I managed to go to a new airport and put a plane into the fix-it shop in this installment of flight training 101.
First up I got to go to San Carlos, just a quick hop up the peninsula from Palo Alto, and just close enough to completely throw off my check list for landing. Other than one completely hosed approach, things fared fairly well. Well, I think I did OK, anyhow.
This morning I headed out in the same plane as flight 17, and no one had flown it since I brought it in the night before. After doing all the checks, the instructor and I took off and headed for Livermore. About 1200 feet and a half mile from Palo Alto the instructor and I had this conversation:
CFI: Did you pull the power back?
Me: Not that I know of.
CFI: Level it off. We’ll check some things.
Me: OK.
CFI: Hmm, that’s not right. We’re missing about 150 RPM.
Me: So I guess we’re heading back to the airport?
CFI: Affirmative. Let’s go now.
After all of that, it was a quick, and slightly unnerving rush back to Palo Alto to land. It seems that the engine on this plane decided to start losing power, and did it slowly and smoothly enough that I was at a loss to explain what happened. It also led me to do a forward slip, which is a pretty scary thing to do, to get down to the runway, pronto. It was the shortest and most eventful flight I’ve had so far.