November 29, 2004

Day 4

More practice of the same essential maneuvres with some good traffic pattern work. I also pick up a headset and give it a go in live flight.

Time Logged: 1.2 daytime VFR (Hank)
Location: KIWS TT: 7.7

Just a relatively short time out at the airport today, gaining 1.2 hours of flight time. The weather today was starting to get a little hazy/cloudy, and this was my first experience with rain showers on the windshield. As we lined up to takeoff (which, by the way, I am much more confident in now. My taxi'ing is not nearly as ... um.. all over the place as it was when I started) and got up to about 350 ft, rain started showing up. I commented "I don't guess this thing has windshield wipers" but in truth, once you get to cruise speed the rain is pretty well pushed out of the way.

At any rate, it was a relief to me that this kind of weather was not a problem for VFR flights and training. We had appropriate visibility and cloud clearance, and the forecast did not have any bad thunderstorms supposed to show up in our area soon.

So, we took off and went out to the practice area. I was feeling much more confident in handling the airplane, though nothing is perfect yet (and definitely not perfect enough for Hank, but that's a good thing I think since he may be my checkride examiner). We did more stalls, slow flight and forced landings. Then Hank asked me which way the airport was, and I started looking for I-10 and tracking slowly southeast. According to the GPS the airport should be just outside my left window, and there it was.

So, here we were to practice the traffic pattern. We entered the pattern and came around, then went around twice more. Each time, my pattern handling improved, my radio handling became much improved, and my actual touchdown was better. The third landing of the day was by no means spectacular, but at least I did my darndest to keep the plane in the air, which made Hank happier though the landing on the whole was not so hot.

Credit for 3 landings, and now I'm off tomorrow.
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hardware: This morning I went by The Aviator Shop near Ellington to try on and pick up my first headset. I did not want to get too cheap a set since they do get used nearly every day, and likely will be for a long time. I also did not want to get too expensive a set, nor any active noise reduction because they are very expensive and really not necessary for what I'm doing currently.

Harvey had recommended Flightcom's Denali model, and the shop had a pair on display that I tried on. They were definitely lightweight, and easy to adjust the size, but the seal was not as perfect as I'd expected. I then tried on Peltor 7000 pro GT. The cups are a little fatter on this, and it is very slightly heavier than the Denali, but the seal was VERY GOOD and they were much quieter than the Denali even when just using speech as the comparison audio source. So, I was quite happy with them and bought them. They come with a very nice protective bag and a lifetime warranty (the big selling point of the ASA sets).

So, this flight used them, and I have to say they are great. They cost less than the Denali also, slightly, so in the same price range I would recommend that if you're shopping with the Denali in mind, give the Peltor 7000 Pro GT a try. It may just be a matter of head shape and size that made the difference, but I really was glad that we still have a specialty shop around here that let me see that first hand instead of taking a risk ordering blind (deaf?) online.

http://www.theaviatorshop.com
http://www.peltor.com/peltor.com/comm_detail.cfm?prod_family=Aviation%20Headset&ind_prod_num=7000%20PRO%20GT001
http://www.flightcom.net/site/headsets/denali.php

Posted by Chris Mitchell at 01:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack