Missing the Signs

The last week or so seemed to be a time where I was really helping my students in ways that I might not have predicted. This goes for flying and for my university teaching, too. It's the second week of the semester and I have already given individual help to more students than all of last semester.

In particular, Dennis had learned to flare, and it was time for him to solo. We talked about it after we shut down, and he was a little tired, but I suggested that the paperwork would take long enough for him to perk up. And I was right. By the time I got all the signoffs done he was rarin' to go.

I walked him out to the airplane, he started up, and I walked calmly back to the office. At least that's how I was hoping it looked. I told the airport bums that he was soloing, and we all stood at the window. Dennis stayed still. "Running the checklist," I said. But he stayed put for longer. Was he getting cold feet?

After about 5 minutes, he shut down.

I stuck my hands in my pockets and ambled out to the airplane, wishing I had a blade of hay or something to chew on to make me look nonchalant. Did he get cold feet? Should I make a joke?

"The radios won't come on," he shouted out the window. Oh.

I crawled under the panel and poked around, but made no progress, so we called maintenance, and someone came out and confirmed that the avionics master had failed. (I later found out that other instructors had had trouble with it, but had not told maintenance. I think this is poor airmanship.)

So we scheduled again for an early morning. I was thinking that there would be light winds, a good time to solo. "But," I said, "let me ride around with you a couple of times to make sure nothing happened to your skills overnight."

At morning the windsock was hanging straight down. Perfect! Dennis did his preflight, we started up, and taxied. An open hangar door revealed the nose of a red Stearman, so I taxied while he admired it. A great day to be at the airport. He did the runup and he taxied to the hold short line. "Hold short awaiting landing traffic," the tower said, and we could see the regional jet about three miles out.

"Look how he's manhandling that airplane," I said, "must be a new first officer." The nose was going up and down, there was yaw, there was roll, although the jet appeared to stay on the glideslope. The regionals are still hiring, and there are a lot of inexperienced pilots flying these things. I've written about this before; see Look Who's In the Right Seat.

Dennis and I launched, and I was surprised. He was all over the place! On base, the airspeed was varying by 10 knots either side of the target, and he flew through final, although he recovered to make a decent touchdown. What happened overnight?

"Let me try one," I said. I was all over the place! On base, the airspeed was varying by 9.5 knots (hey, I was a little better) either side of the target, and I flew through final, although I recovered to make a decent touchdown.

"Let's call it quits," I said, and he agreed without hesitation. It was a terrible day to solo.

So what happened? We had missed a couple of big cues. First, was the cloud pictured here, showing some significant shear at altitude; there were multiple shear layers, down to the surface.

The second cue was the RJ. Watching it point all over the sky led me to believe that the pilot was the problem. By contrast, once when I was flying Life Flight I noticed a PIREP (pilot report) of severe icing, reported by an RJ. Severe icing is pretty rare, and since I decided that it was unlikely that a professional jet crew had forgotten to turn on the anti-ice equipment, I treated the report as reliable, and spent a fair amount of time investigating. But that was then; this time, I allowed prejudice to help me reach an easy conclusion.

And I was wrong. It wasn't the pilot, it was the atmosphere. And I missed it.

Prejudice and aviation do not mix.

Flying the Jantar

The idea of a single seat aircraft has always attracted me.  Besides fighters and the U2, very few come to mind.  Let's see, the Mooney Mite, some homebuilts like the Baby Ace, and lots of gliders. In a single seater you are not as alone as Mike Collins was on the back side of Moon during Apollo 11, but it's as close as most of us will ever come.

Yesterday was my first flight in my single seater, and although almost nothing went as planned, it was still a big thrill.

My first priority yesterday was my student André, whom I soloed. That makes it a big day already, but it soon got bigger.

Brad and I pulled the Jantar out of the hangar and towed it to our staging area. He showed me how to get into the parachute harness, and we tugged and pulled a little to get me into the cockpit. It's tight, but not outrageous. I've grown accustomed to the back seat of the Blanik L-13, where I have lots of room to store a Camelback and snacks and a handheld radio and a kneeboard or notebook. This time the radio went between my legs, and the Camelback behind the headrest.

I wanted a few more seconds in the cockpit, but the tow pilot had to go. I was not rushed, but I had no extra time, either. I was hungry, and ate most of an apple while Brad and André put the glider into position. I knew the speeds and cockpit controls. I ran the checklist, wiggled the rudders, and off we went. It was just after 5pm.

I took a high tow. "Steep turns, stalls, slow flight, then some fun" was my announced plan, but as soon as I was off the tow that plan went out the window. There was weak lift along the ridge, just 1 or 2 knots up, and I decided to work it for more altitude so that I would have some time to explore the airplane. You understand that this is stupid, right? Ridge flying, so close to the ground, is not the time to get to know a new plane. But I continued.

The lift was chopped up, not steady, and I spent 45 minutes between 7800MSL and 8300MSL. I was not happy with my coordination; it was acceptable, but not sharp, but sharp takes time in the cockpit. My airspeed was a little higher than ideal, but I was on the ridge and wanted the extra maneuverability that you get from more air over the ailerons. And I was staying up!

Finally I decided that I had enough altitude that I could turn away from the ridge. I did clearing turns and a stall. No surprises; the airspeed comes up quickly when the nose is lowered, and there was no wing drop. OK. Now it was time for some water.

I reached behind me for the hose from the Camelback, but couldn't find it. Did I have the hose on the left or the right? There was nobody to push it forward to me; I was all alone. I twisted left in my seat, and I could see the bottom of the Camelback. I twisted right, but I could not see the hose.

That's because the hose was outside the plane. We had closed the canopy on it. I have saved other people from this several times, but didn't manage to save myself.

There was no banging or scraping, so I figured that there would be no damage from continued flight, or maybe we had cut it off and it was lying on the runway. But I was thirsty. It had been a long day. It was 6pm, and I had had a 90 minute drive, some groundschool with André, staging the gliders, running wings, talking with a prospective student, the excitement of the solo, and the Sun beating down on me the whole time. How dehydrated was I? How could I judge? It's not like I could look at my fingernails and see if they were turning blue. I did not feel thirsty, but I know from my triathlon training that you are dehydrated long before you feel thirsty.

I went back to the ridge and found some lift, and decided to continue. I felt like I could continue as long as there was good lift, but was not in a position to do a lot of hard work. I left the ridge and looked for lift over the city, but it was weak there, and I headed back to the airport. I found a weak thermal about a mile east, which put me over the downwind for runway 17, but I talked with the airplanes in the pattern and we saw each other and I was above them and it was fine.

When that thermal died it was time to land. RUFSTALL time: radio call, check; undercarriage down, check; no flaps; spoiler check; trim for 60; look and land. Man, was I high, and the variometer showed 0 sink on the downwind. I pulled the spoilers on, and my altitude was gone, just like that. Not that it was unsafe; I had plenty of altitude to reach the runway, but all of a sudden I was a lot lower.

I turned final, one hand on the stick and one on the spoilers, and there was a radio call. "Glider, will you be able to stop short of runway 17, or should we wait." I appreciated the pilot's concern and his awareness of the traffic, but all I had was a handheld radio without a hand to hold it. I grimaced a little to myself and put him out of my mind. Or at least I tried.

I crossed the threshold and nursed the Jantar into ground effect over the runway. It floated pretty well, but the main wheel is pretty big and I had less float than I expected. It settled gently on both wheels, and I worked hard to keep it rolling. By accident, I hit one of our standard precision landing stopping points. I refused all compliments on my landing.

In the end, I flew it for 1.5 hours, mostly in a narrow altitude band. It is responsive and has good control authority. You lay back pretty far but not extremely far, like you would in a Diana, and although my butt was a little sore it was generally comfortable. It handled well at low speeds. I did not try any high speed runs, but that will be high on my list for next time.

And next time, I'll make sure that the Camelback hose is in the plane.