Fun Flyings Over the Weekend

Because both my primary glider instructor and instrument instructor are out of town this weekend, I decided to have some fun this weekend. I tried two airplanes that I have never flown before: Super Cub on floats and Evektor Sport Star. Both are slow two seaters and controlled by a stick, but the feelings are completely different.

I went to Kenmore Air Harbor for a discovery flight on Saturday using the Super Cub on floats. It's heavier than normal ASEL because of the extra floats adding some weight and lots of drag. When taxiing in the water it require lots of to the rudder to steer the plane. While airborne, the influence of the added surface of the float kits is pretty strong, requiring more control input to maneuver the plane.  The control input it requires is kinda similar to controlling a glider being towed by the tow plane(interestingly, my glider club is actually using a Super Cub for towing). Other than it requires a little stronger control input, the plane feels very natural and easy to control. Taking off and landings on water is not that much different from doing it on land, but doing it on water requires observation on the wind - there's no ATIS or windsock available on the lake! The only thing that I don't like about seaplane is that it's impossible to rent a seaplane to solo, but I think I'm still going to get the seaplane rating later this year anyway because it's so much fun!



The SportStar is completely opposite to the Super Cub on floats. It's light and super sensitive to tiny control inputs. Even when taxi on the ground I can feel that it reacts instantly with very small rudder changes. In my very first take off, I pulled back the stick gently(by gentle I mean the gentle input I would use when flying a 152/172) and almost stall the plane! To make things worse, it's a electric stall horn that I've never used before. So when the stall horn is buzzing, I didn't realize I'm about to stall until my instructor yelled at me about that. By the way, another mistake I made is that I didn't know SportStar will be that much different from Cessna airplanes so I scheduled the initial checkout at night hoping to get more night practices, which definitely made the process more challenging. After some steep turns, stalls and slow flight, we headed back to Harvey and my first landing in this plane is pretty decent - flared a little late but touching down is still quite smooth. My second landing was over correcting and flared too earlier and ended up bouncing on the runway a couple times before finally settling down. I called it a day after getting three landings to extend my night currency. I had another flight on Sunday just for some additional T/O and landing practice in the pattern. This time I'm doing it during the day and I completed the checkout without any problem. Well, the plane did have some problems though. The altimeter reading is jumping up and down a little bit(50-100ft), and the battery couldn't be fully charged and we eventually lost the electric attitude indicator and even the tachometer and at the end could not transmit to the CTAF. It's a VFR only plane, so it did not have too much effect on flying it at all. But it does show that electric equipments are not as reliable as we might thought. I keep seeing those ads about electric attitude indicator is safer than the vacuum driven ones, who knows...When the gauge want to fail, it just failed...

How to fly perfectly straight and level? Get a battery problem in a plane with electric attitude indicator!

Tulip Festival at Skagit

The weather last weekend is perfect for GA flying. Though there's not too many lift for my glider training, the calm wind does make a ride in small Cessna pretty comfortable. I went up to Skagit again to check out the tulip festival after seeing people posting Saturdays picture from the field. (I flew to Skagit two weeks ago and saw nothing but grass and dust)

I departed Renton in late afternoon and landed at Harvey to pick up my friend A.J, who is going to help me to some photos so I can just focus on flying. We were cruising at 4,500 until we get close to KBVS and spotted the tulip fields. Because some tulip fields are really close to the Class C airspace, so I checked Whidbey ATIS to adjust the altimeter and then started decending towards the southeast to stay away from the Class C airspace. Then we came back just staying below the class C airspace at about 1,100 to 1,200 MSL and did a couple circles around the field - my first ground reference maneuver practice in three months! Looks like what we learn in private pilot training is quite useful for this kind flying :) After taking enough photos, we headed north and landed at Bellingham International, refueled, and headed back to Harvey and Renton. Logged 3 hours of X-C time. Great progress towards that 50 hours requirement for the Instrument rating. Next weekend, S43-KKLS-S43 with A.J, we are planning each flying one leg under the hood so that we can both log all the time.

Sunshine in Pacific Northwest

The weather here around Puget Sound had been quite amazing in last two weeks, which means lots of flying time for me and it's also a very good excuse that I could use for not writing anything recently :)
Last month, I've started going to a new FBO in Renton called Rainier Flight Service for airplane rental and instrument rating training. The main reason that I switched flight school is because that after learning how to handle short runway with obstacles on both ends, I'd like to get more radio communication practices with the controller. Renton not only has a control tower, but also very close to Sea-Tac and Boeing Field, making it a perfect place for me to force myself to talk to the controllers. An unexpected surprise of switching to my current flight school is that their rental fee is lower than any other FBO I know. I could save almost 20 dollars an hour on the C152 :) They are also so efficient that they don't even have front desk or dispatch manager. It's like a self service flying club that I can simply checkout and checkin the plane from the system.
My plan of getting my glider rating by the end of May is not going very well so far, although I could still complete it on time if weather is good enough in the following weeks. There are a couple times that it's sunny everywhere, including the glider field, but the wind is a little too strong for our operation. Bergseth Field is one of those challenging private airfields that could be quite dangerous if flying in bad weather. Because of the hill on one end of the runway, we don't have a choice on which runway heading to use. We always takeoff with the hill on our back and land facing the hill. So the wind direction is either taking-off with headwind and landing in tailwind(the preferred scenario at Bergseth), or taking off with tailwind and landing in headwind. Besides the hill on one end of the runway, the other end of the runway is actually 200ft cliff, which means if we are landing in strong headwind, we might be watching ourselves sinking towards the cliff if we are not high and fast enough when entering the final.

On Saturday of Easter weekend, the winds was blowing at 20-30 kt (tailwind for takeoff and headwind for landing) and the field manager and tow pilot both suggested to call off the operation. However, my instructor was "brave" enough to volunteer(of course he's volunteering for me at the same time) to get into the pattern and checkout how bad the weather was. Trusting my instructor's 50 plus years flying experience, I was actually quite excited to experince how it's like to fly a glider in bad weather. Towing is not too much different than usual, though sometimes the towplane will suddenly "pop" up by a dozen feet in one second and I will have to make some adjustments to catch up with it. The fun part began after releasing the rope. In fact, it started at the exact moment I pull the releasing knob - the updraft almost slamed the rope onto our canopy (great demostation of why glider should always turn right and towplane turn left immediately after release). Windshear is everywhere throughout the pattern. The needle in the airspeed indicator was swinging violently. At one moment it might be showing 50mph but the next second it might be as high as 80mph. The glider is being tossed up and down at the same time. With that 20-30 knots tailwind, our ground speed is surprisingly fast. I turned base and final high and fast (more than 20% faster than normal) and still touched down at the beginning of the runway. I adjusted my altitude and speed(even higher and faster) on the second pattern and had a decent landing like I would have on a normal day. Then on my last pattern, I was adjusting too much that I ended up being way too high to be able to land in a safe speed, so my instructor performed something that people will not see very often - he took over the control and did a 360 turn on final to get rid of the extra altitude. It's crazy enough to see a 360 on final, and he's doing that in gusty wind and a cliff in front of us! I wonder how many years I need to fly before having that kind of stick and rudder skills and judgements. After my patterns, there are a few other folks that have the guts to take a flight by themselves. Though no one get into any real trouble(such as too low to get back), all of them landed short of the runway, including one of our best glider pilot (after watching his glider flying slowly like a kite on final, those who haven't flown that day all decided to stay on the ground for their safety).

Easter Sunday had a similar weather condition, and I didn't bother to go to the glider club again. Instead I chose to build some cross country time, flying a short trip from Renton to Skagit and landed on Harvey on my way back. Having trained in Harvey for my private pilot license, this trip is more like two local flights put together for me. I did get some practice I wanted on my way back to KRNT. There was a plane with medical emergency trying to land and the control tower gave them first priority. I was instructed by the tower to wait for the plane with emergency and other planes ahead of me. This is the first time that I had to wait outside of a traffic pattern at a controlled airport, and almost get disoriented. Thanks to the nice controller's kind notice, I didn't get into any trouble and landed saftely.

Last Friday night I had my first night flight out of Renton. Flying around Seattle is definitely more interesting flying north of Snohomish(it's just dark everywhere). I also had my first VFR transition through Sea-Tac. Watching those jets shooting final approach at night with landing lights and nav lights is quite stunning, and there are also bright stars in the clear sky as background! Definitely my favorite sight at night from the sky.

Last weekend I also had my regular glider training and IFR trainings. I love IFR training so much that even when my instructor told me I can take off the foggle on our way back to the airport, I insisted to keep them on until the last minute, which seemed to surprise him.(I know I am crazy that I would rather stay dark when there are beautiful sunshine outside lol) During the partial panel practice, I also asked him to cover even more panels for some fun and challenge. I ended up practicing stall recovery without both attitude indicator and turn coordinator that day :)

En route on an earlier cross country flight to Port Angeles back in March.

Olympics

Olympics

Olympics

Everett - flying back to Renton from the Skagit trip. Trying to take a photo of the aircraft carrier using the cell phone from that far away is not a good idea.