# 2/6/2025 - continued to practice sideslips and crabs in the ground trainer - remember to always make small adjustments, a sideslip and a crab are not maneuvers that you can set and forget about - you always want to be scanning outside with the runway that you are intending to line up with to make sure that you are tracking in the right direction - remember 90% outside and 10% inside - continue to practice on your own with these maneuvers to keep improving # 2/5/2025 - good job adding crosswind corrections on takeoff - make sure that you are always correcting to stay on centerline!! - even if you land right or left of the centerline, you should always be correcting to get back on - as you are transitioning into the round out shift your focus further down the runway (don't look inside the airplane) - this is where you want 100% of your attention and focus to be looking down the runway to judge your longitudinal alignment and your centerline alignment - remember that this will take constant adjustments, you cannot just set it and forget about it # 1/23/2025 - pay close attention to the winds during the base to final turn - practice crosswind landings in the ground trainer to work on sideslip - make sure that you are continually adjusting your sideslip based on your current alignment # 1/22/2025 - remember that if you mess up on the flare attitude, don't let that stop you from correcting all of the other things that you need to do after touchdown - think about holding the touchdown pitch attitude until the airplane touches down, once you reach it you can let the airplane down - continue to practice in the ground trainer with centerline alignment and touchdown pitch attitude # 1/15/2025 - make sure that you are continuing the sideslip all the way down through the round out - good job keeping in the aileron deflection throughout the landing - make sure that you keep the nose aligned straight in towards your aiming point - especially when the flaps are extended you will get a little bit of ballooning and have to correct by pushing the nose down # 12/30/2024 - weather IFR, practiced approaches to different runway length and width airports to work on stabilized approaches in ground trainer ## X01 - during the normal traffic pattern, you want to be consistent with your airspeed - to the best of your ability, you should be at 85 descending in the downwind, 75 in the base turn, and 65 getting established on final - assuming that you are at around 1500 RPM and the winds are pretty calm, you normally will not need to make large adjustments to your power settings, think more about adjusting the airplanes pitch to maintain your desired speed - practiced holding power at 1500 RPM and managing energy using pitch and flaps to get down to desired touchdown point - the point of doing this is not to say that you can't ever make power adjustments when doing an approach if necessary, but to emphasize that you should not use power as a crutch for flying approaches badly $\rightarrow$ you want to get to the point where you only need to make very small adjustments to your power # 12/12/2024 ## Simulated Engine Failure - when you have an engine failure in a climb, make sure that you quickly bring the nose down to avoid slowing down below best glide speed - this is very different from an engine failure in cruise flight when you have plenty of excess airspeed - in a climb there is a good chance you will already be below best glide speed and need to act fast (think about a failure happening while at $V_X$ or $V_R$) ## Simulated Wing Fire - We simulated the emergency over downtown orlando - always keep in mind the risks of landing in a densely populated area, the checklist will say to land as soon as possible, but if you are very close to the airport you should consider attempting to return - this would depend on where exactly you are, if there is a great landing option right below you you would not want to attempt to go to a farther away airport, but you should think more about the additional risk of attempting to land downtown without causing damage to yourself or to other people on the ground # 12/5/2024 - great improvement in your approaches and traffic pattern - the approaches were looking great going into the round out and the flare - you still had a tendency to round out a little bit high - adding the nose up trim on short final is absolutely super helpful - don't forget about doing this every single time because if you don't do it consistently then you will not get comfortable with how much force is required # 12/4/2024 - make sure that you are adding in the sideslip during the approach!! - most of your landings you were not adding it and it resulted in coming in sideloading the landing gear - don't forget about crosswind correction after touchdown - when you want to start the approach, make sure you are actually starting the approach - don't slowly descend down a few hundred feet - stay at pattern altitude until you decide to start descending for the landing, and then set power, flaps, trim, and pitch all in succession - I would recommend that you go in the ground trainer and practice low approaches with a strong crosswind - practice the transition from the approach to the roundout where you are going from a crab angle to a sideslip # 11/8/2024 ## Ground Reference Maneuvers - I want you to be thinking more about how you may or may not be crabbing during turns around a point - remember that when you are in the crosswind (going from downwind to upwind) you turn more than 90 degrees and the point should appear in front of you because you are crabbing into the wind, and the opposite is true when you're in the crosswind going from upwind to downwind - always try to pick 4 points equidistant from your reference point if at all possible ## Steep Turns - make sure that you are flying stabilized with your airspeed / altitude before entering into the maneuver. We might be at the correct entry speed, but if you have low power and the airplane is decelerating then you are going to have to make big adjustments while we are also trying to fly a maneuver - make sure that you lead your roll out by half of the bank angle - if you overshoot avoid kicking in a bunch of rudder to roll out faster (this is not good technique) # 10/31/2024 - ground reviewing night operations - [ ] review [[Surface Analysis Chart]] - review frontolysis and frontogenesis - [link to my night operations lesson / notes](https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F78EC3D6477548D9!27955&authkey=!AO5B8NqrlLGzXzI) # 10/30/2024 ## Steep Turns - good improvement - make sure that you add enough power as necessary during the turn - if you bring the power out before entering the maneuver to slow down, you might have to add more power than you normally would - you can aim for about 2350 RPM in the turns - pay attention to the turn coordinator and also your own sensation of the airplanes coordination - you want to be preemptive in adding rudder when entering and exiting the turns ## Power On Stall - good job with recovery - make sure to pitch the nose up continually to make sure that airspeed continues to decrease - if you have the pitch set at 20 degrees and airspeed is constant, you need to smoothly pitch the nose up to slow down (don't exceed 30 degrees of pitch) - if there are no clouds to line up with, use your peripheral vision to determine the coordination of the airplane - you can sense when the surrounding terrain is rotating around you to tell whether or not the airplane is coordinated ## Power Off Turning Stall - watch out for overspeeding flaps - during the recovery once you have a safe airspeed continue to increase pitch to a climb attitude # 10/24/2024 ## Steep Turns - remember to add in power as you roll into the turn - great job holding bank angle consistently - remember to always make small adjustments as you notice deviations in your altitude - this will help avoid overcorrections, which will also cause your airspeed to change and lead to more overall errors - add more rudder when transitioning from one steep turn to the next - this will aid in rolling out of the turn faster (either way important to maintain coordination throughout) ## Power On Stall - make sure that we do not exceed 30 degrees of nose up pitch in the entry - we went to about 32 degrees - make sure that you associate pitching the nose up in the recovery with adding right rudder - you know that with full power as you pitch the nose up you are going to have turning tendencies come in strongly so it will require a lot of right rudder ## Power Off Stall - make sure to pitch the nose down as you approach 65 knots to establish a normal approach descent - on the recovery prioritize pitching the nose up to climb before worrying about the flaps # 10/23/2024 ## Turns Around A Point ![[Pasted image 20241023102144.png]] - when you are doing ground reference maneuvers with a strong wind, you can widen the circle out a little bit to allow you to have enough room to make the turn - work on making the transition from steep bank angle (downwind) to a more shallow bank angle (upwind) - you can let out just a little bit of aileron and the airplane will slowly turn - you had a tendency to roll out a little bit too much, and then add more bank angle back in repeatedly ## S-Turns ![[Pasted image 20241023102202.png]] - pretty good job - notice as you are heading towards the road which bank angle is required ## Steep Turns - loss of about 150 feet during the entry - a little bit of nose up trim will help a lot for these situations - roll out headings were good ## Approach and Landing - don't be afraid to bring the nose down towards the runway when required - pay close attention to where your aiming point is and if it is farther down the runway than what you want you can bring the nose down to match --- # 10/17/2024 - practiced crosswind touch and gos at KISM ## Go around - make sure that you have sufficient airspeed to climb out before initiating a climb, especially during a low go around - you want to climb away from the ground as efficiently as you can, but you never want to sacrifice airspeed - you run the risk of coming out of ground effect and then stalling as you gain altitude - [ ] review [Bold Method: Go Around](https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly/maneuvers/how-to-manage-flying-a-go-around-from-start-to-finish-pattern/) - [ ] review [Bold Method: Prevent a Crash - Go Arounds](https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly/maneuvers/your-guide-to-flying-go-arounds/) ## Landings - good job initiating the sideslip, but think about doing this at a consistent point (ex 300 feet AGL) - don't forget about adding nose up trim on short final, you had a tendency to flare a little bit flat which led to a flat touchdown --- # 10/3/2024 - don't forget to angle the airplane towards final approach when lining up number one - if you're going to cruise for a while at 1300 feet on the way out to the practice area, make sure that you lean the mixture - its acceptable not to if you're only going to be at that altitude for a minute or two but if if you are staying for any more than that make sure to do the full cruise checklist and lean the mixture ## Steep Turns - don't forget to bug your entry heading for quick reference - don't forget about adding power and nose up trim during the initial turn - this will help a lot in maintaining the correct pitch attitude and altitude - make clearing turns right before entering into the maneuver - you can make position report in the clearing turn but you don't want to clear the area and then spend a lot of time make a position report ## Power on Stall - when you are adding power and pitching the nose up, all of your focus should be outside of the airplane - pick a specific point (a cloud is good) and line the nose up with it and use the rudders to control alignment with it, your coordination was perfect when you did that ## Slow Flight (Clean) - good job once we were established - add power a little bit earlier during the entry to avoid loss of altitude and lower airspeed ## Approach - good job in instrument conditions and flying the airplane down towards the runway # 9/19/2024 - approach had a huge improvement - speeds were much better and descent rate down the the runway was going great - things that need improvement: 1. longitudinal alignment with runway - the amount of rudder that you are adding needs to vary as the airplane slows down and as the winds change - this is something that you want to practice with in the ground trainer when you get the chance to do so - a good indication of whether or not you are aligned is whether or not the rivets on the left side of the cowling are aligned with the runway centerline during the round out and flare 2. landing off centerline - again, focus on changing the amount of aileron that you are adding (increasing) it as the airplane slows down - this is because the flight controls become less and less effective as the airplane slows down - if you are going to touchdown on the side of the runway, GO AROUND!!!! - even if were doing a full stop landing, it is always good practice to go around and it is always a good chance to practice a go around anyways 3. misalignment with runway during the approach - keep in mind that you should always make sure that the centerline of the runway appears as a straight line that is pointed up or down in relation to you - in our case today the winds were decreasing as we went down in altitude so you would have had to decrease your crab angle as you go down - but I want you to mainly just think about your crab angle as it is required during the approach regardless of the winds - try to avoid over controlling the airplane during all phases of flight, take things a little bit more slowly -> you have the right idea but let things flow with you a little bit easier # 9/18/2024 - good job being thorough with the checklist - remember to do a full box when checking the flight controls to check for the full range of motion - remember full aft elevator during all taxi turns - don't forget about climb checklist! - its one of the easiest flows to memorize as well - important to check engine instruments before initiating a climb - clearing turns should be done right before entering the maneuver - you can do the position report while in the clearing turns - great job on the wording of your position reports ## Slow Flight (Landing Config) - when entering a turn, you can normally add a little bit of power because you know you will have a loss of vertical lift from the bank angle - good job with coordination ## Power-off Stall - ==arrest the descent before retracting the flaps== - second attempt was much better - heading was consistent, but not the heading that you bugged - add rudder as you are adding power ## Steep Turns - loss of about 200 feet --- # 9/11/2024 - make sure to maintain 30 degree banked turns in the traffic pattern - pay close attention to coordination in the traffic pattern - even if the rudder trim is a little bit off it is important to maintain coordination - during turns while climbing, you might still need some right rudder when you are established in the turn because of the left turning tendencies - when doing 360s in the traffic pattern, try to practice during turns around a point which will help you reestablish into the downwind from the same position - allow the airplane to come down further to the runway when getting ready for the round out - your round out and flare is happening at a good time, but still a little bit too high # 9/5/2024 ## Victor Airways - remember when using VOR navigation you always select the course you are intending to fly ## Nexrad - good note about the data being delayed ## Drag - remember *heavy, clean, and slow* produce stronger wingtip vortices because of the requirement for a higher angle of attack ## Pilot Qualifications ### Recency of Experience - good job ### Medical Certificate Validity - good job ## Required Inspections - the 100 hour can be overflown by 10 hours, but the next 100 hour inspection needs to be completed 100 tach hours past the original time that it was required - remember the acronym *AV1ATES* ## Required Documents (Airplane) - good note about registration validity times --- # 9/4/2024 - make sure to pull back fully on elevator while turning when taxiing - good job with position reports - take your time doing the checklist and other procedures especially when you are getting back into the airplane after a while ## Slow Flight - don't forget to bug entry heading and pick out reference point - a little bit slow (about 2 knots) on the airspeed below target consistently - remember that it is better to be a little bit higher on your airspeed vs lower ## Steep Turns - loss of altitude during initial entry into first turn, but otherwise consistent with altitude - keep in mind that small deviations in altitude are normal, but make sure you are correcting for them, no matter how small ## Power Off Stall - good job with procedure but make sure that you are not pushing the nose down so far ## Power On Stall - good job not correcting with ailerons during the recovery when the wing began to drop - pick a reference point to line up with (a cloud can be a good one) - this will help you stay coordinated # 8/29/2024 - practiced maneuvers in the ground trainer instead of flying due to sinus pressure and incoming storms ## Slow Flight (Landing Configuration) - entered into shallow descent during the beginning of the maneuver - you want to think about transitioning to the slow flight *sight picture* as the airplane is slowing down - this will allow you to remain at a consistent altitude throughout the entry and make it so that you don't have to correct - max airspeed deviation $-6$ knots - max heading deviation $+8$ knots - max altitude deviation $+250$ feet - you did much better once established and stabilized in the maneuver ## Steep Turns - be careful with your rollout - remember the general rule of using $\frac{1}{2}$ of your bank angle to lead rollout - this will not be perfect if you are staring inside at the HSI, but you can pick an additional reference point to start your rollout at so that you have a good visual indication of when to start before even beginning the maneuver - deviations in airspeed (assuming the correct power setting) typically come from changes in altitude ## Power off Stall - remember not to use ailerons at high angles of attack as this could cause the airplane to enter into a spin - avoid retracting the flaps while still descending - we always want to be climbing while retracting flaps to 10 and 0 degrees - this is because it is better to do a slow climb versus sinking or potentially entering into a secondary stall ## Power on Stall - you want to continually add more and more right rudder approaching the stall as left turning tendencies will continue to increase - using a cloud in the distance can be good as well to maintain coordination as you approach the stall as this is a more obvious indication compared to the turn coordinator - if you get into an excessively high nose down pitch, consider reducing power because you are starting to run the risk of overloading the airplane during the recovery ## Normal Landing Practice - great job with landing pitch attitude and speed - pay attention to the centerline as you are coming down to the runway you have a tendency to drift a little bit to the side while you are slowing down - if you are doing a sideslip for a crosswind landing, remember that you will have to continually increase your control deflections as you slow down because the flight controls will become less and less effective - great job with traffic pattern - remember that if we have a headwind you can start your base turn a little bit earlier because your ground speed will be higher in the downwind and lower on final approach meaning if you do the maneuver the same way you do with zero wind you will end up being low --- # 8/8/2024 ## Aerodynamics - Drag - good job with induced and parasite drag types - [ ] review [Bold Method: Induced Drag](https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly/aerodynamics/how-induced-drag-works-lift/) ## Aerodynamics - Stalls - good job - remember that the reduction in power is to reduce angle of attack of the airplane ## Wake Turbulence Avoidance - good job - remember that the worst conditions for wake turbulence avoidance would be a light quartering tailwind ## Airspace - [ ] review [Bold Method: Victor Airways](https://www.boldmethod.com/blog/lists/2023/07/7-things-pilots-should-know-about-victor-airways/) - [ ] review [Bold Method: Class G Airspace](https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly/airspace/class-g-airspace-rules-explained/) - overall good job ## ICAO Flight Plan - remember that flight following and flight plans differ, but it is always a good idea to file a flight plan even if planning to get flight following (because it is workload dependent) ## Fuel Reserve Requirements - good job - can be found in [FAR 91.151](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-91/subpart-B/subject-group-ECFR4d5279ba676bedc/section-91.151) --- # 8/7/2024 - went in ground trainer due to gusting winds to practice short and soft field landings then reviewed pre-solo progress check ground items - good job with both the short and soft field landings - remember that the round out should start before reaching the aiming point selected ## Review for Pre-Solo Progress Check - [ ] review [UND Electrical System Diagram](https://mediafiles.aero.und.edu/aero.und.edu/aviation/trainers/c172s-electrical-system/) - overall good job - remember that the standby battery will engage when M BUS VOLTS falls below 20 - this information can be found in the emergency procedures section of the POH ## Brakes - great job ## Powerplant - good job with model number - good note about 4 stroke engine - very good note about firing before top dead center ## Ignition System - great job - one magneto will be connected to two top spark plugs on one side and two bottom spark plugs on the other side of the engine ## Oil System - great job 1. lubricating 2. cooling 3. cleaning 4. sealing