Flying Standards

 Summer flying off the Cirrus wing

As summer approaches and my logbook nears the 65 hour mark, I have neared completion of my student pilot certificate. Everyones story is a little different, but every pilot has distractions that put flying second or third on the priority list. Unfortunately I have school which has limited my flying to only weekends, and therefore getting my license has exceeded the time margin I expected; but to know I'm almost there is great motivation. When I am able to take my checkride is all up to me at this point, as I am flying standards.

Pre-flight, takeoff, climb, cruise. Instructor asks me to enter slow flight, I ask dirty or clean- which means with or without flaps. 5 minutes of keeping the plane on a proper heading flying at a sluggish 65 knots with mushy controls. FAA private pilot standards dictate I am allowed to drift no more than 5 degrees off heading and lose or gain no more than 100 feet of altitude while maintaining a slow flight airspeed within 10 knots. Sounds easy, and with enough practice it becomes easy. Break out of slow flight, onto the next check ride maneuver.


Steep turns, the infamous 45 degree constant bank perfect circle maneuver. With this maneuver, one must maintain the standards as well as keep coordinated flight, not to mention stay in ones seats while gravity doubles ones weight and centripetal force pulls one against ones seatbelt. But with experience, I am able to do this comfortably and even spend some time looking down my window seeing the world from a really different angle, which always makes me smile.

Stalls are the hardest to succeed at, and they are never comfortable. Like with any maneuver, first thing is checklist. I was taught to do a flow, which includes items like turning on my boost pump, enriching to full mixture and turning on all exterior lights. Specify what the maneuver requires, such as flaps, and what the goal is throughout. Then I bug my altitude and heading so that it is known for keeping within standards. Everything I think I say out loud since precision is necessary and the mistake of forgetting anything will cause a unsuccessful and possibly dangerous outcome. There are two basic types of stalls, the arrival and departure stall. The arrival stall is easier because it requires less control pressure and happens gradually. Although we begin at a high altitude such as 4000 AGL, we are simulating the final approach path to an airport where our airspeed has diminished and we must recover from our stall without losing much altitude. As if on were on final, we use full flaps and fly at 75 knots with a 500 foot per minute decent rate. Then, as if begining the flair, we take out all power and use back pressure from the elevator to maintain altitude. Because we have no thrust, our airspeed drops. The stall horn begins to ring, and at 56 knots the plane buffets. It is only once the plane is truly stalled, at the moment of the buffet, that I am to recover. Immediately I add full power, take out the last notch of flap since they only cause drag, and nose down the airplane. Seconds after the stall I have enough airspeed to level out, then pitch up and begin to climb. The hardest part of all of this is maintaing the proper heading with the mushy controls and keeping the rudder coordinated or centered. During the recovery, my legs are pushing hard with force against the right rudder pedal to counteract the torque from the power added. But maybe a minute after begining the whole maneuver, the plane is flying straight and level at a safe airspeed, and my instructor is jotting notes about my performance. The other type of stall is the departure stall which simulates a rotation at 65 knots followed by an excessive angle of attack which makes the plane stall even while the pilot has full engine power running. The recovery consist of taking out all the power and pitching down, then once recovered from the stall adding back in power and returning to straight and level flight.

Following stalls, my Instructor and I practiced unusual attitudes. These are fun because of the surprise they add in the cockpit. My instructor takes control of the aircraft while I put my chin against my chest, close my eyes, and release all flight controls. Vertigo kicks in and my instructor turns and twists the plane. Then finally I hear the words, "your controls." Instantaneously my head lifts up and I glimpse at what my instruments tell me the plane is doing, since my vertigo is unreliable. No room for error, and no time to freeze, I must recover and coordinate now. The two basic types of attitudes my instructor will put me through are overspeed excessive descents and near stall high pitch climbs. With these he has purposely unleveled the wings and gave improper power settings which make my workload for the recovery as great as possible. Since both situations require immediate and hard recoveries, it is likely that the planes quick shift from un-level to level flight flight will give occupants a moment of negative G flight. This is fun because for a second or two, we become weightless and actually float off our seats and are held down only by the seatbelt.

Monument used for FAA PPL maneuver: turns around a point

Moving on, we descended down to just 1000 feet AGL and begun ground reference maneuvers. We began with circles around a point, and we found a great landmark to safely execute. The guidlines state that aside from densely populated areas, ground reference maneuvers are to be flown anywhere from 600 to 1000 feet above the ground. Our point was a large monument somewhere in New Jersey. In order to enter at the proper altitude and airspeed, I flew three miles away from the obstacle giving myself room to correct for error before beginning the turn. Like all ground reference maneuvers, Pilots are to enter on the downwind leg, in other words with the wind on their tail. This is because with the wind pushing the plane, one will have to use the most bank to keep the plane on a constant radius. If I use 45 degrees of bank while entering the turn with the wind on my tail, I will need to use less rather than more bank to correct for the wind in order to maintain a constant radius with the point. I never understood this concept completely until I used a toy plane and actually visualized what was happening. As we continued to circle around the monument, we noticed a few people near the base walking around probably taking pictures wondering why the crazy pilot is flying so low. As a boy, it was a good day when I could look up and see a small plane clearly overhead. Now to be the pilot flying that plane, knowing people on the ground are looking up at me... it's a feeling that makes me laugh and words cannot do justice.

We then practiced S turns using a nearby river. I described these vividly in a recent post but they are exactly what they sound like: repeated opposite semicircles which when paired form an S as seen from above. Ground reference maneuvers force pilots to not only keep airspeed, altitude and bank angles tight, but they require pilots to keep their eyes outside since the maneuver is flown relative to a ground point. Since the maneuvers are meant to be flown very low, it allows us cross country pilots to get cool views of the ground below us- I can see what kind of car people have in their driveway while at 800 feet AGL.

4N1 Greenwood Lake Airport

Before heading back to Westchester, my Instructor challenged me with a landing at 4N1, Greenwood Lake Airport. The runway is not a short length at just under 3500 feet. The width was a part of the challenge since the runway is only 60 feet wide, but the trouble was the crosswind. Runway 24 had a 15 knot almost perpendicular crosswind, and with 60 feet of width there is no cushion room off of centerline. From above, the airport blends in as it is surrounded by trees, and from this picture, it looks more like a 2 lane road than anything else. After communicating with the traffic in the area, I entered the pattern knowing it had to be a really precise rectangle if I wanted to land on the first attempt. It took 15 degrees of crabbing into the wind in order to maintain a parallel course to the runway on downwind, but soon enough I was on final. With the gusty wind, I chose to fly 5 knots faster than normal on final approach coming over the numbers at 80 rather than 75 knots. The landing was not comfortable, as the wings were tilt into the wind and my rudder correction was firm to keep centerline. Touchdown, rollout with full aileron into the wind, and then I was able to take a breath of relief. These types of landings should not necessarily be greasers, but rather just safe. Nevertheless, it was too much crosswind for a student like myself to be comfortable in, but that was the reason for my Instructor making me to practice there. Uneventful flight and landing at Westchester to conclude the 1.6 hour lesson.

I am at a point where I can see my faults and judge my own flying throughout maneuvers. It is nice to hear my instructors feedback, and of ofcourse I am not flying 100% perfectly so their is constructive criticism, which I must take in and respect; but as my instructor put it, I am flying within standards. Right now, my license depends on the effort I put into my oral exam studying. Private Pilots must take a oral and flight exam with an FAA examiner, and I am not proficient enough on the oral answers. The oral test, unlike the FAA written exam, is based around reasoning and problem solving rather than single fact answers that can be learned from the textbook. With the end in sight, I have the motivation to learn what I must for the oral exam and I expect that rather soon I will be writing a blog appropriately titled, "Completion, from dreamer to Private Pilot in a Cirrus SR20."

If you made it all the way through to here, leave a comment or Tweet me  what you think. Cheers!

Uneventful Solo Cross Country to 1B1 (video)

One word pilots like to use is 'uneventful.' It means there were no problems and the flight was executed seamlessly. My second solo cross country can be described using this term, as well as being fun.

There is not much to say that is not said in the 15 minute video. I uploaded the XC (cross country) in HD so please watch it in HD; literally it becomes clearer. This flight was to 1B1, Columbia County Airport, which is about 70 miles due north of Westchester (HPN). You may notice that I was using my map page a lot for a planned cross country flight; this is not because I was looking for GPS locations but rather because there were scattered clouds and rain so I was frequently checking the weather at nearby airports. Both landings were pretty soft, but that last landing at white plains was truly a greaser. Please share the video and follow me on twitter! Follow @Neil_Hershman

Night Flying 2.0

Cirrus's are know for being one step ahead of their competition, therefore Cirrus came up with the 'flying 2.0' slogan. I think this becomes most evident when you take the small GA plane and fly it at night where its sophisticated systems really stand out. In order to become a private pilot, the FAA requires one to fly a dual night 150 nautical mile cross country and complete 10 full stop night landings. Although this may not seem like all that much, flying at night is a transition and as my instructor put it during our taxi to the runway for my first night takeoff, "The airports a different place in the dark."

Cirrus SR20 at night with Cirrus Perspective avionics

First thing first, preflight. Walking around the plane following the checklist is a simple task completed before every flight. When it's dark, however, and the only illumination is a flashlight, this becomes a bit tricky. But this was nothing I couldn't complete on my own. Next, taxi. Taxing at night requires one to follow the centerline using the forward facing landing light that illuminates only about 20 feet in front of the nose. Instead of seeing the grass off the edge of the taxiways, blue omnidirectional side lights illuminate the the path. Takeoff is not much different either, follow the centerline, watch your airspeed, and pull back. But once leaving the ground, the simularities end.

KHPN --> Hudson River --> 20N --> 1B1

         The Cirrus has dimming settings which allow one to see the vibrant colors on the MFD and PFD without disrupting their night vision. It also has a built in reading light and a LED red strip to illuminate the panel. All lights during a night flight should be red or blue, colors that do not disturb ones eyes like white light does. Since this is still visual flight rules, pilots must be able to see outside because separation, navigation and approaches are flown visually. The flight was a cross country flight planned from Westchester (KHPN) to Kingston Ulster (20N) followed by Columbia County (1B1). All planning was done like any other cross country, with a flight plan determined through charting using multiple checkpoints along the route. Since it was night however, and I needed visible ground reference points, I chose to follow the Hudson river rather that fly directly. A river as large as the Hudson at night stands out because it is a big dark empty space lined with lighted edges of riverside towns.

My first stop, 20N, is a shoreline airport making it easy to locate. This is a uncontrolled field, and at night an airport must be visibly lighted. The way class E airports work at night is by using pilot controlled lighting systems. Basically they have a frequency (found in the A/FD) where pilots can tap their talk buttons creating clicks, and when these clicks are heard over the radio they activate the runway lights. It is a pretty reliable system that takes a little bit of getting used to from the pilots perspective. It really is a cool thing to watch an airport come to life with runway lights on your own cue, which was my favorite part of the night flight. Finding the airport is still a challenge. Although one is tempted to look for the runway lights, airports are found easiest by searching for their rotating beacons. Once spotted, you must keep an eye on the airport or else you'll lose sight of it. I thought I mastered entering patterns, but at night ones sense of depth is lost and I was way to close to the runway on my downing leg. Following the glideslope at 20N I was able to make up for my mistake and execute a landing. The cool thing I found about night landings is how just when you approach the runway, maybe 10 feet up, your landing light begins to illuminate the runway in front of you making it much more visible that it is on approach.

Next we flew to Columbia (1B1) which is an airport that neither has a glideslope indicator nor easy VFR route. I planned to locate my position by triangulating between two VOR's, and that way I'd find an approximate location on the chart. It is always necessary to know where you are because this way I am able to determine the approximate time to begin my decent for the airport and where to look for the airport. Columbia does not have a glideslope indicator for runway 03, making the approach difficult. I had to stay on a proper decent path completely visually; at night without being able to see treetops and hillsides, this became a bit stressful. I came over the runway a bit high but landed just fine.

Wing ice lights on Cirrus

After cleaning up, we departed and headed back for Westchester. The landing at Westchester showed improvement over the previous two. One reoccurring problem I had while doing my first few night landings was that I tended to drift to the right of the centerline. It is not a problem I have had in recent daytime flights, so it is my eyes deceiving me allowing me to mistake centerline two feet to the right. All in all, it was a good flight and I began to gain confidence at night VFR flying. It is something I am not entirely comfortable with yet, but something I will practice more at. My instructor reptively made the point that one day I will be flying a date or my family to lunch or dinner and our return will be a VFR night flight, and I must be safe during this flight; which is more than just being legal for the night flight. Night flight requirements state that the PIC must have 3 full stop night landings within the past 90 days in order to fly legally at night; which means one does not need a lot of experience in order to stay current. The Cirrus is a step ahead of similar models since it is integrated with multiple featured that are utilized only during night flight, such as the wing ice lights seen in the picture.

I would like to welcome all the COPA members who have been brought to my blog and thank those who featured it. The best way to keep up to date with me is to follow me on my new twitter, so follow away! @Neil_Hershman