Today was the first day in quite a while that wasn't great in the left seat...
It wasn't that anything was really bad, and I never felt like I was endangering myself or anyone else, just that things weren't great. The weather was okay - not great like the last few times, but not bad. Scattered clouds around 3,000 feet, reasonably stable and mild winds at the surface. A little hot on the ground, but reasonably comfortable at altitude.
The only thing I can imagine is that I was somewhat distracted with work, and feeling guilty that I was at the airport playing rather than at home working or boxing stuff up. I am also struggling with the cost of my new hobby. While I can rationalize the cost seven ways to Sunday, I still feel sometimes feel like this hobby is an outrageous indulgence.
The last two times I flew, things felt like they were flowing smoothly. Today, it felt like I was working hard. My landings were still pretty good, but I felt like I was working a lot harder to make them so. I tried doing some Dutch Rolls, and I just couldn't get the rhythm. I practiced doing some slips, and just couldn't get a nice smooth slip. I also annoyed myself with a number of small errors.
For example, when I brought the plane back in, I noticed that the master (battery) switch was on, but the alternator was off. Whereas the Cessna has a single master that controls both the battery and the alternator, the Piper has a split switch that allows discrete control of each. I could swear that I turned both on at start-up, but I'm not sure. Not a big deal if you're only flying for an hour locally and using minimal electronics, but not so minor if you are making an extended cross country flight. Of course, even if you lose all electrical, the engine still keeps turning and your instruments keep functioning, but you lose the radios and navigation, which is a pain at minimum.
Speaking of radios, on the way over to Person County, I had to switch radio frequencies, as Person's CTAF is different than Lake Ridge. The Cherokee I was flying has a flip-flop radio, which allows you to have both an active frequency and a standby frequency set. One button-press flip-flops the two frequencies. On such a setup, you tune the standby frequency, then hit the button to make it active. Somehow, in the process, I ended up changing the "other" frequency to 121.90 rather than 122.90. This wasn't an issue around Person County, but as I headed back to Lake Ridge, I pushed the button to flip-flop the frequencies, and didn't double check that I still had the correct frequency set. I made my initial approach call to Lake Ridge Traffic ten miles out, and was horrified when I heard the reply to my broadcast: "Cherokee, this is Raleigh Approach, you are on the wrong frequency!" Again, no major problem, but very embarrassing, and sloppy.
Oh well, I guess as long as you can walk away from your last landing (i.e. any landing you can walk away from is a good one) I guess the old adage holds: A bad day flying is better than a good day (whatevering). And, there's always next time...
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Posted by David at May 18, 2005 03:37 PM