Missed Approach to Solo

This last Thursday was meant to be the initial stage check for my solo (there are two) from Stan my instructor and a second check-ride from another instructor. The second instructor basically verifies student pilot competency. I sat down with Stan for an hour and had an initial oral exam with regard to my knowledge of rules & regulations as well as airplane systems. I have been taking a three hour ground school class every Thursday night from another instructor as well as reading anything I can on flying. I did pretty well with a few items I needed to read up on but not too shabby.

We had N5204A reserved for 2 1/2 hrs with an hour gone reviewing the oral exam we hustled out to the ramp and got in. I had arrived before the oral exam and completed the pre-flight so we just needed to start up and get going. I definitely consult my checklists but am much more quick and efficient these days in my pre-flight to take-off. I do my run-up sequence and call up tower for a Bay Meadows departure. We fly out and turn left at the standard departure point, Bay Meadows, and soon we are in the practice area for maneuvers just south of Crystal Springs. I actually fly right over my apartment building on the way out and even as I write this I am hearing the throaty growl of piston driven airplanes crossing overhead. Invariably more student pilots headed out to practice their maneuvers over Crystal Springs looking like a bunch of drunk ducks. We go through the maneuvers one by one and everything is going according to plan. Then Stan adds a new maneuver, power - off and power - on stalls while turning. I am nailing my stalls wings level and have no trepidation about going sideways for a stall or two. I do them pretty well and actually get a little too aggressive on the power-on stalls. Stan tells me to shallow my bank angles because the FAA examiner will be looking for something a little less steep. My emergency engine out goes pretty well but I turned too soon coming from base to final lined up on a field I had identified as a good emergency landing field. I definitely could have slipped it in but want perfection on these types of maneuvers. Engine outs don't allow for go-arounds!

He tells me to take us back to SQL and I get ATIS info and call up tower "San Carlos tower, Cessna five two zero four alpha, two miles south of Crystal Springs, two thousand five hundred (feet) with information golf, landing." We are cleared back into SQL airspace and I get my altitude and airspeed set up for a smooth transition to cross midfield at or above 1,200 ft as instructed to enter a right downwind landing for runway 30. I enter the pattern and get told to extend the downwind portion of my traffic pattern. Eventually I am cleared to turn right base and then another right which puts me on final for the runway. My approach thus far has been going well although we have a new controller who likes to give really piecemeal instructions so I have to manage this and it's a little distracting. He told me to turn base then cleared me for the option and said 'continue your approach'. This all happened within the space of about 10 seconds and I had barely started making my turn to base and paused for a second wondering if he meant me to keep extending my downwind. Stan quickly and sternly said he means for you to continue flying the approach to final. Stan seemed to be a little annoyed at the controller, and me for that matter, but for all of the multiple bits of info we were getting. I have the utmost respect for controllers but sometimes you gotta double check what they say versus what things look like outside the cockpit windows.

I am proceeding down the glide slope with my angle and airspeed looking pretty good, I thought. As I approach the runway threshold however I am way too low and slow and have to execute a last second go-around and Stan says, 'there goes your solo for Saturday'. OUCH!! I feel pretty disappointed but fly around the pattern for a few more touch-gos and we get down on the ground and he says he wants to see much better pattern work before he signs me off for a solo. I totally understand AND agree and while disappointed (read very disappointed) I want everything to be buttoned up before I go it alone. We debrief and I am at it again the next day, Friday. Looking to clean up my pattern work and stick my landings. My landings are actually looking really good it's getting thrown the curve-balls that I have to adjust to. I am now really in a slump and my pattern work is looking just plain bad. I am not getting set up well for my final approaches. While I am making the landings, safely, if you were to trace the outline of my patterns they would have looked like someone on LSD drew the lines I was flying. OY!! When we get into the terminal building Stan puts up EVERYTHING wrong with the way I am flying. It's quite a list. I make notes and leave feeling like I really need to have some sort of 'come-to-Jesus' moment with myself. I think I might just be self sabotaging my solo!

Earlier today we went flying again and we started off pretty well and then my pattern started falling apart again. Stan was barking out all of the things going wrong and I began to wonder if I needed to reevaluate this whole flying endeavor of mine. After one missed approach Stan tells me he wants to hear me call out my airspeed every ten seconds. Initially I felt it was somewhat punitive and got a little resentful. I took off and maintained 75 knots, best rate of climb and began calling out my airspeed. Turning crosswind to downwind I was calling out my airspeed EVERY ten seconds and was hoping to really annoy the hell out of Stan. I began calling out everything I was doing and seeing and the process of getting the Cessna around the pattern. Even when he was telling me something I was calling out the airspeed info between words like Rainman, 'yeah, definitely 85 knots, 85 knots, definitely 85 knots!!'. All of the sudden I was in front of the plane and flying really well. When I say in front I mean I had altitude and, of course, ALL of my air speeds nailed as well as calling out other planes and those pesky little helicopters that are hard to see. I knew that I KNEW what to do I just needed to explain it to myself. From then on my pattern work looked less like a Jackson Pollack and more like a Da Vinci. Interpretive flying apparently does not work very well while in the pattern. I was executing crisp, clean patterns and even good cross-wind landings reacting to everything with confidence and smooth steady control inputs. I felt like I had a breakthrough moment. I was relieved and excited and know that I have A LOT more work to do but feel pretty confident about today's flight.

Stan liked what he saw in the second half of today's lesson so much that he is moving forward with the second part of the Stage One check ride and putting me with another instructor to verify I am a competent pilot to solo. I am excited that it will be my ground instructor who is a really good guy and gets lots of compliments by his students on his training techniques. We'll see how it goes. -russ