Day 2. We fully expected to do sim time and some more ground today as yesterday's prog charts looked bad. But low and behold, the front slowed down and we had decent weather. Clouds were around 2500 over Charleston, but over at the coast skies are clear so away we went, past KJZI (Charleston exec) and out over Kiawah Island and the beach.
We climbed up to 3500 and tried some slow flight. Now the way I learned slow flight (in Cessnas, a bit old school I'm sure) was called Minimum Controllable Airspeed. Flying with the stall horn on, behind the power curve to the point where pretty much anything you do requires more power or you descend. In a C-172 that can be around 45-50 KIAS. In fact I busted my first PP checkride because of losing more than 200 feet during MCA. In the current training environment, and in the DA-40, slow flight is 15 inches of power, and around 75 KIAS (aka 10 knots above stall speed), no horn (if the horn comes on that's bad). This is taking me a bit to get used to. I'd fly downwind at that in the Skyhawk. But after some practice I was not terrible, but also not good enough to pass +- 50' for the commercial checkride.
Next, power off stalls (today all the way to the break, but later and for the checkride only to the horn). Other than holding heading within 5 degrees, (I was more like 10) those are fine. And the break in the DA-40 is very subtle-little buffet and some mush. Next a couple of power on stalls. For departure stalls, we'd use T/O flaps, but for these we were clean. So, slowed down to around 70 KIAS, prop forward, full power and nose up to 15 degrees. And it just climbs. And finally mushes along. No break at all. So we recover at the horn.
Then we go from 4900' down in a steep spiral. CFI was OK with it (other than my "clearing" the engine wasn't a big burst of power). Again, the way I was trained. So I fixed it. At 2000' we'd done our three turns.
Next up, 8s on pylons. Now these I'd only done once with another CFI in a Skyhawk. I had a steady wind of 5 knots then and they seemed ridiculously easy for a "hard" maneuver then. Today I had less wind and a faster, slicker airplane. And the first two times around it was tricky transitioning between points and the CFI kept saying "You need to be at your pivotal altitude for transition." while I'm still tracking the first "pylon". On the next pass I figure out that we are too far from the pylons-we should be at a 30 degree bank to make this work. So I closed up on the targets and, sure enough, it goes great. Back to being "easy".
After this, we headed in to KJZI for power off 180 landing practice. First approach is for a normal landing and I (still head in the Skyhawk mode) mess it up enough that I decide (CFI had input but I'd already decided in my head before he said anything) to go around. From here, we did a half dozen power off 180 landings. Some things I practiced today based on stuff I learned yesterday: Fly pitch rather than speed, Make a bigger pattern. My first landing was way long. In fact we did a taxi back because (again by mutual consent) we landed past the midpoint taxiway so we' didn't even think about a T&G. But the next one was better. And then I nailed 3 in a row. Not entirely consistent approaches, but adapting and getting the touch down where I wanted it. On the last one, the CFI said "I'm going to do something the DPE may." So he pulled the power back to around 12 inches and said "You've lost most but not all of your power." So I extended downwind briefly, and put in the first notch of flaps. About the time I started my base turn, he pulled the rest out and said "Now what?" So I headed directly to the numbers. It was going to be short (aiming for the 1000' markers). He said "Dance in ground effect as long as you can." So I did. I came up about 200' short, but that was way better than I would have thought. Slick low wing in ground effect will float a long way.
Then we headed back to KCHS runway 33. And I flew the ILS 33 into Charleston. It was decent other than getting fast to stay on glide slope. On short final the CFI pulled power again. So a simulated engine failure on a simulated instrument approach-a decidedly bad simulated day.
2.6 hours on the Hobbs. So I took a lunch break with the intent to come back and fly more. Again weather reports are saying rain will hold off until evening. But when I am driving back to the airport it starts raining. A T-storm cell has popped up right over the airport. And is growing. So after a check of my logbook to make sure I won't come up short on the 20 hours of training required. I won't, I've already got 20 hours of commercial training over the last year. He's sure I won't need 20 hours to get ready for the ride. (I'm less sure, but I'm also not the CFI...)
So, tomorrow looks like simulator and ground. Then Tues-Thurs to get ready and checkride Friday morning at 8.
John
