{"id":495,"date":"2016-06-20T20:00:08","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T03:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/?p=495"},"modified":"2016-06-28T16:01:16","modified_gmt":"2016-06-28T23:01:16","slug":"lesson-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/?p=495","title":{"rendered":"Lesson 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

A log of GPS coordinates can tell you a lot about an individual’s life or tell a story about a circumstance. Be it\u00a0an overprotective parent putting\u00a0a tracker on a just-turned-16-year-old’s car. Or law enforcement targeting potential criminals (with proper warrants, of course.) Once you connect the dots between\u00a0the coordinates, a picture is complete\u00a0that speaks as loud as words. For pilots, GPS data quickly and distinguishably relays exactly how and where the aircraft flew, what turns were made, and often even the altitude at which the plane was flying. Below is my work of art from today’s lesson. We stayed in the patten at PAO, and looking at the tracks I created on each pass around the airport brings me back to the left seat and allows me to replay each lap in my mind.<\/p>\n

\"GPS

GPS track of N738GE in the pattern at PAO.<\/p><\/div>\n

Notice the track\u00a0above that extends almost to the bottom of the image. During that lap, I was instructed to extend downwind, creating space\u00a0for departures. I learned today that when you expect to fly a longer downwind and ultimately a\u00a0long final approach, it is normal to delay power reduction and keep the flaps to a minimum. I can also reflect on my tracks above and see how my 10\u00b0 offset on departure (for noise abatement) could use some work.<\/p>\n

While I was under the impression that I had “landed” the aircraft during my fourth or fifth lesson, today I learned what it truly felt like to land without input\u2014either mechanical or verbal\u2014from my\u00a0CFI. During our fifth crosswind to downwind turn, my CFI told me he was going to say as little as possible on this approach and was confident I could bring\u00a0the aircraft to the ground without his instant\u00a0feedback. Challenge accepted! I completed my pre-landing checklist; began configuring for the approach; made my base turn; added more flaps; stabilized the approach; descended into ground effect; made a decent flare; and then very gently banged the mains onto the ground. “Very nice,” my CFI said. And I agree\u2014it did feel nice. Not the smoothness of the landing itself, but the shear feat of delivering\u00a0the aircraft to the ground on (what felt like) my own.<\/p>\n

My takeaway from today is the absolute necessity of applying right rudder when pitching to a nose high attitude during the flare. I could not have been more aligned\u00a0with the centerline during each approach today, but as I would apply that last,\u00a0hefty\u00a0amount of back pressure during each flare, my nose would swing away from the centerline. As the aircraft pitches up, P-factor returns and must be compensated for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A log of GPS coordinates can tell you a lot about an individual’s life or tell a story about a circumstance. Be it\u00a0an overprotective parent putting\u00a0a tracker on a just-turned-16-year-old’s car. Or law enforcement targeting potential criminals (with proper warrants, of course.) Once you connect the dots between\u00a0the coordinates, a picture is complete\u00a0that speaks as […]<\/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\/495"}],"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=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":510,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions\/510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.brockshetley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}