Chuck was in the back of the plane, and Russell was in front instructing me on how to land. We were going to land at West Houston Airport, and it would be my first landing! Russell coached me through the process as we approached the airport. In the traffic pattern, both Chuck and Russell were giving me instructions about various things I needed to fix.
I made all the turns, and was on final approach. Well, by that point, you either got it or you don't, it's not the time for further instruction. But they were still trying to give me pointers!
"No, don't flare too high"
"Watch your airspeed"
"You have to slowly pull back"
Enough, I thought. "Everyone be quiet! I'm trying to land an airplane!"
And they were quiet, as I concentrated. And I landed, and everything was awesome. My first landing! Phew, that was over. (Russell probably had to help me a bit at the controls, but I don't remember.)
Funny that I had to tell my instructors to be quiet, as if they didn't know that it took concentration!
Showing posts with label aviation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aviation. Show all posts
3.05.2012
2.21.2012
How I Lost the Runway
Every pilot at some point has a really embarrassing story, right? That's how they come up with callsigns. Well, here is how I almost got mine, sooner than I expected.
It had been a rainy day, I encountered a fierce storm on my way to the airport, at the same location we were planning to fly to. But by the time I got to the airport, things were clearing up. We were going to go out and practice landings at a rural airport, and there weren't too many other planes around because of the stormy sky.
The air was nice and calm on the way over there. It was a few hours before sunset but darker than usual because of the cloud cover. I wasn't familiar with the area, so my instructor, Chuck, pointed out the airstrip, and we approached to enter on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern. As I turned to final, I could see I was not aligned with the runway at all, so I decided to go around. I made my announcement on the radio and opened the throttle, raised the flaps, etc.
Well I was fairly new to using the radio, and still timid. It was still hard to remember the things I was supposed to say when, or even remember what to call my aircraft on the radio. As we climbed back to the traffic pattern, I looked behind me to see if I was finally lined up with the runway... and couldn't see it at all. Now, maybe the land was the same darkness as the runway since the clouds blotted out all the sunlight, but I really couldn't tell where it was. But I had just been over it 2 seconds ago!
Still amazed by this fact, it was time to turn to the crosswind leg of the pattern. I keyed the mic to announce my turn, but instead of doing that, I said "How did I LOSE the RUNWAY!?" I looked over at Chuck, expecting an answer, and saw the shocked and amused look on his face. I looked down at my thumb, which was still on the push-to-talk button, and quickly removed it. Something had gone wrong, but I couldn't exactly place it.
"You just said that on the radio!" Chuck said, laughing. But I was still expecting him to explain how I had lost the runway. "Here, I'll show you." He finished turning the plane to the crosswind leg of the pattern, and it was right there out the window. Wow, I felt smart.
But wait, I had just said WHAT on the radio? Hadn't I made the radio announcement and THEN told him about losing the runway? Looking back moments before, I realized that is not what happened. I started to blush with embarrassment. "I just said that on the radio?"
"Your finger was on the push to talk button!" Chuck said.
"Well..." I said, trying to think of something to make it better, "but there's no one else here at the airport, so no one heard me, right?" I said with a hopeful smile.
Chuck just shook his head, "This frequency is used by several airports in the area, maybe they heard you."
"AUGH!! I don't want to talk on the radio anymore, you do it!!" I said, nearly relinquishing the controls, as embarrassment turned my face red.
"No, you're going to keep talking on the radio!" he said with a mischevious smile, not letting me escape from my duties.
"Fine!" I said indignantly, facing the seemingly endless opportunities for further embarrassment. Well I was going to do it right this time! I attempted to recover quickly, making my next radio comments sharp and exact, even though half the time I forgot what to say until the last moment. I was still flustered, but there were landings to be done, and I was still figuring out how to think about everything at once. I knew I couldn't let Chuck do the radio communications forever if I was ever to fly on my own.
We got back to our home airport in good time, after an otherwise uneventful though educational flight. No one ever responded to my unusual radio communication, but one thing is for sure: Chuck will never let me live it down!
It had been a rainy day, I encountered a fierce storm on my way to the airport, at the same location we were planning to fly to. But by the time I got to the airport, things were clearing up. We were going to go out and practice landings at a rural airport, and there weren't too many other planes around because of the stormy sky.
The air was nice and calm on the way over there. It was a few hours before sunset but darker than usual because of the cloud cover. I wasn't familiar with the area, so my instructor, Chuck, pointed out the airstrip, and we approached to enter on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern. As I turned to final, I could see I was not aligned with the runway at all, so I decided to go around. I made my announcement on the radio and opened the throttle, raised the flaps, etc.
Well I was fairly new to using the radio, and still timid. It was still hard to remember the things I was supposed to say when, or even remember what to call my aircraft on the radio. As we climbed back to the traffic pattern, I looked behind me to see if I was finally lined up with the runway... and couldn't see it at all. Now, maybe the land was the same darkness as the runway since the clouds blotted out all the sunlight, but I really couldn't tell where it was. But I had just been over it 2 seconds ago!
Still amazed by this fact, it was time to turn to the crosswind leg of the pattern. I keyed the mic to announce my turn, but instead of doing that, I said "How did I LOSE the RUNWAY!?" I looked over at Chuck, expecting an answer, and saw the shocked and amused look on his face. I looked down at my thumb, which was still on the push-to-talk button, and quickly removed it. Something had gone wrong, but I couldn't exactly place it.
"You just said that on the radio!" Chuck said, laughing. But I was still expecting him to explain how I had lost the runway. "Here, I'll show you." He finished turning the plane to the crosswind leg of the pattern, and it was right there out the window. Wow, I felt smart.
But wait, I had just said WHAT on the radio? Hadn't I made the radio announcement and THEN told him about losing the runway? Looking back moments before, I realized that is not what happened. I started to blush with embarrassment. "I just said that on the radio?"
"Your finger was on the push to talk button!" Chuck said.
"Well..." I said, trying to think of something to make it better, "but there's no one else here at the airport, so no one heard me, right?" I said with a hopeful smile.
Chuck just shook his head, "This frequency is used by several airports in the area, maybe they heard you."
"AUGH!! I don't want to talk on the radio anymore, you do it!!" I said, nearly relinquishing the controls, as embarrassment turned my face red.
"No, you're going to keep talking on the radio!" he said with a mischevious smile, not letting me escape from my duties.
"Fine!" I said indignantly, facing the seemingly endless opportunities for further embarrassment. Well I was going to do it right this time! I attempted to recover quickly, making my next radio comments sharp and exact, even though half the time I forgot what to say until the last moment. I was still flustered, but there were landings to be done, and I was still figuring out how to think about everything at once. I knew I couldn't let Chuck do the radio communications forever if I was ever to fly on my own.
We got back to our home airport in good time, after an otherwise uneventful though educational flight. No one ever responded to my unusual radio communication, but one thing is for sure: Chuck will never let me live it down!
12.11.2010
Equilibrioception
Or, "sense of balance" as Wikipedia calls it. I've been doing a little bit of experimentation. I know when I spin my chair around as fast as possible (until I reach a sort of "equilibrium" where I feel no acceleration, then stop, it takes a while for me to stop being dizzy, as would be expected. But I just recently realized that the sense of dizzyness is NOT due to my physical state (kinesthetic sense) because I can tell that I'm not moving. It's purely VISUAL. (And I'm kind of wondering if it's the same for other people.)
In the past, I realized that the feeling of which direction is "up" is not just a feeling but an actual visual perception. When you turn your head and look at a picture frame, you can still tell if it's on the wall crooked, even though your head is tilted. I had always wondered why when I tilted my head, my eyes were at an angle but it didn't seem like the world changed at all. Even when a person's body is at any angle, even upside-down, he or she is still able to tell whether something is upright or not. Clearly the visual is linked directly to the inner ear sense.
Well, when I was spinning on my chair the other day, I realized once I stopped that it seemed everything was at a DIAGONAL angle, and constantly looping visually (probably a result of trying to track the motion of the spinning visually prior to the stop). The angle gradually decreased until it finally looked level again, a process which took 15 seconds. I am guessing that it corresponds to the amount of fluid motion in the inner ear, and that I probably held my head at an angle while spinning. However, I did not get the same result when spinning to the right: instead the lines just seemed wobbly.
Then, strangely on-topic, a safety training presentation was posted on the Civil Air Patrol website about spatial disorientation: http://www.capmembers.com/media/cms/Spatial__Disorientation_1EB70933CA251.ppt Very informative!
There are types of motion that trick your body into thinking it's moving one way and is really not. I'm wondering how that's linked to the visual sense too, and if that's an integral part of making sense of it all.
So now, knowing all of this, I think more experimentation is in order. I want to try spinning left vs. right, head tilted vs. not, and eyes closed vs. eyes open. I'm wondering if the time it took to readjust differs for different people or different physical situations or awareness. If you have any personal experience or information on this, share it in the comments! And let the mad science begin! (Or, if these experiments sound like a bad idea and I might hurt myself, let me know too... I don't think it would do any harm, but I don't know everything.)
Oh and also, check out this cool thing about visual cognition: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7524529047833923429#
In the past, I realized that the feeling of which direction is "up" is not just a feeling but an actual visual perception. When you turn your head and look at a picture frame, you can still tell if it's on the wall crooked, even though your head is tilted. I had always wondered why when I tilted my head, my eyes were at an angle but it didn't seem like the world changed at all. Even when a person's body is at any angle, even upside-down, he or she is still able to tell whether something is upright or not. Clearly the visual is linked directly to the inner ear sense.
Well, when I was spinning on my chair the other day, I realized once I stopped that it seemed everything was at a DIAGONAL angle, and constantly looping visually (probably a result of trying to track the motion of the spinning visually prior to the stop). The angle gradually decreased until it finally looked level again, a process which took 15 seconds. I am guessing that it corresponds to the amount of fluid motion in the inner ear, and that I probably held my head at an angle while spinning. However, I did not get the same result when spinning to the right: instead the lines just seemed wobbly.
Then, strangely on-topic, a safety training presentation was posted on the Civil Air Patrol website about spatial disorientation: http://www.capmembers.com/media/cms/Spatial__Disorientation_1EB70933CA251.ppt Very informative!
There are types of motion that trick your body into thinking it's moving one way and is really not. I'm wondering how that's linked to the visual sense too, and if that's an integral part of making sense of it all.
So now, knowing all of this, I think more experimentation is in order. I want to try spinning left vs. right, head tilted vs. not, and eyes closed vs. eyes open. I'm wondering if the time it took to readjust differs for different people or different physical situations or awareness. If you have any personal experience or information on this, share it in the comments! And let the mad science begin! (Or, if these experiments sound like a bad idea and I might hurt myself, let me know too... I don't think it would do any harm, but I don't know everything.)
Oh and also, check out this cool thing about visual cognition: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7524529047833923429#
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