks were only half full when I started - it’s not good to leave air in the tanks overnight because condensation can contaminate the fuel with water).

By this time it was about 4:30pm. My time in the air was only about 55 mins (which is good for the bank account), and with 5 landings under my belt I’m now current to carry passengers! (I actually only needed 3)

Tomorrow, weather and circumstances permitting, I’ll take another flight and this time venture outside the pattern. I need to practice my cross country skills and maneuvers.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be in the air again. My biggest concern now is the damage my bank account is going to suffer as I feed my addiction over the next few months…