Neeta is starting her flight lessons; welcome to the world of being a student pilot….
She has about 8 hours now, and today she did a phenomenal take-off from Hawthorne. She is within private pilot limits on slow flight, power-on stalls and power-off stalls (dirty configuration). Today, she was also doing both the stalls with a shallow 20 degree bank. Not bad!!!
Her rudder control is not perfect.. but oh well ! She is just in her first week of training. What do u expect!
As a continuation to my previous post, this flight was probably the toughest flight I have ever done. We were full fuel, with 3 SOB’s. Takeoff was a nightmare. I could not keep the computer aligned with the runway – a strong gusting wind kept pushing me off the center line. Oh well.. that was still the easiest part.
I climbed through 4000 for 9000 and started to get a climb performance of 100 ft/min at 65-70 knots. This was due to high density altitude and a head wind of 20 knots. At 8500, I could not keep altitude at 65 knots and told ATC that we will cancel IFR and navigate ourselves. We tried to stay over flat ground as much as possible and flew at whatever speed we could. I was literally doing 60-80 knots at 85% power at 8500. Turbulence was bad near DAGGAT. We diverted towards Palm Dale and then Palm Dale – HHR direct.
Over Palmdale, I picked up IFR again, since the LA Basin was IFR, and now my headwind changed to tailwind. I started to get 150 knots!!!! My top speed in a C-172.
Rest was a cake…..
On Tuesday night, Neeta and I decided to go to Las Vegas for the NAB show. Instead of driving, we decided to do a night flight from Hawthorne to Henderson. Shiva just landed after a 3 hour flight from Reed Hill View, in the San Francisco Bay area. We fueled and took off.
The flight was relatively easy. We filed and flew IFR though were in VFR all the time. It was night – IFR routing was easier to fly so that we could easily avoid the terrain around Big Bear, Lake Arrowhead etc. The ride near Apple Valley was a little choppy, but then smooth rest of the way. After Daggat we were asked to fly towards Boulder. I asked for Direct to HND and advised ATC that I would cancel IFR closer to the airport and do a visual approach. As I was being transferred to Vegas approach control, seemed like the ATC dude had issues with communication. He was not responding to my calls and to another pilot. Finally the pilot another aircraft told ATC that I was calling repeatedly checking in with him. He finally acknowledged and cleared me for a visual to Runway 17.
The touchdown was easy … there we were – in Vegas to party that night. I will post again about the flight back. That is a whole story and probably the toughest flight I have ever done.
Shiva, Neeta and I decided to do an IFR flight, the day after Shiva passed his IFR check ride. We convinced Neeta to fly into actual conditions. The weather was not too bad, just a layer of clouds with tops between 4500-6000 with occasional rain showers. The briefer told us that the rain was all inland towards Big Bear and that we should be just fine along our route of flight.
I flew left seat on the way there. The climb out was pretty bumpy and then we got relatively smooth air till we passed Orange County airport. It got relatively bumpy after that all the way to touchdown. We were in and out of clouds for a while. Near Oceanside VOR, we were at 5000 when rain started pouring down as we were in the clouds. It was about time to decent anyways. I told approach that we wanted to started our decent and reported the turbulence and rain.
We shot the ILS with a circle to land on Runway 23. The winds kept moving around – final winds on touchdown were 240@11 Gusts to 27.
The Mexican restaurant on the airport was nothing to write about. Actually- it was. REALLY bad food and the guy took 20 mins to get the check.
Shiva flew back. The ride back was fun – no real bumps and we just coasted above the clouds. It was his first actual IMC flight as PIC and he did great. We shot the LOC 25 approach at HHR and finally saw the runway when we were about 2 miles out. His touchdown was smooth …. and that ended our first actual IMC flight with Neeta.
On Sunday, John (Strategic Accounts Manager from Wipro), his wife Jennifer and I flew from Hawthorne to Camarillo for lunch.
The weather was pretty much overcast with tops at 5000. I filed my flight plan for 6000 (IFR). However, ATC restricted me at 4000 – which meant, pretty much after my climb to 4000, I was in the clouds till I began the initial descent into Camarillo.
Point Mugu approach was vectoring me for the VOR approach to Runway 26. Since N7275R is a /G, I requested the GPS Y 26 approach instead. Piece of cake – I broke out of the clouds and finally saw the runway at about 1600 feet, well beyond the final approach fix (phew – can log this as an actual!). The touch down was smooth.
A juicy tri-tip sandwich was a treat! My friends, had bacon cheese burgers, which looked awesome too.
The flight back was fun. I was flying at 5000 ft, about 200-300 feet above the clouds. At one point, I had a couple planes over taking me, descending through 6000 – restricted above me till they overtook and then down to 5000. It was interesting, since the pilot of the other plane told ATC that they had no joy, since I was probably in the clouds. At that very second, I ran straight into a cloud and got a couple nice bumps.
Once we crossed LAX, I canceled IFR and descended steeply in 360’s over Alondra Park. I gave my passengers a treat – descending at 2000 ft/min for about 1400-1500 feet and made left traffic for 25 at HHR. Touch down was not as good as the one in CMA, but oh well! It was a fun flight