Last night, we did some practice night flying. Just taking off and landing, over and over again.
This morning, we did something different. He had me study the info for Compton airport and plan a flight there. I get in at 8, we call 1-800-WX-BRIEF to get a weather briefing for the trip, then head out to the plane.
I fly over LAX using the same corridor I usually use, then make a call to Compton. The thing is, there's no tower there, so it was my first flight into an uncontrolled airport. I just make my calls, telling people in the area what I plan on doing, and listen for others to do the same. Theoretically, we can all fly in and out of the airport without running into each other if we're aware of our surroundings and communicating.
I descend towards the airport and make my calls, then turn and come in for landing. It's kinda unnerving, because there's a big building right next to the glide path, so I'm flying at it for a while before turning to final. Compton's runway is a lot shorter then Santa Monica, and nowhere near as wide either (60 feet versus 150 wide), so it's a challenge, but I come in and land it ok. I've got sort of a tendency to fly to the runway and set down without hearing the stall horn, and my instructor really wants me to work on slowing to stall speed as I touch down.
We taxi, take off, do a closed pattern, and the next landing is a little better. "I want to hear that stall horn this time", he tells me. I'm on short final, and begin my flare. I'm a couple feet away from the runway and worried that I'm not gonna set it off, so I pull back hard on the yoke. The stall horn sounds immediately and, since I'm spooked by it, I let off a little yoke pressure. The stall horn goes off, and I finish my landing smoothly and everything, but I get the definate impression that my instructor thinks I cheated because all I did was trigger the stall, then recover.
I vow to do better next time.
We taxi, I get to use a trick he shows me for taking off at uncontrolled airports. I pull up near the hold-short line of the runway and hold down one brake while advancing the throttle, so the plane slowly pirouettes in place. As it does, I scan the sky watching for traffic on various legs, then finally taxi to the runway, announcing my intentions. My instructor had also just told me that he wants me to just do the 'Lights, camera, action' in sequence and ONCE because lately I've been doing each item alone, and checking and rechecking to make sure I've gotten them. This time, I very methodically do it and he nods approvingly. I can really see the value of this, the more I get used to doing it in sequence, the less chance I'll miss something, and the less time I spend with my head in the cockpit triple checking myself when I should be watching outside the plane.
I take off, announce my intention to leave the airport, then head south to avoid Hawthorne airspace.
This time, he wants me to use the Mini-route to cross LAX. This is different from what I've been using in the past because the other route wasn't controlled. It was like a strip of uncontrolled airspace that poked directly across LAX at 3500 and 4500 feet respectively. This new route has me at 2500 feet and I cross the east end of the runway and talk to LAX.
I set my frequencies, and make my call. "LAX Tower, Cherokee 8258 Sierra enroute for northwest mini-route transition." The tower gives me a custom squawk code, tells me to stay at my altitude, etc, plus the most important "You are clear for class bravo transition". So I fly low over the airport and look out to my side, and there's an Air New Zealand 747 coming in to land right below me. It's quite a view, and really something to see.
As I exit the mini-route, LAX releases me and I call into Santa Monica and do a pretty normal approach and landing.
So, now I've flown in class B airspace, which is the most active, scariest airspace I'll ever fly in. In fact, it's the most active airspace ANYONE can fly in. So I've done Class B, D, E and G airspace for sure, can't remember if I've done class C yet. I won't fly class A until I buy my jet or find a way to get a Cessna/Piper up to 18,000 feet.
Pretty good flight, but I noticed my instructor making a bunch of corrections. After the flight, I was about to ask about it, and he said 'So, now that you've shown you're a good pilot with the big things (like not crashing, flying the plane, etc), I've started working on fixing the little things. You may have noticed, I was calling you on a bunch of things back there, it's just because it's time to start polishing up those tiny things." I told him I was getting worried that I had started backsliding, and he laughed. "No, I won't let you. You're doing fine with the big stuff, it's just time to start working on the little stuff. Don't worry, this is stuff you've been doing all along, you're not back sliding."
So, good lesson. Even if I felt a bit overwhelmed at times, I always aviated first (eg, kept my plane together), so as I get more comfortable with doing things like threading through complicated airspace (going to compton, I had to avoid Torrance, Hawthorn, LAX, and Long Beach airspace, it was a challenge), I'm sure I'll spend less time worrying about my workload and more time enjoying flying.
