pilot's logbook

6/10 C-152 N89933 Lou Lou Touch & Go’s #5 .8 hr MB

Sunday afternoon. I came in to Bowman Field from OLC, and Frank came in to watch and hang out. We've spent the last several Sunday afternoons poking around airports together, and we're thinking we could get used to going flying together on Sunday afternoons. He and I had talked about engines Saturday morning, so I said maybe we could open up the hood and look at it. When we came in, Mike was out with someone. I called over to verify we were taking 89933. We agreed we needed fuel. Preflight “Get her to teach you everything.” We looked at everything and talked about it, and found out you can't open up the hood of a C-152, but you can look thru a few holes.

Frank went in, Michael came on board. I was feeling on-target, which I mention because it was so out-of-sync with what followed.

I set the seat back so that the two holes show, and I showed it to Mike so we could discuss it if we needed to. He told me what matters to him is using the balls of your feet on the rudder, and also using the balls of your feet for the brakes.

I forgot we were intending to get fuel. At some later point Mike noticed the LH fuel gauge jumping around, and asked how much there was in it. I didn't really know. I'd climbed up there, showing Frank that we do it, but we had already agreed we were going to fill it. No reason to get the calibrated thingy and really check. Plenty of reason to actually remember to put fuel in. Which I didn't.

But it was the Engine Start checklist where I made a big mistake—primed the engine and didn’t lock the primer back. Mike caught it, saying real quietly, “You just killed yourself.”

In spite of that, I was feeling like I should have been on top of things once we got flying, but wasn’t. Touch&go’s were flaky.

Off the side of the runway taking off, first time. Pattern was never square. Not ever. Mike wanted to stay closer to the airport this time, so I needed to find new visuals, and it took a couple of times around to find them. My turns were too steep, consistently, and correcting them was ugly. A constant descent never happened. Several times I forgot to put in the last notch of flaps. I felt as if I was always dealing with time lags on turns and on adjusting the power, but there’s not time to wait for them. I had to estimate, go on to the next thing, and come back and see if it was right. Once, turning base, I said and did “throttle in,” when it should have been throttle back to 1700.

Coming in, keeping centered was hard, because I did need to correct, and then I was wobbling the wings. I’d think maybe it’s a rudder issue, but when I tried to work with that the other day, Mike specifically said, twice, “use ailerons to keep on center.” I think it was the same thing.

So.

The good thing is that Mike was actually not correcting my mistakes as much as he usually does, and if it isn't dangerous, that's probably what I'd like to try more of.

After a while, enough was enough, and Mike ended it. He says just put it behind and move on, sometimes it happens. He's got a great skill of being able to smile at you like he means it, even after something like this, but I think the session took the starch out of both of us.

Coming back Wednesday.

Afterwards Frank and I got cokes and just hung around looking at things, which we've done at one airport or another for the last few Sundays. We're thinking it might be interesting to just go flying together on Sunday afternoons. At some point, Lisa came out and the three of us sat and talked for quite a while, which I’ve never done with her before. (What she does, instructors, Southeast Christian, children, etc.) One of the things that really interested me was when she talked about evenings having supper there at the table we were sitting at. I've only been to Bowman Field once in the evening, but I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere, much like hanging out on the beach on vacation. I think she was inviting us to come.

ps. this session follows 2 1/2 days of not flying and doing LOTS of quick-recall and/or oral studying. Friday was 3 hrs conversation and Q&A on different topics, followed by about 3 hrs of index card practice with Natalie. Friday night I did the first chapter fo the Gleim book. (Airplanes & Aerodynamics: 95%), Saturday morning the second (Airplane Instruments, Engines & Systems: 85%) which took more follow-up time to make flash cards of all the ones I either had doubts on or missed), This morning before church I worked on getting ready to take the 3rd chapter test, knew I wasn't ready because I needed to drill on tower light-signals, Airspace rules and a couple of other things.

pps. What would you do if the throttle was stuck at full power? Lean the mixture all the way to stop it. Of course if it happened on takeoff, you wouldn't know until you tried to go to cruise.