Journal #10

7/8

N99348 (172)
Jeff
Hobbs: 1.6 hrs
5-8pm

An Awesome day!
light winds - takeoff from 33 - over Oakland request unrestricted climb to 6000' - after a delay, Bay Departure cleared us into Bravo & 6000' max. Over SP bay did a simulated engine fire: 45 degree bank turns and 110 kts speed with engine at idle - pretty exciting! (drop really fast). After that, and around 2500' we proceded into the simulated engine out - came in for what would likely have been survivable & savable forced landing, but I wouldn't have wanted to try it!

Then climbed and did steep turns - both right into our wake turbulance - right from a Left to a Right, and altitude very close (within 80' on the first, 20' on the second)

Then - some slow flight (45 kts - we used to do this at 50kts) - still really good (Jeff was surprised I think!) power off stalls, then a power on stall - maintained direction and bank much better with rudder only. Nice.

somewhere in there we did turns around a point (pier off point richmond) and S-turns around train tracks. They were pretty decent on the first try (not perfect!) but darn close.

We headed over to Gnoss - I did all of the non-towered comm. Tuned the CTAF freq. and Jeff listened to AWAS(sp) there. *crazy!* crosswinds and turbulance - later this will be easy, but it really threw me off. We had density altitude of almost 2000' (1800 I think) and this made groundspeed faster, climb slower, etc... Three go-arounds total, one pretty darn close good (wing-low) crosswind landing, and one bouncy T&G that we did a go-around. The wing-low went pretty well! Back to Oakland where we were asked to land on 33 (not on solo!) and Jeff said ok. It's a *very* short approach.

TPA was 600' I think. Had to stay North of 27L, (and 27R if it was active) and was still turning almost to the numbers. Came in a lottle hot, but kept a smooth roundout for a half-decent landing. Jeff slowed us down with the brakes to make the close taxiway (Mike) where a Airborn Express 767 "abex" was nearly blocking Mike-->normal taxiway to kaiser. Jeff took the wheel after ATC cleared us to taxi past, and we did... clear of the abex the whole time, but they flipped out (made an official sounding radio call about hazard or something) but we were already past-clear of them. Tower came back with an official sounding call (Jeff tells me this is so they can claim no responsibility) about tower not seeing this "no movement zone". Anyhow - Jeff apologized on the radio for freaking them out and off we were...

random: *wow* climbing to 6000' for the first time in a light aircraft... for that matter any aircraft where I'm flying, even just the view - looking 'down' on all the mountains in the bay area - on all of san francisco, marin, etc... clear to the ocean. You can't call this a view or a vista - that's what you get on land. This was looking down on the beauty of the earth. I can't imagine night flight that high, or higher or at dusk - awesome!