Sorry I've been such a slacker about adding to my blog! I've also been a little light on my flying lately as well. Crunch time is coming soon - I'll need to work harder and spend more time flying in succession soon in order to be labeled competent enough to take a checkride. Here's a recap of a couple of night flight sessions.
Thursday, May 15th 2008
It was time to work towards finishing up the hours and landings required for night flights. We also had to get in a night cross country, so we agreed to fly from Boise, to Weiser, then to Ontario, OR, and back to Boise.
I arrived this night with my completed flight plans, and my father in law, John. John hasn't flown for a long time, maybe 15 to 20 years, so he was pretty interested in coming along. He remembered having fun the last time he went up. I had asked him to come along as I felt I needed more distraction in the cockpit, it helps the learning process in that regard.
Ryan looked over my flight plans, said they looked good, so I called for an updated weather briefing for the final calculations, and then we headed out to the tarmac.
We preflighted, checked the lights, and hopped in the plane. During the run up I radioed the nearest FSS, and opened my flight plan to Weiser. We were almost at max gross weight, and the pressure altitude was at 4500 feet (elevation of Boise Airport is 2871 feet). Therefore we used a lot of runway on takeoff.
The air was very smooth this night, just like a boat on glassy water. Going over instruments and routines, we headed over to Weiser. I was really looking forward to playing a magician and turning on runway lights using the radio on the airport's frequency.
As we made our way to Weiser, Ryan demonstrated the ability to turn on runway lights by lighting up the Payette Aiport runway, which is south of Weiser. Sure enough, they lit up. We continued to Weiser, expecting to be able to turn on the lights, and for some reason they just didn't seem to want to light up for us. Eventually, they did, but by this time we were almost right over the airport. The runway communications must not have that large of a range. I radioed up the nearest FSS and asked to close my flight plan. They said they had almost started to look for us, as we were 20 minutes late in closing. I guess if I had opened my flight plan on climb out, rather than during run up, this would not have been a factor. However, I'll blame it on Weiser Airport, for the extra time it took to get their lights on.
We circled back, and merged into the traffic pattern for the Weiser airport. As we were on final, I really took in how small the runway seemed to be. Landing on a runway this small is something I haven't done yet, and, of course we had to do it at night. It was a bit exciting, and the landing was a bit rough. John asked us as we were taxiing back around for a takeoff if we hit the edge of the runway. No we didn't, but yes, the landing was a bit difficult!
Time to head to Ontario. The range of the communications for the runway lights in Ontario didn't present any problems for us, we were able to test them as soon as we were airborne out of Weiser. We opened the second flight plan to Ontario, and then closed it once we were close.
We landed in Ontario, performed a full stop, then went around for two touch and goes, to get some more night practice in. These landings were a little smoother.
Finally, it was time to head back to Boise. We radioed the FSS and opened our third and last flight plan. We watched as the lights grew more dense on the ground as we headed back to Boise. The landing here was much nicer, and it sure felt funny landing on Boise's big, wide runways after the time I'd spent that night at the smaller runways.
Wednesday, May 28th 2008
After the hours and landings were calculated from the night cross country, it was determined that I still needed .5 hours of night flight for the prerequisite. Therefore, we planned a short night of pattern practice around Boise Airport.
The problem I had a hard time overcoming this night was actually seeing the end of the runway when we were downwind. It made it difficult on my timing for my landing procedures. Mostly, I'd finally grasp where the runway end was, AFTER we'd already passed it, and I'd be late on setting my carb heat, my throttle, my airspeed, and my first notch of flaps.
Here's a short video of our last landing of that night.
