Training update

Finally got to do more solo work !!

Its been about two months since i did my first solo, and that was just the one circuit and full stop at that.
So between the holidays, the weather, sick instructor, broken airplane,work and family commitments i hadn't been able to go up on my own again. Each lesson we "planned" to do more solo pattern work, but mother nature would intervene.
But in the mean time as my instructor always drills into me, regardless of the weather we need to be learning something, improving and moving forward every time we go up. I have now done lots of crosswind landing practice, wind shear (always fun), no flap, short and soft field take off and landings, 2 night cross country's, 8 night landings and with different instructors basic pattern ops.
Today Van Nuys look beautiful, except for the north winds which means landing and departing 34. My school policy is no one solo's when we are using 34..so i was all ready to do something else, when my primary instructor tells me "you're wasting money giving instructors rides, take me to Oxnard"...so off we go, never done a departure from 34L, very different perspective, GPS nav to Oxnard, 4 landings with him, then he tells me that I'm more than ready, its all about how i feel, once i swallowed the golf ball that appeared in my throat, some how i said lets go for it...

Of course as you all know, now i am now hearing every noise, creak and rattle, bell and buzzer known to man as I'm taxiing now to the end of 25, being a mechanic sure don't help when you hear noises LOL. So there i am in the run up, and i swear i cannot discern a mag drop on the left mag ! CGT and EGT all great, lean to peak..3rd try i get a drop but not much..but off i go.. happy with the take off, i don't seem to have too much trouble with them, get told by the tower to extend to the shore line before turning cross wind..no big deal, just means a level turn at pattern altitude instead of a climbing turn, nice smooth coordinated turn to the down wind, looking good, hold on whats that buzzing/humming noise in my ears ?? and then a "ping" ..scan the instruments, check check check...battery discharging and alternator failure..now bear in mind I'm in a G1000, C172 with electric flaps, so I'm thinking battery's and charging are pretty important to me..oh yeah and I'm at a strange airport with the owner of the plane on the ground watching me !! Nano second of panic, do i tell the tower, ask for help.. Then i remembered something LOU747 wrote in one of my threads, " trust the check lists and use them".. get every thing straight, level and trimmed out, grab the check list and what do you know, there is a procedure for this. Turn off all the lights, except the beacon, flip the "alt" master to "off" for 10 seconds, and boom...15amps charging, both battery's over 27volts, call the tower and tell them "9LB is down wind abeam" I'm sure if there had been a camera on me i would have looked like the pilot in the movie "Airplane" when he is sweating like he's in a rain storm..
Anyway i made a bit of a hash of the first landing, I didn't catch the cross wind on the ground quick enough ( 9kts on the right quarter) but got her down a little crocked and off center, but all in one piece.
Next one was my best (of today), crabbed the nose into the wind, set up on the right side of center, so my slow reaction to the wind made it look like i knew what i was doing by the time the mains touched.
Number 3 was OK, I had a coast guard helicopter playing silly buggers on the runway and taxi way causing lots of turbulence, ( really surprised how much they cause !) , bit of a float and a hard settle, but on center and safe..get back to pick up my instructor, he opens the door and sees the electrical failure check list out " what the hell did you do he asks with a big smile"...flight back to KVNY uneventful, got to use the autopilot, got flight following from Point Magu and SoCal and then a nice soft landing on 34L.

Still loving this flying thing..now i have another 90 day solo endorsement ( he had given me 2 already even though i only had the one solo), need to go take my written test, ( i have the course endorsement from "sportys" for that), do a couple of "local" solo's then my solo cross country's and we are off to the check ride. I'm at about 50 hours now so my instructor thinks by the time I'm done i will be taking my test in the 60-65 hr total range which he says is pretty good. I still feel totally nervous every time I'm doing anything up there which i kind of like because I'm not all cocky and know it all...everything by the book. But now i do allow my self to take a peak out the side window every now and then and just go "WOW".....and thanks for all the encouragement i have gotten both publicly and privately on this forum..helps a lot.
Oh and i forgot one thing..my instructor fills out my log book, hands it back to me a tells me "great job, no charge for today", Free airplane and instructor for 2.5 hours..cant beat that deal
Cheers

 

Not sure, guess it had happened on a flight earlier in the week, with another instructor/student and when the mechanic checked it found nothing wrong. I would assume its either the alternator itself or the regulator which i am told is not part of the alternator. Only thing i did different after that was keep the strobe lights off, and not use taxi and landing lights to try to keep the electrical load down to a minimum. No problem on the other two circuits/landings or on the flight back to Van Nuys
(about 30 min). Guess it goes back to the mechanic this week.

 

No, charging system came back to life after the reset. After the 3rd full stop i had to taxi over to pick up my instructor, and shut down. We tested everything was working then, did another run up before we departed and had full battery's and charging all the way back. The G1000 has very informative easy to read engine gauges, and for the battery's shows both charge state (volts) and charge current (amps) in analog and graph style so easy to see we where all good.

 

I think you told me about covering the screens as well LOL...maybe you should teach me !
When i fell into my "rut" and couldn't get the landings right, my instructors did just that...now its, look at speed, look outside, look at alt, look outside, look inside, look out right until runway is made and then its all outside...i think I'm being taught well..they really concentrate on power and pitch settings for every situation, as well as getting to and maintaining "target" speeds..
Learning something new every time as something else gets a little more ingrained...

 

First one will be Van Nuys--Santa Ynez--Van Nuys, then the big one will be Van Nuys--BakersField--Oxnard or Camarillo--Van Nuys with the local solo's that should give me my 10 hours.