| Lesson 12 | |
| Flight time logged: | 1.5 hours |
| Total flight time logged: | 16.3 hours |
| Total takeoffs/landings: | 53 |
| Total cost to date: | $2707 |
I was finally "back in the saddle" again today. The weather for this week is looking good, and today was no exception. Of course, it helps to have a lesson in the morning. This was the first week I actually was able to schedule morning lessons. Another student always seems to get the morning slots every day, but this time I put myself on the schedule two weeks out just to have some morning flying time.
I wanted to practice my slow flight, stalls, and steep turns again since it has been six weeks since the last time I performed these maneuvers. I flew myself and the instructor over to the practice area and began to run through the list.
I performed slow flight (straight and turning), followed by a power-off stall, then a power-on stall. Even though it had been six weeks, my instructor said that I was still doing well on these maneuvers. I was a tad bit rusty, but after warming up, I was back in the game again. I also wanted to get more instruction on emergency procedures and how to best find a field to land on, so my instructor showed me a few fields and private landing strips in the area.
He then wanted me to practice my steep turns, but to throw in some added difficulty, my instructor covered up the instruments forcing me to literally fly by "feel" and sight alone. I used Stone Mountain as my starting point of reference, banked to the left into what felt like a 45 degree bank, keeping the horizon at the same level, and then turned out right as Stone Mountain came back into view. I immediately banked right, again into what felt like a 45 degree bank, keeping the horizon at the same level all the way around. As I banked back to straight-and-level flight while facing Stone Mountain, my instructor removed the cover from the instruments to show me how I rolled out within a couple of degrees of my original heading and how I did not lose any altitude at all. I was somewhat surprised since I was use to using the instruments to keep my altitude and to turn out at the right time.
A few minutes after my steep turns practice, my instructor pulled the power on the engine and announced engine failure. I ran through my ABCs (Airspeed - best glide speed, Best field for landing, and Checklist). I was near a grass strip of a private airport. It happened to be about 180 degrees behind me. I made a 180 degree turn to the right until the strip came into site. I was at 65 knots and descending about 500 feet per minute. As I lined up with the strip, I went through my engine restart checklist: fuel on both, fuel shutoff value in, mixture rich, aux fuel pump on. Then I went through the engine failure checklist: fuel shutoff value out, mixture idle cutoff, ignition off, radio "Mayday", squawk 7700, seatbelts secure, doors opened and jammed. I had plenty of altitude, too much in fact, so I extended the flaps fully. I was still high, so I did a 360 degree spiral to lose altitude. Coming around to line up again with the strip, I finalized the checklist: flaps were already down, avionics off, master switch off. Of course all of this is simulated; I really did not turn anything off. At about 300 to 500 feet AGL, I applied full power and initiated a go-around: achieve climb with positive vertical speed, retract flaps one notch, enter normal climb speed and attitude, and then retract remaining flaps.
I left the practice area and headed back to LZU. The winds were out of the NE, so Runway 7 was the active runway. I did a few touch-and-goes before my time was up. My landings were getting much better -- but that was partially because I did not have gusting winds today.
Next lesson is tomorrow morning at the same time. My instructor told me that we would spend the lesson doing takeoffs and landings over at Winder. I'll most likely be flying a different plane (different ID but still a C172R) tomorrow since "my bird" is going in for its 100,000 hour maintenance today.
