things that go bump in the day

Wheels up and back in the sky once again. Right on schedule, the weekend arrived and the winds fired up. Saturday saw the worst of the weather pass through. Winds on the surface were gusting once again to 27. But more dangerous were the winds aloft. Moderate to severe turbulence below 8000 ft all over the region, and a mountain wave that, according to a pirep, was quite severe. A driver of a Cessna 172 reported a descent over 500 fpm while trying to cross the ridge. He had full power and was pitching the aircraft for Vx…or best angle of climb. Not sure how he got out of it, but that alone was enough for most of the instructors, myself included to cancel our flights.

Sunday was forecast to be better, however the forecast changed and those winds hung around. The severe turbulence was gone, and the mountain wave wasn’t as vicious so I decided to give it a shot. My first flight of the morning paired me with a private pilot….from Jamaica….that hadn’t flown in 4 years. No problem. I told him it would be bumpy but if he didn’t mind a few bumps we could go. So we headed out and I showed him the preflight. We hopped in the airplane and departed off runway 35. I requested a vfr climb to 3000 and a class bravo clearance, and Potomac departure was able to accommodate. I wanted to get out of the low level bumps as soon as I could. It worked, sort of. We headed over to Winchester and flew around. Let him get used to the airplane, as all his ppl training was done in a Cessna 150. He came to me with .8 of an hour in a 172. We did an hour in the practice area and headed back. I briefed him on the landing, and asked if he wanted to try to land it. We agreed that I would help him on the controls as it was a pretty gusty crosswind. To be exact I wrote down the winds…280@16knots gusting to 27. The wind was 70 degrees off the runway heading(350) and nearly exceeded our xwind capability of the aircraft. We were almost test pilots. He did a great job on final until over the grass. We went below the trees and lost our wind. He had let us get slow and the windshear bit us. I felt the sink, called for some power, he didn’t respond so I took controls, went full power and got out of there. he asked me to do the landing the next time around and I totally greased it. My biggest fear was botching another landing with a student, for the second week in a row.

My second student is a guy that ive been trying to fly with for a while now. We first flew together back when we had the electrical failure, and have only had one other flight in the pattern between then and now. So we headed out into the wind. Nice takeoff and climb out. Headed west via rt 7 and used some pilotage to have him find Winchester airport for me. We did a few maneuvers in the area and then headed over for a couple landings at Winchester(kokv). Winds were 16 knots but right down the runway. Made it nice and easy for him to have good landings. Made my job easier too. We departed the airport back to Leesburg and I wanted him to learn how to enter and exit the ADIZ. He made his intial call up to Potomac and we were rudely dismissed. As we circled outside the ADIZ we watched the airliners entering the downwind for rwy 1L at KIAD. The controllers were busy. One large jet after another, and no sqwawk code for us. So I tried two more freqs before we finally got a code. So, my teaching moment was kinda ruined and I had to kinda ad-lib to get us back home. But at least got to see what to do when that happens. I will say it again, the ADIZ is a good thing for national security, but damn it’s a pain in my a$$ every day that I fly. Nine times out of ten it’s a piece of cake with no problems. But that tenth time it really bugs the crap out of you. Some controllers act as though they are god…..and treat smaller GA aircraft as though they aren’t worth their time. Ok, end rant.

So we ended the flight with a pretty wild time on final, and a pretty long touchdown. But it was a safe landing on the centerline and the plane will fly again.

Overall not the best weekend of flying, but I did get some time in the logbook. Broke 490 total time, so I am slowly getting closer to the elusive 1000 hrs. I have a pretty good feeling that once I start teaching full time I will fill the pages in my logbook pretty fast.

Total time=490.7 Multi time 9.8 1hr PIC multi. That is soon to change.