Commercial Maneuvers, lesson 1

It's been a while since I've posted anything- this is primarily because I haven't flown. In the time that I've been away, I was studying intensely for my commercial written exam. I passed it, and so the flying has resumed. I started learning commercial maneuvers today, and they were a blast. We started off with some basic stuff- slow flight, stalls and "private pilot" steep turns. Then we moved on to "commercial" steep turns that required a 50 degree bank. For some reason, the extra 5 degrees caused a bit of trouble, and they were a bit coarse. We'll need to do some polishing next time round. Next up, we did Chandelles. I think of this as a terrain escape maneuver. Say you're flying along one day, and need to escape some terrain that's rising faster than you can climb, you'd use a Chandelle to save your butt. It's a minimum radius, climbing 180 degree turn, where pitch is varied for the first half, and bank is varied for the second half. After 2 tries, I was doing them well enough, but keep your feet on those rudder pedals, as adverse yaw will bite you.

Next on the menu was the dreaded lazy 8. Don't ask me when you'd use this maneuver- because I haven't a clue. I'll take it as an exercise in aircraft control. It's much harder to explain than it is to do, so I won't waste your time going into it, but suffice to say that they're fun. It takes a while to get accustomed to, so I tried maybe 4 times before getting it right. A major problem was that by default, I'll look at the gauges, and this is one maneuver where I've been bitten. Once I tried doing it with my eyes outside, it worked like a charm. Proper positioning is key though, because the wind has a major effect on the outcome of this demonstration.

After all that yanking and banking, my stomach has just about enough, and we went back to the field for some circuits. That was interesting. My first landing was a soft field demonstration, which requires minimum airspeed, full flaps and a gentle touchdown. Now the tower was estimating the wind from 220 degrees at 6kt as they cleared us for the first touch and go, but I was to find that their estimate was WAY off. When we saw the windsock on short final, it was showing us at least 16kt blowing straight across the runway- no wonder I needed so much crosswind correction. Full flaps don't help in a crosswind either, so the landing was less than dignified. I figured that it was as good a time as any to practice some crosswind landings, and my instructor agreed, but he insisted on teaching me the wing low technique that he knows I loathe.

Now, flying with other pilots (students and instructors alike), they all seemed to slam the rudder and drop the wing when using this technique, causing all the luggage to shift to one side. That causes the terrible feeling of nausea I described in a previous post. My CFI showed me another method- use JUST ENOUGH rudder to keep on the centerline, and opposite aileron as required. Well I tried it, and a light went off in my head. Yes, the controls felt funny, but I wasn't looking at the ground at some odd angle while trying to keep my food down. It was a perfectly docile maneuver, and you wouldn't realize what was going on unless you were looking at the instruments. It worked a charm, and now I'm WAY more comfortable with the wing low technique. Most of the people I've flown with were way too aggressive. Small corrections are the secret. Of course, I don't consider myself an expert after a hand full of wing low approaches, but now I'm far more open to the idea, and I'm looking forward to trying it again.

The rest of the lesson was spent doing power off precision approaches, short and soft field landings. Given the stiff crosswind, we elected to use a lower flap setting for better aircraft control. For my final circuit, we had to extend the downwind leg for a Cessna Citation (aka SLOWtation) on a 5 mile final. It took forever for this plane to pass us. Man those things are slow! We stayed above his approach path to a flapless landing and vacated the runway. By this time, I was sweating like a pig. Circuits are fun, but the low airspeed and power setting result in very little cabin airflow, and the low altitude means it's hot, so as fun as it is to do circuits for half an hour, you're glad when it's over.

All in all, a good day of flying. I'm going to do some chair flying later to practise the maneuvers for the next lesson. Until next time, keep the dirty side down...