Looking To The Sky

First Flight To Salem (SLE)

Yesterday was a fantastic day to go flying.  Though the wind made landing difficult towards the end of the day, the skies were clear, and the sun was shining.

Right after I got to the airport, I made a call to Flight Briefing to get information about flying from Twin Oaks (7S3) to Salem (SLE) as this was what Rick texted me to do.  I got the key points of the report and found out that it was going to be a great day to fly.

I then verified the plane was in condition to fly and waited about while Rick and his new student went out for their introductory flight.  A key point in the process of learning to fly as this is the point when you meet your instructor and decide whether to continue the journey of flight, and whether this person was going to be the one to take you through it.  Usually you only have one instructor, however as I know first-hand, this changes.  🙂

After Rick’s flight with his new student, we got the plane going and had a new experience.  Instead of taking off more downhill and away from the trees at Twin Oaks, the winds were geared more for having us take off the other direction.  Heading out runway 02 is different in few ways.

1. There is a gravel turning point so it must be treated as if we’re moving on grass (elevators up, and a bit slower driving)
2. The runway is uphill (slightly, but enough to matter and cause us to require more runway)
3. There are trees at the end of the runway, so if we keep going, then it is gonna hurt.

I started my takeoff after turning on the gravel and getting lined up.  The takeoff was a little different because of how the elevators are positioned required me to slowly bring them down as we increased speed before bringing them back up to take off.  All went well.  We were up and heading towards Hillsboro airspace causing us to make a turn after reaching our altitude.

Once out, heading back to Twin Oaks, we flew over and made our way to 3,000ft and in the direction of Salem for the McNary Field Airport (SLE).  This was the longest flight yet that I’ve done in sheer distance.  The great thing about this flight was that I recognized so many more locations then when flying in the Twin Oaks area.  All the way from getting around I5 and flying down from the Wilsonville area to Salem.  This makes things so much easier when flying because I’m able to have some reference points that make sense.

As we headed towards Salem, Rick had me pull out my sectional (map) and begin navigating to our destination.  I realized soon after that cockpit management is an area I need to work on.  I began to get fumbled flying the plane along with trying to read a map.  Quite a lot to keep track of!

I then felt things were going smooth, but soon after we were heading towards Salem, Rick ended up pulling the throttle to see how I handled a simulated engine failure.  Things were going well as I started my ABCs of emergency procedures, however I soon realized that I need practice with this.  I haven’t practiced these for at least a month.  Oh well, just one more thing to work on.

Flying into SLE was in a right traffic pattern having us landing to the North.  The first landing went well on top of me having an extended downwind before making my base turn.  My second landing after a stop-and-go was rough.  I ended up ballooning which could have caused a lot of damage.  Thankfully my instructor new when to take over and got us out of there.

We left the Salem area and flew home.  On the way back, I put on my foggles and flew for a half hour with just the instruments for IFR flying.  I felt that this went really well, just need to practice this some more as well.  I need another 1.5 hours of simulated IFR flying.  On top of IFR training, Rick had me fly a VOR heading towards the Newberg VOR for the trip home.  Well, I must have done fine with this as we ended up getting to the VOR and getting to the airport.

By the time we reached Twin Oaks, the sun was mostly down and it was getting quite dark and windy.  I came around for my landing and due to all the turbulence, I didn’t get down where I needed to be and had Rick finish this landing.  Rather be safe than sorry!

The flight overall was awesome.  Got to see my old work (Garmin AT) from the air and the runway, flew around and over Salem (“look, it’s my parent’s house!”) which I know so well.  Awesome times!

—

Any places you’d want to fly over?  Leave a comment.  Perhaps when I finish getting my license we’ll go flying where you want to go!

—

Here are a few pics for your viewing pleasure.

Logs:

Flight Time: 1.2 Hours
Ground Time: 2.5
IFR Time: 0.5
Landings: 3

Categories: Private Pilot Completion

Tags: Cessna 172, emergency procedures, flying, IFR, K7S3, KSLE, N2108Y, Rick, Training, VOR

Above The Clouds Soloing At MMV