Riding my bike into the Old T's, I could already tell today wouldn't be the day. The wind pounded back at me like always, and I knew that today would be windy like any other day I fly. I wonder when I may actually see a day still enough to meet Stephen's solo requirements.
Instead, today would be VOR navigation. Stephen seemed ready to hurry through this lesson. "You already know all about VOR navigation, right?"
"Yep," I said confidently. I had worked with VOR's in flight sims plenty of times.
"Good. Let's skip the ground school and get to flying."
Music to my ears. A quick preflight of 4AC (during which I noticed a bird's nest and deceased bird in the left elevator) and we were ready to go, with Stephen by my side. This would be the first flight I got to use my brand-spankin' new headset, a Lightspeed ANR (active noise reduction) model that was quite comfortable to wear and listen with.
Stephen told me to first ask to depart on 33 for pattern work on 27R. We would be practicing more short- and soft-field takeoffs and landings. Takeoffs I've got down. Normal, short, soft, you name it, I can do it. Landings ... well ... let's just say my first two landings of the morning were stinkingly disappointing. I could hear over the radio, my old friend 9UL was being flown by a different student who was clearly many lessons behind me, and I think even he could smell the stank from my awful touchdowns.
At this point I was getting worried that Stephen would rescind his judgement that I am ready to solo. He reminded me, however, that for short- and soft-field landings, the object of the game isn't to make it silky smooth, but just to get the plane on the ground safely. That brought me some needed solace.
After three appallingly bad landings, Stephen had me get clearance out to San Pablo Bay, where after we left NorCal's airspace, he turned off the radio and started having me do navigation work.
Stephen did not bar any holds on my first real-life application of radio navigation. Nay, he dived me right into the thick of it:
"Alright, I want you to tune in the Skag's Island VOR, climb to 3,500 feet, and head inbound to Skag's on the 060 radial." He plopped an Oakland terminal area chart onto my lap. "And I want you to use the VOR and the DME to tell me where we are on this map." He then plopped a ruler and a pencil on my lap.
Fortunately, this situation was not unfamiliar to me. Having done radio navigation on flight simulators, I was familiar with the concept. You fight two battles at once: On the one hand, you have to use your charts and your instruments to hold a course and plot your position, and on the other hand, you have to of course keep flying the plane. (Aviate, navigate, communicate...)
If there's one thing pilots learn how to do well, it's split your attention. Flying the plane requires constantly checking on three instruments: the attitude indicator, the altimeter, and the heading indicator. Add the VOR needle to that for radio navigation. And in addition, I had to take my eyes off the panel periodically to look down at the chart and continue plotting my position. So in total, I'm splitting my attention between about 5 different tasks.
Any time I let the plotting and charting take up so much of my concentration that the plane drifted away from its climb to 3,500 feet, Stephen gave me a good lashing on the aviate-first-then-navigate bylaw. After a few minutes of it I was getting into the rhythm of the thing. It is a rhythm. You find a good groove between flying the plane by instruments and checking your charts, and then it becomes easier.
Although I did know how to use the radios and instruments to follow a VOR radial, I never did formally learn it, so I didn't have the mnemonic memorized. There's a mnemonic for everything. Takeoff is MALTTD (mixture, altimeter, lights, trim, transponder, doors and windows), engine failure is SPEL (speed, place to land, emergency checklist, land the plane) ... you get the idea. For VOR navigation is "TIT." (I like this mnemonic already.) TIT is tune, identify, twist: Tune it in, listen to the morse code and compare against your chart, then twist the dial to the radial you want. I didn't identify; I just tuned and twisted, and assumed I had the correct station. Stephen gave me a quick lashing about not double checking myself.
So, the plane reached 3,500 feet and was flying on the 060 radial inbound to Skag's when I look out the window -- clouds! We had flown into clouds! The plane was bumping something vicious, and white wisps of forbidden territory were floating through and past me.
"We'd better get down, we're in a cloud," I said, masking my worry.
"This isn't a cloud." Huh? "You can see through it. If you can see through it, it's not a cloud." Stephen gave me a quaint little look of triumph, as if he were proud of his deduction. "This is a haze, or something."
I looked out the window again. This wasn't haze. This was a billowy, wispy cloud. However, Stephen had a point -- it was a billowy, wispy, translucent cloud. If you can see through it, that means you can see airplanes hiding in it, and that means you can fly VFR in it. It's only the ones that mask other airplanes completely that the FAA is worried about you trundling into.
Nonetheless, like any cloud, this one was giving my lunch a bit of a ride, so Stephen "changed the parameters of the assignment" (as he calls it), asking me to descend to 2,500 feet, well below the cloud layer.
Of course, any true test of a pilot's concentration does not simply involve one task. So along with a descent, Stephen also had me tune the Sausalito VOR into my second nav radio, and intercept and fly a radial inbound. I handled these three tasks reasonably well, and when he was satisfied, he asked me to plot my position on the map. Alright, pull out the ruler and the pencil! Five seconds of plotting, pencils down, five seconds of flying, pencils up, five seconds of plotting, and so on.
Well, I made my only major blunder. I read the VOR needle wrong and I headed in 180° the opposite direction. Stephen must have been feeling wicked at the time, because he let me fly further and further off course, for about, for about 10 minutes, before finally relenting.
"So, are you just going to trust that you're going the right direction?"
"Huh? We're off course?"
"See, that's exactly my point. I know we are off course, but you didn't, because you just trusted your own judgement. You need to check yourself against other instruments. Use the charts, use the DME, use anything to make sure you're doing it right once you've done it."
OK, lesson learned. I turned the plane around.
When we were about 5 miles out from the Sausalito VOR, Stephen drew a dot on the TAC (terminal area chart) over Hercules. He explained that I was to pretend there was an airport here, and using the two VOR's I had tuned, I was to fly to exactly this point.
So, using the compass and ruler, I found the distance and bearing from each of the VOR's, and using the two VOR needles, flew inbound. About halfway in, Stephen asked me to calculate in my head how long it would take us to get there given our current speed, and how much fuel we would have left. I fumbled a bit with the math, but with some time I landed on the correct values.
You can probably already see why Stephen was pressing this sort of multitasking ability into me. Imagine being nearly out of fuel, after dark, with only your map and your VOR to tell you where an airport is. You have to know if you can get to this airport before you run out of fuel, and the sooner you know the better. And while you figure all this out, you have to keep flying the plane. I was imagining the situation in my head as I flew the VOR radial inbound to the imaginary Hercules airport.
This is why most pilots enjoy a copilot. I'm thinking even if the person sitting next to me is completely clueless about aircraft, I can maybe press him into helping take some of the load off me. All this navigating and flying and radio work at the same time can give you brain strain.
Over Hercules, we were at a perfect spot to check in with NorCal and head back, so Stephen had me do exactly that. I gave them my information (completely out of order, but they managed) and was vectored inbound to Oakland International. One more landing (this one soft field), and then a taxi to Kaiser for fuel followed by the return to the Old T's.
Stephen didn't say anything about my performance today, which I've learned usually means I did pretty well. Unfortunately, I'm way behind on my ground school. The next few days will be spent cramming to catch up for my next lesson, and of course praying for calm winds in anticipation of that first solo.
Cost so far: $4,246.06
Time so far: 49 days
Hours so far: 18.8
Projected certification date: August 1, 2007
Projected final cost: $11,300
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