As stated, today's flight focused solely on pattern work and that meant a lot of takeoffs and landings (touch-and-goes!); seven to be exact! The pre-flight, start-up, taxi, and run-ups were all routine, as usual. Once I picked up the takeoff clearance from the tower and got our DA-20 (an airplane that has really grown on me!) airborne and up to pattern altitude, it was time for some rounds around the circuit (Useless trivia: In British terms, a touch-and-go landing is known as circuits and bumps. Don't ask me why!).
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| The aircraft I flew today, photographed earlier in the semester. So far, I've only flown in a handful of DA-20s in the school's fleet. |
The only suspect thing was my flight instructor! Throughout the flight, he kept unplugging my headsets to talk to the tower controllers while keeping me out of the loop. I quickly deduced that he was going to throw me a couple of curve balls during this flight to test how I would react and my suspicions were right. Following the first takeoff and 500 feet off the ground after clearing the runway, my instructor pulled the throttles back to idle and simulated an engine failure during the takeoff phase of flight. Now might be a good time to mention that Provo Airport has two intersecting runways; we initially took off from the main runway, which is the airport's longest. The procedure here in the event of an engine failure is to turn around and shoot for the shorter crosswind runway and with 500 feet between the plane and terra firma, a safe landing is guaranteed. We always mention this procedure during pre-flight briefings prior to every flight but I actually got to put this standard emergency procedure into practice for real this time. So my first touch-and-go landing ended up being on the shorter crosswind runway. And I'm glad my instructor put me through this because it's one thing to talk about what to in the event of an emergency such as an engine failure, but it's something else when you actually put it into practice.
After following through with that tangent while working the pattern, the next several touch-and-go landings were fairly routine, utilizing the main runway; there were also some elements of a crosswind as well. I'll spare the details of each landing because it gets hard to keep track! On each landing, I tried to commit myself to goals on improving upon something that wasn't so great from the previous one. I wouldn't say each of these landings were perfect by any means, but I'd say they were textbook for the most part... Again, I'm learning and still got a ways to go. The purpose of today's flight was to practice and polish up on the techniques.
On what would be my final landing of the day, my instructor pulled another curve ball on me (Yes, he unplugged my headsets again so I wouldn't know while he talked to the controllers!)! It was initially a touch-and-go landing. Once I got the plane airborne again, my instructor almost immediately pulled the throttle back to idle to simulate an engine failure on takeoff. This time, we had room to spare on the runway I intended to takeoff from so I brought the airplane back down using what runway was left in front of us and rolled out all the way to the end. Again, this was standard procedure we always mention during pre-flight briefings in the event of an engine failure. The main takeaway from simulating engine failures is not freeze up and react accordingly, which means getting the plane safely on the ground. We taxied off the runway and brought the plane back to the ramp before calling it a day with another logbook entry. Today's closed-pattern flight was a welcome reprieve.
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