{"id":393,"date":"2016-05-26T20:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T03:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/?p=393"},"modified":"2016-06-11T23:29:18","modified_gmt":"2016-06-12T06:29:18","slug":"lesson-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/?p=393","title":{"rendered":"Lesson Five"},"content":{"rendered":"

For my fifth lesson, my CFI wanted to fly to a few of the local airports to practice more landings and familiarize me with local airport procedures. Today was my first lesson in the evening; a nice change from the cloudy, cool mornings. We completed\u00a0the normal pre-flight procedures then departed the pattern for San Carlos (KSQL)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Only a little more than six miles to the northwest, SQL is a quick hop in a Skyhawk when departing runway 31 at PAO. I didn’t immediately switch to the SQL\u00a0ATIS frequency after PAO Tower approved my frequency change, and before I knew it, it was time to call SQL Tower for a pattern entry. My CFI told me to just advise I was “negative ATIS,” which was slightly difficult for me to say over the radio. My biggest pet peeve when I work Local control is having an\u00a0aircraft intentionally tell me they don’t have the ATIS. But in the case of flying from PAO to SQL, there is very little time to pick it up, so allow me to make an excuse for myself…thank you!\u00a0I think this real-life lesson will encourage me to exercise more patience with pilots when they advise they’re “negative ATIS.”<\/p>\n

The SQL Tower controller advised me on initial contact that the winds were out of the west\u2014a left crosswind. A friend of mine advised me, “if there’s any left crosswind component, you’ll feel it as turbulence in the last 100 or so feet before touch down because the hangars and the business park next to the airport affect the airflow…” So I was definitely preparing for that unsteady air as I established myself on the approach. Sure enough, I felt the wacky wind\u00a0and my CFI even commented on it after our third lap around the pattern.<\/p>\n

After a few more turns in the pattern, I requested a Belmont Slough departure toward Hayward (HWD)<\/a>. Without delay, I picked up the HWD ATIS when my approval to change frequency was received from SQL\u2014I would not be checking in “negative ATIS” for a second time today. Banging the pattern at HWD was a breeze. Though I am not very good at landing yet, the width and length of runway 28L is a dream for a beginner pilot. I will definitely look forward to flying here once I am comfortable manipulating the controls of the aircraft.<\/p>\n

Sunset was approaching, so we made our way back to PAO. Calling inbound over Coyote Hills (with the ATIS), I already had my traffic to follow in-sight. One interesting aspect of learning to fly at the airport I control at is the “behind-the-scenes” knowledge\u00a0I have of how we operate the airspace. This knowledge allows me to anticipate what the controller is going to ask of me. I realize I need to be careful with this and not allow an expectation bias to creep into the cockpit. But for now, I’m appreciating the ease I find in maneuvering into and out of the PAO delta, and my CFI has even commented that he is enjoying training me knowing he does not have to worry about the radio communications or local procedures at Palo Alto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For my fifth lesson, my CFI wanted to fly to a few of the local airports to practice more landings and familiarize me with local airport procedures. Today was my first lesson in the evening; a nice change from the cloudy, cool mornings. We completed\u00a0the normal pre-flight procedures then departed the pattern for San Carlos […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}