Crosswind review and power failures

The tailwheel spring on N1302B is a small thing, a coil of steel you could hold in one hand, and it is the reason the airplane goes straight down the runway or does not. On the first lesson nobody thinks about it. Today, after the airplane has twice tried to swap ends and twice been talked out of it with a foot, you will think about it a good deal, and you will go on thinking about it every time the tail settles onto the pavement, which is the point. The airplane teaches the lesson. We only schedule it.

Three hours today, in the strongest wind we are willing to work in, and at some point the engine will go quiet without warning. If it goes well you will finish the day with an endorsement.

Read:

• FAA-H-8083-3C, Airplane Flying Handbook, the short field and emergency approach and landing sections.
• ../standards/PROGRESS-TRACKER-TEMPLATE.md, your own element view. You should arrive knowing which of the six elements are not yet PROFICIENT.

Bring: your personal minimums, thought about properly. We will record them today and they will sit in your file. What crosswind will you accept alone in this airplane, in six months, on a day when nobody is watching?

Expect a long day. Three hours of dual in a Luscombe in wind is genuinely tiring, and the endorsement decision is made at the end of it, not at the beginning.

The first six are the regulation. You have seen all of them before today.

1. You fly a crosswind takeoff to standard, centreline held, aileron managed through the roll.
2. You fly a crosswind landing to standard, wing down, upwind wheel first, no drift at touchdown, aileron continuing in through the rollout.
3. You fly a normal takeoff and a normal landing to standard, still.
4. You fly a wheel landing to standard in a crosswind, which is what the technique is for.
5. You go around to standard, from an approach and from a bounce.
6. You fly a short field takeoff and landing with a crosswind component, arriving on a spot.
7. You fly a simulated power failure to a chosen spot, and you choose the spot out loud, with a reason, early enough that the reason still matters.
8. You state your own personal minimums and they are numbers you would actually hold to rather than numbers you think are the right answer.

Standard 8 carries the lesson, which will surprise you on a day when the flying is the hard part. Everything else here is a skill you have already shown. Standard 8 is the one that governs what happens on the first windy Saturday you fly this airplane alone.

• Fatigue in the third hour. Technique that was solid at ninety minutes comes apart at one hundred and fifty. Say when you are tired. Ending early costs you nothing.
• Chasing the endorsement. A student who has decided today is the day starts accepting landings they would have gone around from last week. It is the most reliable way to not get the endorsement.
• Fixating on the crosswind during the power failure. The engine has just stopped and the wind is still there. Both are true at once.
• Choosing the spot late. A field chosen at 400 feet is a field you have run out of options about.
• Personal minimums as a performance. Numbers chosen to sound competent are worse than no numbers, because you will not hold to them and you will know it.
• Forgetting that this is not a checkride. There is no examiner and no pass mark. If the standard is not met today it is met next time, and the airplane does not know the difference.

I will say "my airplane," and I will take it, without discussion, if:

• Drift is present at touchdown and is not being corrected.
• The wing comes up in a crosswind rollout and does not go back down.
• The airplane weathervanes beyond what your rudder is holding.
• On a simulated power failure, the approach will not reach the chosen spot and no new decision has been made.
• The wind exceeds what I am willing to have anyone learning in.
• Anything happens that I want the controls for.

Today I will also give the airplane back faster than usual, because the assessment needs to see you fly it rather than see me fly it.

Both are considered at the end of this lesson. They are separate records.

The endorsement rests on the element view of your Progress Tracker reading PROFICIENT against all six 61.31(i) elements. Five lessons finished is not the same claim. The wording comes from ../standards/ENDORSEMENT-TEMPLATE.md, AC 61-65K Appendix A item A.75.

The Checkout is North Aero's separate determination that you may fly N1302B without an instructor. It covers what the endorsement does not: this airframe, this field, our procedures, and your recorded personal minimums. For you, finishing here, it is a form and a conversation rather than another billable hour. See ../standards/CHECKOUT-AND-CURRENCY.md.

If the endorsement is not issued today, what happens is that we fly the elements that are not yet PROFICIENT again. The lesson keeps its number. There is no L6.

VS-5-1

Type: Exemplar | Element: Crosswind landing at the limits | Status: empty What it should show: a crosswind landing near the practical limit, flown well, with the wind conditions stated on screen or called out so the student knows what they are watching. Reference Critique: not applicable for an Exemplar Clip.

VS-5-2

Type: Exemplar | Element: Short field with crosswind | Status: empty What it should show: a short field arrival on a spot with a crosswind component, and the rollout. Reference Critique: not applicable for an Exemplar Clip.

VS-5-3

Type: Exemplar | Element: Simulated power failure | Status: empty What it should show: the whole sequence from the power reduction, including the spot being chosen aloud early, and the approach flown to it. Reference Critique: not applicable for an Exemplar Clip.

VS-5-4

Type: Error | Element: Spot selection | Status: empty What it should show: a power failure where the field is chosen late or changed twice, and how few options remain by the time the decision is settled. Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of that flight.

VS-5-5

Type: Error | Element: Fatigue | Status: empty What it should show: the same student flying the same maneuver early and late in a long lesson. This Clip is worth more than any other Error Clip in the program if it can be captured, because fatigue is the error students refuse to believe applies to them. Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of that flight.

Not addressed to the student.

Three hours is the declared figure and it is a ceiling, not a target. If the student is done at two hours and ten minutes, stop. A tired student flying badly at the end of a long lesson gives you worse assessment information than a fresh student who flew for less time, and the endorsement decision is the whole point of the day.

Separate the assessment from the teaching, out loud. Tell the student when you have stopped instructing and started watching. Assessment conducted silently inside what feels like a lesson is the secret standard problem this program is built against.

Do not let the endorsement drive the flying. If the student starts accepting landings to finish today, name it immediately. It is the most common failure mode of this lesson and it is dangerous, because the habit outlives the day.

Set personal minimums with the student rather than for them, then write them down in front of them. A number the student proposed and defended is a number they will hold. A number you assigned is a number they will quietly revise the first time it is inconvenient.

The 10 knot solo crosswind limit and the 5 hour passenger restriction are North Aero limits and are not negotiable at the airplane. They are separate from the personal minimums conversation and should be stated as such, so the student does not experience them as a comment on their flying.

Complete the Checkout paperwork the same day, even though it is the same session and feels redundant. The two records answer different questions and the student may one day fly a different tailwheel airplane on the strength of one and not the other.

If the endorsement is not issued, say why in terms of the element view, not in terms of the day. "Crosswind landing is NEEDS WORK, here is what I need to see" is actionable. "Not quite there yet" is not, and it is the sentence students remember badly.

• The short field figures are sourced and live in ../AIRCRAFT.md. Not reproduced here.
• The best glide speed is sourced and is 75 MPH IAS. It comes from the SLSA-8 handbook's emergency procedures section rather than from a V-speed table, which is why an earlier pass recorded it as missing. It is adopted for N1302B by the CFI. The engine failure after takeoff case is flown at 60. Both are in ../AIRCRAFT.md with their page, and check 15 enforces them.
• The two figures are read from a Light Sport airplane at a lower gross weight. That caveat is recorded in ../AIRCRAFT.md and is worth saying out loud in the debrief.
• The maximum wind and crosswind at which North Aero will conduct this lesson dual is the instructor's judgment and is deliberately not a published number. Confirm whether it should be.