Journal #14

7/23 (Tuesday eve)
N99348 (172)
Khaled *pre-solo checkride CFI*
Hobbs: 1.5 Hrs

pre-solo quiz & ground instruction: 5-6
flight: 6-8 approx (less preflight and fuel etc)

This was a great day - good weather, moderate winds, unrestricted visibility. Met Khaled in the clubhouse - times like this I'm really glad to have a clubhouse - can meet people, ask questions, - in other words: being early doesn't suck.

We discussed several things: reading the charts, airspaces, Echo & Golf airspaces (mostly useful for IFR) make more sense now. Spin entry and recovery procedure (*not* a developed spin, just the initial and recovery from a stall/spin). One good piece of knowledge: if radio fails, first troubleshoot - if it failed for example over golden gate fields while departing from OAK, it's probably safest and most controlled to return to OAK while squaking 7700. If (as I first guessed) one were to fly to NAPA-APC squaking 7600, they would keep upwards of 3 ATC centers confused, busy, and they would still not know where I was going. If one squaks 7600 and returns to OAK, the bay-approach ATC would already have had me on radar, and know exactly where I was headed - simply flying to the mormon temple, then towards OAK north field, and somewhere near a good pattern entry circling above normal TPA looking for light-gun signals from the tower (as obvious: solid green for cleared to land).

I had already received the weather from WX-brief for OAK-APC-OAK, but Khaled decided to go to Livermore. He also recommended using PIREPs (informal- from other pilots etc) as the most accurate and useful near real-time reports. We departed OAK, turned to 050, and while climbing thru approx 1500' had another cessna on a nearly head-on course descending from the temple. ATC did warn us of them, but we reported 'looking' and never 'in sight' it was pretty close, and once I spotted them I entered a right downward turn (they were at least 100-200' above us. Calling out the traffic to Khaled, he continued the turn (more extreme + dive) and cut the engine to near idle. This all made sense, and while I did nothing wrong, it's ok here to make more extreme moves for safety. I'm 99% sure that we saw the other cessna long before they saw us, as we were in the diving turn before they even started their right-turn.

Ok - now for maneuvers - got over near Mt Diablo for some steep turns (pretty good), MCA/slow-flight, stalls, etc and all went very well. Then spins (initial+recovery). These were not all that scary at all, but Khaled pointed out that the skyhawk is very tame in this regard. Much like a stall recovery - do basically the same thing, except let the nose drop and cut the throttle to idle. We did an engine out procedure, and after ABCD (still at least 1000' AGL) Khaled had me recover and head to LVK. We did a few 360s while getting ATIS, then called our vector position from LVK. (note: vectors often much easier than cities/VFR reporting points etc). Went in for the first landing - a 'normal' 30 degree flap landing which was decent, the second was the same, until I chose to go-around - was a little low on airspeed, and slightly below glidepath. We practiced a no-flap landing, I think a 10 degree flap landing, and they all went well! I was much less focused on hitting the exact 'numbers' and more on the V-speeds, ground effect roundout, and centerline. The last landing was pretty nice - 20 or 30 degrees of flaps for a soft touchdown in the first 1000' (probably less) of runway.

One maneuver I left out was 'unusual attitude' recovery. These didn't throw me off too much, but I need to do things in the correct order:
1. Nose high: Full Power + pitch down + correct roll
2. Nose low: Idle Power + correct roll + pitch up

Back to OAK - everything went well - cool new stuff: OAK (or approach) asked us to 'maintain our current forward speed' so even though descending, we were at approx 60% power and 120-125kts (smooth air). All of the taxiways off 27L were closed, and we were straight in, so we were to land long. Worried about running out of runway, I came close to landing (roundout) but Khaled had me add power and stay in ground effect - it was pretty cool! we simply floated down the runway at approx 75 kts with 10 degrees of flaps (I think) and finally as I could see the end of the runway, we flared for a decent landing.