Annual Requirements

Annual Condition Inspection. A detailed inspection accomplished once a year on an LSA in accordance with instructions provided in the maintenance manual supplied with the aircraft. The purpose of the inspection is to look for any wear, corrosion, or damage that would cause an aircraft to not be in a condition for safe operation.

The guidebook on who can do what is the maintenance manual (MM) specific to that aircraft. This manual includes information on the condition inspections, repair of the airplane, and authorization for repairs and maintenance. Each task outlined in the MM defines who is authorized to perform that duty—whether it’s the sport pilot certificate (or higher) holder, an A&P, or an LSRMA. 

I decided early on that I was not mechanically inclined. Dad had taught me to turn a wrench on my 1963 Corvair convertible, but I was only average at doing the work. Other car projects came and went with the same results, acceptable but not professional. Sally needs a professional.

I picked Todd up at the Orlando Airport on Saturday night. He had his tools in his checked bag, just under 50#s. After a diner breakfast the next morning, we went out to the hangar to see Sally. I had the cowling and pants off already and was assigned the task of removing inspection plates. He walked around her taking notes, pointing out areas of concern, asking if I had noticed a problem with this or that. Sally has really been running well so I had no complaints to speak of (except the left break occasionally made a "galunka lunka sound). After a while, we headed out to pick up some grease and other lubricants, then stopped for a burger before returning to complete the work. He has some really cool tools. It was a long 8 hour day. But it wasn't over. After dinner, he sat at the kitchen counter and updated my maintenance logs. Certus has created a binder system that provides an owner with an organized view of what has been accomplished and when additional tasks should be completed.

I learned a lot.

I took him back to the Orlando Airport Monday morning.

Should I trim?

I remember when it was a crank on the overhead between the pilot and copilot. Then it as a lever on the side of the cockpit and then  a large wheel on the throttle quadrant. There are other types of trim controls in different locations that I no longer remember but each became second nature to use after a very short period of time. Why? It's just too much work to constantly apply stick (or yoke) pressure to have the airplane fly the path you want it to fly. Once trimmed, you can let her fly (with minor adjustments) and enjoy the ride.

Position the airplane where you want it with the stick, then trim off the pressure. You will need to trim whenever the speed changes.

1) Takeoff: Most checklists tell you to trim to the neutral or takeoff position. This places your trim surface in a position for neutral pressure around Vy. As you lift off, you'll initially need back pressure on the yoke. As you accelerate to Vy, back pressure decreases, and will eventually be neutral.
2) Climb: After liftoff, wait to re-trim the aircraft until you've adjusted your climb configuration. Retracting the flaps will cause your plane to pitch up or down, and you'll need to re-trim to keep the nose pitched for Vy.
3) Cruise: As soon as you level off at your cruise altitude, you start accelerating. Set your cruise power setting and wait for your airspeed to stabilize. While this is happening, start applying nose-down trim in small increments to prevent the aircraft from climbing. (eh, let the airplane accelerate to cruise speed then trim off the pressure.) This requires some fine tuning, but once you're trimmed, you can let go of the yoke, and your plane won't pitch up or down.
4) Maneuvers: You should trim in every maneuver. Whether it's holding altitude setting up for a stall, or relieving control pressures in a steep turn, using trim during maneuvers will make you a master of the airplane. (eh, not so much. If the maneuver is going to happen over a short period of time I recommend you get a feel for the maneuver without trimming off the control stick pressure.)
5) Descent: This one depends on your descent. If you plan to a do a powered descent, you'll need nose-down trim in order to prevent the aircraft from wanting to climb again. If you do a power-off descent, you'll need nose-up trim in order to prevent the aircraft from pitching down too aggressively.
6) Traffic Pattern: You should use trim in each leg of the traffic pattern. Remember to re-trim the aircraft each time you reconfigure or change airspeed!
7) Landing: One place most people don't think to use trim is during the round out and flare. If you have electric trim, it makes landing much easier. As you enter the flare, add some nose-up trim to relieve back pressure. This helps you fine-tune your landing, and grease the plane on to the runway. (eh no, don't do this. Hand fly the round out and flare to get a much better feel for the landing.)

From: Boldmethod

I had a chance to fly with a student in the landing pattern.

Land-2: TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS 

TIME: 1-2 hours Ground Instruction; 1-2 hours Flight Instruction; Optional Video Capture

• REVIEW LESSON ITEMS: Turns around a point; S-Turns along a reference line; Rectangular Patterns, proper radio procedures
• NEW LESSON ITEMS: Traffic Pattern Entries; Collision Avoidance and Scanning procedures in the Traffic Pattern; Traffic Patterns to low approaches; takeoffs and landings; go-arounds. 
• COMPLETION STANDARDS: The lesson will have been successfully completed when the student: is able to fly ground reference maneuvers with altitude +/- 150 feet, airspeed +/- 15 knots; has shown an increase in proficiency in flying the traffic pattern, with altitude +/- 150 feet, airspeed +/- 15 knots, and maintains appropriate headings and distance from the runway, as well as uses proper scanning and collision avoidance procedures; the student will show an understanding of go-around procedures and how to recover from bouncing and ballooning during landings; the student will be able to make landings with occasional instructor assistance. 

With the local weather getting hot by late morning, we decided to just stay in the pattern and bounce.

Video Notes: Landing Project

A Weather Check

I started the week with a full flight schedule. One flight would be a student's solo cross-country flight, the others were early familiarization flights leading up to landing pattern work. The first was cancelled for early morning thunderstorms. An unusual pattern for west central Florida, a high-pressure system in the Gulf was pushing warm moist air east forming cumulous clouds as the air mass crossed the beach. As the sun warmed the humid air the early morning clouds grew into thunder monsters that no pilot would want to play with.

The solo flight was cancelled. I decided to check to see if I could get the other students in before the monsters came ashore. The preflight went well, although it took a bit longer to "burp" Sally since she had been sitting in her hangar for a week. Oil was just shy of the full mark. The sumps were clean. Coolant was good.  I could see the bottoms of both tanks so I added 5 gallons of Mogas from Wawa to the pilot's side. She rolled easily out of the hangar.

Winds were light out of the south. The airport preferred runway was 23, but that was a long hot taxi from the south hangar. I decided to use runway 18 which was a short taxi to the run-up area. I actually had to wait for the oil temp to rise to 122F. Sally was running fine, all systems normal. It was 9:30am when we took off. The clouds to the west were already building.

We headed east to get out away from the airport environment.  The air was stable, no turbulence at 1500ft. Visibility was better than 10 miles with no clouds over the middle of the state. We turned north keeping the line of puffy white clouds to our left. I practiced some steep turns (turns out I needed the practice) as I watched the weather. The clouds were turning gray.

We headed back to the airport for landing practice. It was about 10:30am and I did two turns on RWY23 (each was very good) before changing over to RWY18 for my final landing of the day. The clouds were now dark and I could see showers nearby. I put Sally in the hangar. Kathy sent me a text reporting heavy showers at home.

This was definitely NOT student pilot weather. Maybe next week would be better.

Video Notes: Alone

Heavy Rain

We sat in the restaurant at Sebring. I had a really good BLT and he had the special of the day, a hamburger. As we finished we both started paying more attention to the weather. The puffy clouds were getting darker. He called for the weather brief and put it on the speaker. Typical afternoon Florida weather, "VFR was not advised."

We had lots of options. Most of the heavy stuff was north of KVDF moving south. Plant City and Lakeland were not options.  A few broken lines of cells were building to the south-west but I was sure we could get around them and if we needed to could get back into Venice.  Along the shoreline of Tampa Bay it was still clear and out along the gulf coast it was good. So Clearwater, Albert Whitted, and Peter O. Kight were all in play. (Sarasota was my "Ace in the Hole".)

The chart said it would take less than an hour of flight time to cover the 63 miles from SEF to VDF. Slight headwinds meant it might take a bit longer. We leveled off at 2000' and pushed the autopilot button to let Sally do the work while we discussed options. There was a dark wall of storms to the north clearly visible outside which matched the depiction on the Nexrad weather display. We would not go there. To the west, we could see thin isolated showers and the horizon through them. The south looked good and back to the east was still clear. We proceded on a west-north-westerly heading. It got darker.

There was a gap in the clouds slightly south of our track and we decided to take it. Clear blue skies were visible over the bay extending all the way to the gulf. But the track took us right over my "Nightmare Towers." He asked me for their height and I immediately responded "1650". We were at 2000' and saw the lights flashing on the towers as we passed north of them, Sally yelling "Obstacle" the whole time. It was still dark.

We started to turn the corner after passing I75. Rain to the right, sun to the left, we headed north to see if VDF was possible. AWOS told us that winds were from the south at 9G14 so I planned to go north of the field to set up for a long straight-in to RWY23. But once we had the field in sight we knew that plan wouldn't work. The storm was moving south and engulfed the northern edges of the airport. But RWY18 was still good. I announced an extended right base and made a no-flap landing as the rain started. It was a good landing.

We taxied to the hangar and waited for a moment before opening the canopy. When it let up we popped the canopy went into the hangar and waited for a while to allow the storm to pass. It was a good lesson.

BTW, wing lockers are not waterproof.

Section 5

The POH for Sally doesn't have a lot of information on performance. It provides data "that has been computed from actual flight tests in good conditions using average piloting techniques."

For Sally, the book says the takeoff run is 463' for concrete, 702' for grass. Landing distance is 1188' for concrete, 1109' for grass. The rate of climb (Vy) is 825fpm. But what if conditions are different than "good"?

Since aircraft engines combine air and fuel in their pursuit of power, air with lower density leads to less power. Airfoils also use air pressure for lift, so wings and propellers don’t work as well with air that is less dense. The result is that as temperature and altitude increase, performance decreases—sometimes at an alarming rate. Density altitude accounts for these factors and establishes a theoretical altitude at which the airplane performs. A Rule of Thumb is to increase takeoff distance 100' for every 1000' of density altitude. (It might be a good idea to listen to the ENTIRE ATIS/AWOS report.)  Have you heard of a Koch Chart?

The Start of the Journey

Departing Tampa Executive to the East

I sat in the FBO waiting for my next student to arrive. Sally was out on the ramp as a King Air taxied in and parked right next to her. After the passengers deplaned the pilots came out to do a walk around, each taking their own side. After checking the port outboard wing, the pilot looked over at Sally and did a walk around her. Ramp appeal.

They come from different backgrounds and experiences. Usually, they have some aviation knowledge. I have to guard myself against boring them with too much basic information. For some, this is the first time in a small General Aviation airplane. "Small" was considered to be the twin-engine commuter they took on one leg of a long commercial flight. They have never flown RC models as kids or watched "Twelve O'clock High" on TV. I have to guard against throwing too many acronyms or make assumptions when using common terminology.

The Discovery Flight is the start of the journey to getting a pilot's license. I brief each client that it is their opportunity to see if they like it. If they like Sally, if they like me and if they can see themselves doing this. It is also their opportunity to walk away. So far, no one has walked away.

Last month I got a call from Ira. He is on a mission to fly as many different aircraft types as possible and wanted to know if I could help him. I said sure and asked if he had a C R U Z in his logbook. He said no, so I boasted that it would go to the top of his list. He paused for just an instant and explained that he had flown a P51. OK. So I explained that we would call it a Discovery Flight and it would cost $50. "...and how much to rent the plane?" he asked. I said no charge, that it was my way to entice people to get into General Aviation. "Should I charge more?" I asked. "Not until after you've flown with me," he said.

He was a "snowbird" and the wet weather continued until it was time for him to travel back north. Maybe next season.

Video Notes: Sonja
Leo

Unusual Florida Weather

Alberto: a subtropical system that spawned in the Gulf of Mexico and traveled north staying about 100 miles off the Tampa coast. Winds reached about 65 mph. Not much of an event except for one thing: RAIN. The eastern side of this system sucked warm moist air from the gulf and deposited rain all across the Florida peninsula. It must have triggered a weather pattern. We were grounded for 3 solid weeks. Lakeland reported the wettest month of May in history.

While waiting I decided to have some maintenance done on my LightSpeed Zulu headset. I like this headset but after 7 years it was starting to show age. I learned that for a very reasonable fee the company would refurbish the unit. If I had a Zulu 2 they would upgrade to a Zulu 3, but mine was older than that so I just got it reconditioned. GREAT! customer service, I would advise anyone to get this done.

I got a call from a prospective client about starting his training for his Sport Pilot Certificate. We waited for the weather to change. When I checked the maps yesterday it was marginal. Foggy mist in the early morning followed by a 60% chance of strong convective rain and thunderstorms in the afternoon. But there was a gap, a small possibility of mid-morning fair weather that might work. I asked him to meet me at the FBO at 9:00am EDT.

I did a thorough preflight on Sally the day before, noting that she could use a good cleaning. Mechanically she was sound, cosmetically she had killed a lot of lovebugs on the previous flight and needed the remains to be cleaned off the leading surfaces. She would go "as is". I burped her again for this flight and sumped the fuel. Next, I pulled her out of the hangar and attached the cameras. I enjoyed the brief taxi over to the FBO. Bruce was waiting for me.

We discussed what a Discovery Flight is, what he should expect and some basic instructions for the flight. I told him just a bit about Sally as we walked to the airplane, then instructed him how to get in and adjust the straps. I adjusted the rudder pedals and made sure he was comfortable before I got in. I suggested his polarized sunglasses might now work with the LCD displays. After a basic brief, we taxied out to RWY23 for takeoff.

The flight went well. We had to avoid some scud and a few scattered clouds at 1,000ft but the air was smooth. We accomplished what we needed and returned home. We are both ready for the next flight, weather permitting.

June 1st is the start of Hurricane season.

Video Notes: Discovery Flight