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Getting Rusty!


Animosity2k

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I've got about 200 hours in my CT. Yesterday I flew it for the first time in 6 months to go get new tires put on. Talk about getting rusty! Winds were almost 90* cross @ 11kts. By the time I got off the runway I had practically ran off into the grass. Guess it's a good reminder to not let flying go for so long. Plan to spend the next few weeks getting myself comfortable again. 

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I’m still without a ride down here in NM. I’ve flown maybe 3 hours over the last year. 

no light sport for rent in the area. 

My options are to either finish the hours for full private pilot or wait for Moasic to go through so more airframes open up to me. Unfortunately purchasing an aircraft isn’t in the cards for some time. 

either way I foresee several hours with an instructor in my future. 

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On 6/24/2022 at 1:58 PM, FlyingMonkey said:

CTs are "humility generators"... 😜

 

I have in our flying club hanging on the wall, my notice of disapproval for CFI. On it, it says "It can happen to anyone, don't stop practicing while waiting for your checkride!"

I had used my CTLS for a combined CFI/CFII checkride, with the blessing of the FSDO. Did both orals, did both practicals.

The last maneuver was the power off 180 to accurate landing (touch down on a spot or after within 200 feet, starting abeam the spot from pattern altitude). These are INSANELY DIFFICULT to do in a Flight Design. The incredibly low wing loading, and low inertia, means wind has a significant effect on the aircraft and this maneuver is all about energy management.

Well, none of that is an excuse. I was waiting months to do this exam, and I had stopped practicing. I bombed the absolute hell out of it, by more than a thousand feet, twice.

So head hanging, I had to go back to my instructor and he was ready to smack me. I was doing them just fine when he was riding along.

I did a dumb thing and picked the numbers to touch down on without scouting the field first (Couldn't see any glideslope indicators and that's what I usually use), and second, this maneuver should never be done at the numbers. I forgot this fact. By picking the numbers, I was at the mercy of the obstacles off the end of the runway, that being a hill and a road that I realized are going to be a problem because winds switched and that's the first time I have ever landed in that direction on that airfield. So I deserved those lumps. I did a dumb thing, and here I thought that since I already did that maneuver for my commercial and was dead nuts on, this will be a piece of cake right?

I went back the next week after relearning the lessons I figured out for the commercial maneuver and got the signoff again. The thing about a flight design, is the light wing loading is an advantage if you know how to use it. What I had learned while practicing for commercial is not to ever add any flaps until the moment you need them, and forgot this during my CFI checkride.

What you do, is stay at -6/-12. All the way down to ground effect. If you are at best glide speed when you enter ground effect, you will glide for about 1200 feet before touchdown. However, here's the trick: if you need just a little more, wait as long as you can in ground effect, then put in the flaps before you run out of glide. The movement of the flaps will balloon you, increase lift, and let you get another few hundred feet if you have to use all flaps. It is very important to hold off as long as you can, because flaps also equal drag; if you put them down earlier, you just closed the window a lot. You don't have to use all the flaps of course, if you just need another couple hundred feet, 15 degree flaps will give it to you. If you need 350 feet, all flaps will get you there.

If you're coming in too high, you do little microslips, a bit at a time, if you're coming in too high and picking up airspeed. If you can't shake the airspeed, you can do an aggressive slip but you have to time it right, if you come in under slope, there's not a lot you can do. It's better to come in slightly higher or faster, than to fall short.

The examiner let out an audible "whoa" cause he wasn't expecting the flaps a few hundred feet from touchdown, but complemented the unconventional means to get it done. He said the same thing I am saying now: he doesn't see an easy way at all to do the 180 in the Flight Design because most aircraft, like 172s, just drop through the air and plonk down with ease, while the flight designs just keep going and going. He seriously thought we weren't going to make it until I put in flaps to get the little extra leap off the cushion of air and actually liked the unorthodox method, and suggested refining it a little bit so that ground effect is entered at the end of the runway at the correct airspeed to avoid obstacles over the end of the field (wind changed and pushed us out just a little more than I wanted, but still made it because of the flaps trick).

I'm the first person he's ever examined to do a CFI checkride in a light sport with him, and the first to do a combined checkride with him, he thought it was nuts to do all of that with such a difficult airplane for those checkrides... but understood that since it's my airplane, it makes financial sense. Given what he saw, even despite the disapproval, he was still impressed and vocalized that.

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1 hour ago, Anticept said:

 

I have in our flying club hanging on the wall, my notice of disapproval for CFI. On it, it says "It can happen to anyone, don't stop practicing while waiting for your checkride!"

I had used my CTLS for a combined CFI/CFII checkride, with the blessing of the FSDO. Did both orals, did both practicals.

The last maneuver was the power off 180 to accurate landing (touch down on a spot or after within 200 feet, starting abeam the spot from pattern altitude). These are INSANELY DIFFICULT to do in a Flight Design. The incredibly low wing loading, and low inertia, means wind has a significant effect on the aircraft and this maneuver is all about energy management.

Well, none of that is an excuse. I was waiting months to do this exam, and I had stopped practicing. I bombed the absolute hell out of it, by more than a thousand feet, twice.

So head hanging, I had to go back to my instructor and he was ready to smack me. I was doing them just fine when he was riding along.

I did a dumb thing and picked the numbers to touch down on without scouting the field first (Couldn't see any glideslope indicators and that's what I usually use), and second, this maneuver should never be done at the numbers. I forgot this fact. By picking the numbers, I was at the mercy of the obstacles off the end of the runway, that being a hill and a road that I realized are going to be a problem because winds switched and that's the first time I have ever landed in that direction on that airfield. So I deserved that lumps. I did a dumb thing and thought I already did that maneuver for my commercial and was dead nuts on, this will be a piece of cake right?

I went back the next week after relearning the lessons I figured out for the commercial maneuver and got the signoff again. The thing about a flight design, is the light wing loading is an advantage if you know how to use it. What I had learned while practicing for commercial is not to ever add any flaps until the moment you need them, and forgot this during my CFI checkride.

What you do, is stay at -6/-12. All the way down to ground effect. If you are at best glide speed when you enter ground effect, you will glide for about 1200 feet before touchdown. However, here's the trick: if you need just a little more, wait as long as you can in ground effect, then put in the flaps before you run out of glide. The movement of the flaps will balloon you, increase lift, and let you get another few hundred feet if you have to use all flaps. It is very important to hold off as long as you can, because flaps also equal drag; if you put them down earlier, you just closed the window a lot. You don't have to use all the flaps of course, if you just need another couple hundred feet, 15 degree flaps will give it to you. If you need 350 feet, all flaps will get you there.

If you're coming in too high, you do little microslips, a bit at a time, if you're coming in too high and picking up airspeed. If you can't shake the airspeed, you can do an aggressive slip but you have to time it right, if you come in under slope, there's not a lot you can do. It's better to come in slightly higher or faster, than to fall short.

The examiner let out an audible "whoa" cause he wasn't expecting the flaps a few hundred feet from touchdown, but complemented the unconventional means to get it done. He said the same thing I am saying now: he doesn't see an easy way at all to do the 180 in the Flight Design because most aircraft, like 172s, just drop through the air and plonk down with ease, while the flight designs just keep going and going. He seriously thought we weren't going to make it until I put in flaps to get the little extra leap off the cushion of air and actually liked the unorthodox method, and suggested refining it a little bit so that ground effect is entered at the end of the runway at the correct airspeed to avoid obstacles over the end of the field (wind changed and pushed us out just a little more than I wanted, but still made it because of the flaps trick).

I'm the first person he's ever examined to do a CFI checkride in a light sport with him, and the first to do a combined checkride with him, he thought it was nuts to do all of that with such a difficult airplane for those checkrides... but understood that since it's my airplane, it makes financial sense. Given what he saw, even despite the disapproval, he was still impressed and vocalized that.

Awesome!  I can see how those kind of maneuvers would not be ideal in CT.  The way the airplane comes down is one reason I rarely add in the last notch of flaps (usually to 30° for the way I land) until I have the runway 100% made.  That way if the engine conks out I can still make the runway; if you add all the flaps in early and rely on power the CT just doesn't have the ass behind it to make the runway power off.

For slips, which I do a LOT, I found that if you just kick the rudder and drop a wing you will pick up a lot of speed, like ten knots.  If you put some back pressure to hold the nose up (in a hard slip you even *raise* the nose a bit), you'll keep the speed from picking up and avoid the float at the runway.  Maybe that is a slippery composite thing...my CFI says the Diamond DA-20s at his flight school behave the same way.

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One more thing on top of that: due to all the airspeed limitations with flaps, it appears that it's better to slip WITHOUT flaps, because you can sink it much faster for what airspeed you pick up during the dump. With flaps in, the airspeed restrictions have you so much closer to best glide for the flap settings given, that it's really hard to lose the altitude for a given forward distance, it just won't give it up.

All the more reason to add flaps only when you know you have it made.

Just remember though, Va is for ONE full deflection of a control input. I will not allow the airspeed to go over 90 indicated if I am going to do aggressive slipping, to reduce airframe stress and to account for the inaccuracies of the ASI during slips (that also means, and especially, stop the slip if you are getting close to stall, because the ASI is even more inaccurate at the high AoA and the risk of spinning down).

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