..and another hour...

Kevin, just remember, there are days that at times just putting it
down is a challenge. No real reason, it just happens. Just don't think
real hard about it as it will cause you to do it more.

There are times when my landings are so soft you do not even know you
are on the ground, and then the enevible happens, you think you have
it licked and then plop...



On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 14:56:05 -0700, The OTHER Kevin in San Diego
skiddz *AT* adelphia *DOT* net wrote:

Wife travelling today so I'm all alone with kids and school. Gotta
drop 'em off pretty early to get to the field on time so I'm up well
before daybreak routing kids and making sandwiches. Out the door a
couple minutes after 7 and 33 minutes later, I'm happy to see a couple
other students on the playground with their parents nearby. Cool.
Now I don't have to wait for adults to start showing up. I eagerly
eject the kids from the truck and haul tail to the field.

I walk in the hangar about 7 minutes after 8 and see my instructor
cleaning up the ship. I immediately dive into weight and balance and
DA and get them knocked out in record time and then proceed with the
preflight. Got to the rear of the engine and saw an oil drip on the
bottom of the fan scroll. Spent an inordinate amount of time looking
to see where it might have come from but didn't see any "snail trail"
of oil leading to it. I poked my head into the opening of the fan and
looked down. Didn't see anything inside so asked my instrucotr about
it. "Oh, there's a drain hole down there and I must have sprayed some
of this **** (indicating the dry-wash he was using to clean up the
ship) in there." I wiped the blob off and proceeded to finish up the
preflight.

Startup and pickup were uneventful and we received clearance to join
the pattern for more approach work. Twice around the patch and I can
immediately tell my approaches are getting better. I'm finally
getting the sight picture down and my ass is better able to translate
what it's feeling to my hands and feet. It's time to do some autos so
off we go again.

1st one is kinda ugly. 70 kts at about 700ft AGL. I count "3-2-1"
and I lower the collective, dd some right pedal and roll the throttle
off into the detent. Eyes outside I immediately forget to pull up on
the collective to prevent an overspeed and wonder why the collective
is coming up on it's own then remember the 150lb man next to me.
Mental note to self: "control RPM with collective next time".

Ship is set up good and we ride it down. A little rear cyclic to
build some RPMs and slow down then deep into the flare. Just as we're
almost stopped moving, forward cyclic to level us off then pull
collective and roll the throttle out of the override. Lots of left
pedal to counteract the suddent torque and we're hovering. Cleared to
go around again for another auto and we're off.

This time I get the collective lowered, right pedal for the yaw, roll
the throttle off into the overtravel and add a little collective to
keep RPMs at the top of the green arc. Eyes dancing between my
landing spot and the tach and ASI and I'm on my way down. "nice...
nice" is all I hear from the left seat.. A little bit of rear cyclic
to start slowing down and build some RPMs, then the flare, level, add
power and recover into a nice 4' hover with only a small wiggle of the
tail. Figures I can do autos better than a normal approach... heheh

Tower calls us and asks us to move to the parallel runway - they want
to run the sweeper up and down it and make it all purty. No problem.
We switch to the other pattern and do one more auto - it's about the
same as the 2nd one and then it's off to the perpendicular runway to
work on something else.. Hover autos!

I Hover taxi to the numbers and my instructor takes control and makes
a few pedal turns to figure out which way the wind is coming from.
The windsock is telling him one thing and a nearby flag is telling
another story. Get it sorted and without warning, he chops power and
does a hover auto. Whoa! I wasn't expecting that and thought for a
sec something had let go for real. Nope, just a demo of one more
emergency procedure.

Now it was my turn. I get a quick "how to" and then pick us up into
about a 3' hover and again, "3-2-1" and I chop the throttle. Holy
crap does the nose swing left fast when power goes away. I'm so busy
correcting the yaw, I forget the collective. Again, good thing that
150lb man is sittin' next to me. One more mental note and we try
another one.

This one is a bit better. Instead of dramatically chopping the
throttle, I roll it off briskly and get on the right pedal. For a sec
I forget the collective again and then grab an armful just prior to
touchdown. Touchdown was pretty gentle, but I was a good 30 degrees
off on my heading. Time to try again, this time to practical
standards.

I pick a nice yellow Citabria to use as my reference point and roll
out of the throttle. Right pedal is ok, but I immediately pull
collective and we balloon a couple feet then settle hard and bunny hop
once. Oops. Forgot to wait for the ship to settle..

One more and this time I don't hold the throttle into the detent as I
pull collective to cushion the landing. I knew it immediately and
explained to my instructor. One mroe mental note to really get my
hand under the throttle before I roll it off to make sure I can hold
it off and we try again.

Pointed directly West and this time it's nice. Power is cut, I keep
the nose straight and wait for the ship to settle then pull collective
and we plop gently to the runway. I look at the compass.. About 7
degrees south of West. Within practical standards. I'm thinking
we're going to do some more of these and I'm directed to the side of
the runway, over the dirt, facing South.

Time for slope landings. I'm asking myself "What slope" as I look at
the dirt under us. Then I notice the dirt is about 5 or 6 inches
lower than the pavement and there's a gravel "berm" right next to the
runway. My instructor demos the approach, sets one skid on the gravel
and hangs there on one skid, then settles us down. He demonstrates a
pickup from a slope and it's my turn.

Here's where I got all goofed up for the rest of the time. For some
reason I was really tense on the controls for most of today's session
and a white knuckle grip is not condusive to "precision" flying. I
make the 45 degree approach to the slope and get the uphill skid set
down and can't get the skid to stop sliding so I pick us up, back up
and to the right and try again. Same deal and I comment on my near
death grip on the controls out loud. Time to try something else.

I taxi us to the center of the runway and set us down and roll the
throttle off (easier to talk at 75% than 104%) I'm to get the ship
light on the skids then ease in left cyclic and do "side wheelies"
keeping the right skid about 4" off the runway. It takes a lot more
left cyclic than I thought and it's very tricky keeping it right
there. All the while my brain is screaming "dynamic rollover!" and at
one point I dump collective in a hurry thinking we're about to go
over.

I try again and this time, even tho I've just about squeezed the foam
grip off the cyclic, I get it down and can sit there on the left skid
for about a minute. Still don't know why I'm so tense today and I'm
almost relieved when it's time to head back to the pad. I know I'm
not supposed to pass the taxiway to the North of the numbers without
clearance so I pedal turn around and see one of the sweepers at the
middle of the next taxiway headed away from me.

I call up ground control and tell them I'd like to taxi back to
parking and have the sweeper in sight and will maintain visual contact
hoping for a bit of levity. Nope. I'm asked to hold and I hear
ground call repeatedly for the sweeper with no answer. Ground clears
me to taxi but be alert to the sweeper. The sweeper finally answers
just as I'm about to turn off the runway towards the pad.

I hover taxi back to the pad and then tension takes control and all of
a sudden it's like my 1st time hovering. I can't stay over the pad at
all. I start getting iritated with myself and force a deep breath and
a quick count to 3 in my head. Get it settled down and get centered
over the pad and set it down gently. WTF is my problem today? I
almost had to peel my fingers off the cyclic they were so cramped from
holding on so tight for the past hour.

I get the ship cooling down and talk to my instructor about my
tension. He asks if there's something going on with work or at home.
I can't think of anything off the top of my head so we let it drop. I
get the ship shutdown and he walks off to the hangar as I'm making my
log entries and grabbing my junk from under the seat.

As I walk back I reflect on that past hour. Got some good approaches
in and know what to look for next time. The autos were pretty fun and
I feel pretty good about them. Still need to work on hover autos and
am pretty sure I could have done the slope work if I could have
relaxed a bit. Still don't know what was causing my death grip, but
I'm done for the day so I'm going to go sit in the sun with my test
prep materials and drink a cold beer and forget about it until
tomorrow's flight.