Bush Pilot in Training

Pilots often use the phrase “fly by the numbers”, and trust me, in aviation there can be a lot of numbers. One group of basic numbers are the V-speeds. V-speeds are standard speeds that are important for precision flight, and by precision flight I don’t mean some sort of formation flying – I mean the type of basic flying you do every time you fly. These are speeds you really should know, and in fact, my instructor required that I know them before he’d let me solo.

There are lots of V speeds, and of course there are more for some planes than there are for others. For example, there is one speed called VLE, which is the maximum speed you can fly with the landing gear extended. That speed only applies to aircraft with retractable landing gear. I’ve got a fixed gear Cessna C-150L, so my plane doesn’t have a VLE.

The first V-speed is VR, or rotation speed. Rotation speed is the speed at which, when you’re rolling down the runway on take-off, you pull back on the yoke and leave the gound. The 150 rotates at 55 mph (and it gets there pretty fast – you apply full power, check the gauges and
you’re pretty much there).

Once you’ve taken off you have to land, and that requires slowing down as much as possible while still maintaing control and flying. That brings up the second V-speed – the stall speed (VS). Stalling is when the plane no longer has enough lift to keep it flying.

There are at least two stall speeds – flaps up and flaps down. Flaps down provides more lift, hence a lower stall speed. In my 150 the VS is 48 mph, meaning that with full flaps it will fly as slow as 48 mph at a gross weight of 1600 pounds before it stalls. Although landing at a slow speed is easier on the airplane, you still need some airspeed to maintain control. I actually land closer to 65-70 mph
airspeed.

The third V-speed is VS1, or clean stall speed. This is the stall speed at gross weight, but with flaps up. Flaps up is clean, flaps down is dirty. VS1 is 54 mph.

When you want to land you have to slow down (there’s an old saying “slow down to go down”). One way to do that is to reduce power, raise the nose of the airplane, and apply flaps. The amount that you apply can vary, but what you can’t do is apply flaps at too high a speed. Too much airspeed and you’ll damage the flaps. That brings us to the fourth V-speed, VFE, or maximum flap extended speed. On the airspeed indicator a white line begins below this speed, so its easy to see when you’re in safe flap range. VFE for my 150 is 100 mph.

VC is cruising speed, and that comes in at between 120 and 123 mph. The the maximum speed at which you can use abrupt control travel, or the design manouvering speed is called VA, and that’s a little bit lower, coming in at 109 mph.

Its important to understand that you can get a 150 going pretty fast, and pretty quickly. That can happen in a descent, especially a nose down descent. It’s not extremely dangerous if you keep your eye on it, but it is important to keep in mind. This speed, which the manufacturer advises that you never exceed, is called (of course), the VNE. Although I’ve said it can happen quickly I have to admit I’ve never gotten close, because the VNE in the Cessna C-150 is 164 mph. However, speed does climb pretty quickly in a nose down attitude, so, as I said, its something to remember and keep an eye on.

Two V-speeds come up in relation to climbing. Normal climbs are performed at bewteen 75 and 85 mph with no flaps. This is best for cooling the engine (or more to the point, keeping it cool). We could say that the best rate of climb, VY, comes in at 77 mph.

There is another way to think about it as well. VY is the fastest climb rate in terms of time. In other words, at VY you’ll rise more feet per minute than you will at the second V-speed for climbing, VX, or best angle of climb. Best angle of climb is a measurement of how much you climb in relation to how far you travel across the ground. Its slower, about 69 mph, so you climb slower, but you don’t have to travel as far across the ground to get there. Obviously its helpful to know this speed if you’re concernedabout clearing obstacles at the end of the runway.

Its interesting to note that VY decreases with altitude gain, while VX increase with altitude gain, becoming equal at the aircraft’s service cieling, wuhich in the C-150 is 13,000.

The last of the basic V-speeds is VBG, or best glide speed. This is important in the unlikely event that you experience an engine failure, or the likely event that an instructor throws a simulated power failure at you. You have to put the aircraft into the best power off glide speed, which is the speed that will allow the plane to glide the longest amount of distance, so that you can find an airstrip, make it back to the mainland or find somewhere acceptable to put the plane down.

My name is Rob Chipman and I’m a realtor and pilot based in Vancouver, BC. I AM NOT A FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR AND I AM NOT OFFERING FLIGHT INSTRUCTION! I am sharing my study notes and other things I’ve learned while getting my education as a pilot. You’re welcome to make use of this information, but do not treat it as expert advice.

I really enjoy flying, real estate and the Chilcotin.  My company is Coronet Realty Ltd., located at 3582 East Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC, V5K 2A7. I have a C-150L that I own with two other pilots, based out of Pitt Meadows. Do not hesitate to contact me by email if I can help you do anything, especially if its likely to be interesting or concerns selling remote property in British Columbia.

My name is Rob Chipman and I’m a realtor and pilot based in Vancouver, BC. I AM NOT A FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR AND I AM NOT OFFERING FLIGHT INSTRUCTION! I am sharing my study notes and other things I’ve learned while getting my education as a pilot. You’re welcome to make use of this information, but do not treat it as expert advice.

I really enjoy flying, real estate and the Chilcotin.  My company is Coronet Realty Ltd., located at 3582 East Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC, V5K 2A7. I have a C-150L that I own with two other pilots, based out of Pitt Meadows. Do not hesitate to contact me by email if I can help you do anything, especially if its likely to be interesting or concerns selling remote property in British Columbia.

Landing the Plane

There’s a joke that the flying school charges you $1000 to learn to take off and $10,000 to learn how to land. The punch line is that it’s true.

Landing is pretty important, and it is harder than taking off, but its not the final goal and its not the most important thing that there is. However, getting the plane & pilot on the ground is, like many other parts of flying, critical (yes, you heard me, not the most important thing, just critical!)

Landing has several parts, depending on where you start counting, but for me a regular landing has 16 steps:1) establish the downwind cruise (or equivalent) atittude, 2) do the pre-landing checks, 3) make the call, 4) set power for “slowdown to go down”, 5) set flaps, attitude and trim, 6) make the turn, 7) attain approach speed and descent rate, 8)turn and get on glide path, 9) line up, 10) maintain glide path, 11 ) monitor power, 12) round out, 13) flare, 14) “don’t let it land”, 15) keep pressure off the nose gear, 16) flaps up.

Now some of these steps run together. You might set the power from cruise to 1500 rpm while you’re applying flaps and setting the attitude. You’ll probably pin your approach speed and descent rate at the same time, more or less.

Some aren’t always done. You might not have to turn because you might have a straight in approach, for example, or you may not need to establish yourself in the downwind leg cruise configuration because you’ve already been cruising from another airport instead of doing circuits. Still, you need a clear understanding of the steps and a routine that you follow, at least in the beginning.

Additionally, some of these steps won’t apply for float plane flying. A float plane pilot flying float planes has some additional challenges. One of the first differences flying float planes is what you land on, and what it looks like. We know a wet runway can be decieving but water is even more decieving, especially if its really calm, because its hard to judge exactly where the surface is. Float plane training addresses that (as well as the take off) so we don’t have to talk about it much here.

If you go to bush pilot school you might learn float plane flying, or you might just learn STOL wheel landings, whether short field or soft field or both, but you’ll learn a lot more about them than you will in the private pilot license program. I’m just talking about how I learned to execute regular landings, which is really only the beginning.

So, step 1 is get established in the cruise (on the downwind in cicuits, or otherwise just on the cruise). The plane should be trimmed out, in a stable attitude, and pretty much flying itself.

Step 2 is to do the pre-landing checks: primer in and locked, masters on, mags both, circuits/fuse ok, carb heat hot, mixture set (full rich where I am at sea level), fuel on, harness and doors secure, and test the brakes.

With that done step 3 kicks in with the call to the tower . Calls are almost always in the form of who you are, where you are, and what you want. “Tower this Gulf Alpha Bravo Charlie on the downwind for a touch and go on 36 ” Tower will advise what order you’re in, and what traffic to look out for – “Alpha Bravo Charlie you’re # 2 after the Fleet Canuck on 1/2 mile final” to which you answer “Alpha Bravo Charlie with the traffic” if you see the other pane, or “Alpha Bravo Charlie looking for the traffic”if you don’t see the other plane.
If you’re not number 1 you can’t turn base until you know its safe or until Tower tells you you can (Tower telling you to turn base doesn’t relieve you of any responsibility for separation. Keep looking for the traffic). If you’re number 2 or 3 you need to see the other traffic and let them be past you before you turn base.

Assuming its time to turn base I slow down by setting the power to a specific setting (it changes with conditions, but I decide that I’m going to 1700, 1500, 1400, etc, before I start pulling the throttle back, and when I get to my pre-determined setting I stop. As soon as the power drops I may pull back a little on the yoke (just to maintain the pitch) while I start applying flaps. Reducing power makes the nose drop, but pulling flaps makes it rise, so you have to come back then forward with the yoke. I try to only do what’s needed to keep the plane smooth.

Once flaps are down you’ll be pushing the yoke, so trim the plane. A lot of time this happens while I’m making the turn, but it’s worth trimming even while you’re executing the turn. You control the yoke with your left fingers and drop the flaps with your right hand and then trim. Its like double clutching (more so, since you’re also keeping lively feet on the rudders to keep the ball in place during the turn).

This gets us to step 7. I like to pin it on 70 mph and with a rate of descent of about 500 feet per minute descent rate if the downwind has been consistent (longer downwind means we have more distance to cover before coming down, so we need to adjust accordingly).

All things being equal, more or less calm winds, 70 mph and 400-500 ft/mn gets me on a great approach, and a great approach means a way easier landing. Step 7 could be said to get us on the glide path, but I think of it as a separate step that happens once we turn base. Sometimes I’m high or low at that point so I have to adjust to get on the proper glide path. If I’m low I give it power. If I’m high I drop the power. Once I get back on the glide path I adjust as required to stay there. So, step 8 is getting established on the glide path.

Step 9 can happen while you’re setting up the glide path on final. You can line up the cowel rivets at the front and back of the cowling with where you want to go, or just get accustomed to the way the runway looks when you’re flying straight at it. Do what works for lining up, and then try to keep on that line there.

Cross winds can require some inputs, and chopping power can cause yaw to the right, so you have to look with your eyes and respond with your feet and hands for opposite rudder and aeleron inputs. This will become easy with practice, and one way to practice is to do it on calm days when you don’t have to. If the approach is going smoothly you can slip a little back and forth to build your skill.

If power, descent rate, glide path and line up are good, just maintain it. Time may drag because nothing is happening, but that’s good. The main thing is to pay attention and stay on the right approach.

That’s step 10, and its a step all on its own because sometimes crosswinds, gusts or up and downdrafts require your attention.

Step 11 is to monitor power. You control speed with pitch, but you control the rate of descent with power. You have to get comfortable with adjusting the power up or down based on how the glide path and runway looks to you over the nose.

12 is the round out. Until now we’ve been flying down to the runway with a slightly nose down attitude. When we get about 15 feet off the ground we need to level off smoothly and start flying level, in a slightly nose up attitude.

This should happen smoothly, and transition into 13, where we reduce power to idle and pull back on the yoke to raise the nose. Taking off all power lets the plane yaw right slightly, so we need to keep it straight, but all adjustments should be smooth and minor.

Step 14 finds you almost on the ground, trying to bleed off energy. You can’t force the plane to land (well, you can, but its a hard bump) but you can easily get it back flying, especially if you’ve still got energy.

If you yank back too hard you’ll start going back up in the air, then run out of energy and plop yourself down hard. The key is to “not let the plane land”, and keep the nose up with ascending. That way you stay maybe 5 feet off the ground until the energy bleeds off and the plane settles naturally to the runway. If you do it right you’ll feel the wheels touch down once only (or, in a crosswind, one side, then the other, but still, softly).

Step 15 is to keep the nose off the ground. Let it settle on its own, and keep the pressure off it. This increases braking power and makes the nose gear last longer.

Step 16 is to slow down and exit.

That’s it. It seems very hard, at first, to execute everything properly, but practice (with an instructor) will build the skills and the whole process will seem to slow down the more you do it, and you’ll feel like you have lots of time to do what you need to do, and you’ll start noticing much more of the airplane’s behaviour while landing. Once that happens you won’t be far from soloing!

Before we go too far, understand that I’m not in the position to tell anyone how to fly. I’m way too new at it and there are way better instructors out there.

What I’m doing with these tips is sharing some stuff that made sense to me, as a new pilot, while learning from a good instructor. For me learning is hearing something repeatedly until I’m ready to absorb it. The tips themselves are obvious, but it took me a while to learn them because I was usually overwhelmed by all the new information swirling around in my head flying the aircraft. Each of the tips makes it easier to process the information.

It goes without saying that all of these tips were told to me from the beginning, but I wasn’t ready for them until I was actually flying circuits and running into simple problems, like coming in too high, or too low, or not getting my calls done in time. Every circuit under my belt gave me a chance to solve the last problem and then move to the next problem.

So, the idea behind these tips is to give anyone who can make use of them a jump start. Instead of taking as many circuits as I needed to have each little “aha” moment, maybe you can get to them more quickly by learning off my experience. These tips are, therefore, not lessons in flying the circuit, but tips for learning to fly the circuit better and faster so that you can solo and get on to the next level of your training.

One place every student ends up is in the circuit. The circuit is an agreed upon pattern that pilots use in order to maintain traffic separation and make the lives of air traffic controllers easier. Everybody flies the circuit at a particular airport the same way, so everybody knows where everyone should be.

There are rules and protocols that are pretty standardized. Most of the time the circuit is a left hand one, meaning the pilots turn left from one leg to the other, but occasionally they are right hand circuits.

The circuit consists of five parts: the take off leg, the crosswind leg, the downwind leg, the base leg and the final leg. Sometimes the last two legs are referred to as the approach legs.

The take off leg starts on the runway and continues until the turn out, which is generally at 500 feet AGL. A left turn brings you to the crosswind leg. With some planes, like a 170, you climb to 1000 feet AGL through the crosswind. With others, like a 150, that doesn`t climb as well, you might start the turn at 800 feet AGL. Either way, circuit height is generally 1000 feet AGL, and you`d like to get to circuit height by the time you`re ready to turn into the downwind. If you turn at 800 feet AGL you obviously have to execute a climbing turn.

The downwind gets its name because we land into the wind. Another way of saying into the wind is upwind. The opposite of upwind (which is the way you`re flying) is downwind, hence the name.

The downwind is the leg during which you do your pre-landing checks and make the call to the tower for clearance. As soon as you`ve completed the turn from crosswind to downwind check your spacing from the runway, make sure you`re flying parallel to it, establish yourself in straight and level flight, and then immediately get on the checks. The sooner you do this the more time you`ll have to make your call for landing clearance and look for traffic. That`s the first tip. Get into straight and level right away, check your position and do your checks. Be quick, but be consistent.

Once you`ve gotten clearance from the tower you can start getting ready for your turn to base. The time to turn is when the end of the runway is at a 45 degree angle from a point in the middle of the rear wing root and the stabilizer.

You have to slow down to go down, and that means you need to get to your approach speed and attitude as soon as possible. To do this you should try to do everything the same way every time. You have some latitude in the order, but usually you`ll pull the power back first. Pick a target RPM and pin the needle right on it. If you make it into the white arc that allows application of flaps you can either apply flaps in stages or set them to 20 degrees right off the bat. The key is to be consistent each time.

If you aren`t in the white arc you can start the turn. This will bleed off energy and get you into the white arc. At this point you can apply flaps. Again, apply them in stages, or apply them all at once, but be consistent. That`s tip two – consistency.

If you haven`t turned yet, do so now(assuming you`ve made your calls, received clearance and are ok with traffic).

When you reduce power the nose will drop and you`ll have to pull back on the yoke to maintain the desired attitude. When you add flaps the nose will go up, and you`ll have to adjust again. You can trim the plane each time. Trimming makes it easier to fly and allows you to concentrate on other things, like rate of descent. You want to be descending at 400 to 500 feet per minute. Tip three is to confirm your target RPM, your approach speed, and your rate of descent. Get them established as soon as possible during the base leg.

A good approach makes for good landings. Proper approach speed, power setting and rate of descent should put you on a good approach, and if you do everything consistently you`ll have consistently better chances of establishing a good approach. At this point on the base leg you need to look at the runway to decide when to turn to final. Consistency kicks in here once again: I like to start the turn when the runway has passed the pitot tube and is almost at the strut. You may pick a different time, but be consistent. If the end of your turn lines you up with the runway you`re doing it right.

All that`s left is to stay on the glide path all the way down and land. If you`ve done everything correctly and consistently you should have no problem.

The only fly in the ointment is that wind, temperature and loading conditions vary every time we fly. Being consistent with your inputs from flight to flight won`t get you to the same point on the runway every time because your inputs are only half the equation. You have to compensate for ambient conditions. And here is tip number four: if you`ve been consistent with all your inputs you`ve established a consistent benchmark. You can now adjust intelligently for wind, temperature or loading in order to stay on the optimal glide path. In fact, you will almost always have to adjust. The tip is that you should be aware that you`re adjusting from a benchmark that you are adjusting from a benchmark that you established on purpose, not just guessing what you should do based on how things look.

The last tip is pretty simple, but it took me a while to realize it and put it into practice. We fly circuits to practice, and we do it repetitively. It stands to reason that if you`ve done everything consistently and you`re high on your first approach you can fix it on the next circuit by extending the downwind a little, or reducing power more. And that`s tip five: if the last approach wasn`t perfect, make the logical adjustments to fix it on the next one. You’re the pilot in command, after all.