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Student Journal
Back to Journal Page 30
Flight 26 at SpanaFlight (Total:
28.3 Dual, 1.3 Sim IFR, .2 Night, 1.0 Complex, 106 Landings)
1/1/00
Matt called me in early today and asked me if
I wanted to go flying with him in a different plane. He gets an hour
a month of free flight in any of the schools planes as a benefit to his
job, and he decided to use his hour showing me the Piper Arrow (Complex)
plane the school has. I jumped at the chance and drove immediately
to the airport.
Matt was there when I arrived and we went out
and pre-flighted the Arrow. Matt took left-seat and spent time
introducing me to the controls and instruments that were different in this
plane from the Cessna 172 I normally fly. This Piper was similar to
the first one I flew back in July, but there were a lot more instruments
and of course, the variable pitch propeller and retractable landing
gear. Matt spent the time showing me each one and describing their
use.
Matt started the plane and taxied to Runway
16 and did a short-field takeoff. We headed towards Mount Rainier
and climbed to about 500 feet below the floor of the Seattle Class B
airspace. We stayed there until we left the 30nm boundary, and
climbed above the clouds. It was pretty nice up there, and really
different, since I never get to go above the clouds as a student.
Matt flew around some around the clouds and decided to head over to Vashon
Island and look around.
We descended fairly rapidly to 2500 feet and
turned the plane towards Tacoma. I remember my first time flying
through Tacoma and this time we stayed between the Puyallup River and some
railroad tracks that ran parallel to the river. Matt said that the
McChord Air Force base Airspace was just past those railroad tracks, and
that the SeaTac Class B was to the right of the river. We flew in a
little corridor until we reached the Puget Sound and then turned north
towards Vashon. I showed Matt the grass-strip airport there and we
flew a bit towards Bremerton. Matt decided though to turn us around
and head back to the airport so that we could do some touch and goes
before his hour ran out.
On our second landing, we did a full-stop and
started taxiing back to the Runway, and watched a biplane enter on
final. He descended and landed not on the runway, but on the grass
median between the runway and the taxiway. That surprised us quite a
bit, but not as much as what happened next. The pilot then turned
the plane towards us and proceeded to run into and disintegrate a taxiway
sign that was there. Matt and I were dumbfounded and stopped our
plane and got out to see if the pilot was ok. The pilot shut off his
plane and got out and looked at the damage. We ran over, and
assisted him in moving his plane off the sign, and he tried to fix it so
that the sign was still readable. He stated that he landed on the
grass on purpose but did not see the sign when he hit it. He thought
he lost a wheel strut when he stopped and got out. His plane had
some propeller damage and the right wheel strut was damaged from the sign
collision. He got back into his plane, and we got in ours, and we
watched him carefully maneuver the plane back to the parking
area.
Matt and I proceeded to do one more takeoff
and landing and head back to the parking area. Matt stated that with
the winds up, he didn't advise flying today in the 172, so we rescheduled
my next flight for tomorrow morning. The storm that was coming was
supposed to clear up by then. Matt decided that we did enough in the
plane during this flight that I could log the dual time as instruction and
that It would count as complex aircraft time as well. I though that
was awesome, and we went back to debrief. Matt and I are scheduled
to try again on Sunday for another lesson. The next one after that
will be this Friday.
I'll keep you posted...
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