For lesson 21, T sent me a list of instructions:  Go to the airport, take off, and cruise at 2800′ to the north end of Rush Lake.  Turn South and fly to Ripon, thence to Fond du Lac, and thence back to Oshkosh.  If you have time at the end, practice more takeoffs and landings.  Focus on becoming familiar with pilotage and with entering and exiting the Class D airspace at Oshkosh.

Well, this is what flying is all about — getting out and seeing the world from the perspective of a bird; so I looked forward to this flight.  It was enjoyable and just relaxing and I felt completely comfortable making the requisite calls to the control tower entering and leaving the airspace.  I shot two landings and both were improved from last time, but I made sure to leave some room for improvement next time.

Also, SR just told me he doesn’t ever see me get excited…except when I talk about flying.  Then, I get excited.

This time around, I called for a flight briefing and the day looked good, so I called T and he gave me instructions.  Go to the airport, fly for an hour, stay in the pattern, and practice your takeoffs and landings.  So I cruised around the pattern 5 times and landed 4 times (I went around once).  The gusty winds and the fact that I haven’t had a lot of practice on runway 18 made the day frustrating.  I would sure like to do a lot better than I did.

I suspect one of my main problems was that my airspeed may have been 5-10 mph too high on approach, so I drifted down the runway quite a few times and ballooned sometimes too.  Correcting left and right continues to be a challenge, but I believe it is one that can be overcome with more practice.  The key for me there will be to learn to use small corrections.

Up next…pre-cross-country.

At the start of the 19th lesson, T informed me that he would be checking me out in the pattern and if all went well, he would just go home and leave me to fly traffic patterns as long as I wanted.  CP was able to ride along for this first part.

The checkout went alright, so we went back to the hangar and T gave some last minute instructions and then watched as I started up and taxied back out.  There did seem to be some spotty reception by my radio two or three times that day, making it an interesting time to solo.

Well, after I took off, T left the airport, but CP remained to observe.  I ran through 6 takeoffs and landings trying to improve each time.  Again I improved with each one, so I’m encouraged that more practice will mean more precision.    None of the landings was perfect — some were worse and some were better.

On the fourth pattern, I heard a Piper report 8 miles to the Southeast inbound for touch-and-gos.  just as I took off.  Well, I was making left closed traffic on runway 27, so I knew he would be meeting up with me.  On the downwind leg, the controller instructed me to “make a right two-seventy.”  I didn’t understand the instruction, so I hesitated, trying to figure it out.  He repeated the instruction, and I copied it back in the form of a question, “70G, make a right two-seventy?”  He answered, “70G, make a right three-sixty for spacing, start now.”  Well, that registered in my brain and I understood, “70G, make a right three-sixty.”   So I made a mile-wide circle and reentered the middle of the downwind leg and the Piper and I flew three patterns together.

I noticed on the fifth landing that I was beginning to get fatigued, so I only allowed myself one more.  Next time I fly, T will not even meet me at the airport.  He will simply give his blessing and I will go practice some takeoffs and landings.

Whilst in the bush, we were 12-hours from the nearest road.  People ask how the food was was there; I say it was pretty good.  There were three cooks on the team who made some delicious meals: chicken, beef, rice, cabbage, corn (made into fufu), and njama njama.

On Sunday, the beef and chicken ran out, so the fellows wanted to buy a chicken from someone in the village.  We asked around, but nobody was selling so the fellows said, “we need to buy some bush meat.”  Bush meat is wild game — generally monkey or cuttinggrass.  The fellows found a man who had trapped a cuttinggrass. They bought it from him and we had bush meat for supper.  The cooks cut the critter up into morsels, wrap each morsel so it does not fall apart, boil them, and then fry them in palm oil and spices.  Honestly, the meat tasted fine, but the picture you see modified my perception of the matter.

Lesson 18 was all about flying at night.  We took some time to go over what special proceedures are required for night flight, some of the advantages and disadvantages of flying at night and then went flying.  GH got to ride along.  We took off and flew down to Fond du Lac where we practiced some takeoffs and landings.  I started the night off with a lot less precision than I would like to have, but added a little each time around the pattern.  I was improving in my crosswind correction, but needed more practice.  At least by the last pattern I wasn’t forgetting anything.  We headed back up to Oshkosh and landed two more times with more of a crosswind component.   On these last two, I did much better on the crosswind correction.  In fact, the last one was textbook with perfect alignment, with the major exception that I turned the ailerons the wrong way on touchdown.  Of course that was a little hairy for a second so I was glad T was there to catch it.

One of the enjoyable parts of the trip was a three-hour trek between two villages — Amanavil and Olulu. This was probably a 10-mile trek and from that you know that there were a lot of ascents and descents. Also, we Americans were not as fleet-footed as the Cameroonians who make treks like this pretty regularly.  I think I was in fair shape because after a sustained climb, my breathing and heart rates returned to normal pretty quickly.

There were a few small rivers to cross and because it was the dry season, you could cross them mostly on stones.  There was one, however, where everyone took off his socks and shoes and waded.  Tom Mike reckoned he could make the final long double jump and so I told him, I was up for the challenge.  He got his legs under him, made the second to last and then the last stone, and then climbed up on the bank.  I got my legs under me, made the second to last stone, and though I had the distance, missed the last stone to the left.

There were plenty of beautiful panaoramas along the way, but I guess the locals are used to seeing those because they did not stop to take them in.  All things considered, the trek was exhausting, enjoyable, and satisfying.

Next time…bush meat.

Not long after N211PH moved into the starting lineup, she bent that right landing gear leg again.  So now we had to decide whether to fall back on N37JN or fix the gear leg.  We chose to at least try a repair on the gear leg.  Terry and Tom reckoned they could straighten the leg but it would be weakened from bending so it would need reinforcement.  A leaf spring from a car would do.

The three of us headed to town in search of a leaf spring and some rubber strips.  Finding a leaf spring was not difficult; there is a thriving used car parts industry in Bamenda.  Finding the rubber strips was easy; there is a tolerable market for used inner tube, tire, and other rubber strips in Bamenda.  From the rubber strip shop, we headed over to a machine shop where Tom knew of a hydraulic press.  While the technician was setting up the press, I pointed out the welding machine that had an intriguing steel grounding block instead of a clamp and promptly about it.

Presently, the straightening started and I stepped back and kicked what turned out to be a live welding rod into said grounding block.  It went like this: spark, zap, silence, …hilarity. They finished by cutting the spring to the shape of the gear leg and we noted that the man cut the spring freehand but still cut it straight.  He did not wear safety glasses.

After using the rubber straps to bind the leaf spring to the gear leg, we tried a taxi test and a few landings.  Everything looked good but after each landing the leg showed an increased deviation from vertical.

So it would need more reinforcement.  Maybe a leaf spring from a truck would do.

We headed to town yet again and by the same means collected a truck’s leaf spring and four muffler clamps.  This time we headed to a different fabrication shop:  We noted the requisite live welding machine and gave it a wide berth.  They straightened the gear leg and then cut our leaf spring to the right length and width.  This time we noted that the man made the customary mark and then cut freehand, but he put sunglasses on about half-way through the job.

This fellow, instead of clamping the spring, however, had his companion stand on it.

We took the parts home and Terry customized the muffler clamps to fit the wide end of the leaf spring.  We clamped the spring to the leg and ran the same sequence of test.  This time, the leg gave a little and then held.  Success!

In part 3, we shall learn some small thing about trekking.

I figure there are probably some folks hankering for a recounting and a few pictures of the trip to Cameroon.  I figure there’s no way I could tell the whole story in one post.  Probably, I could tell it in three to six posts, but that would take some serious time too.  Instead, I think I’ll let the story out in the form of anecdotes as they come to me.  Herewith is part 1 of at least 2.

When we first got to Cameroon, Terry and Tom swapped out the spring steel right landing gear leg of Tom’s Glasair Sportsman (N211PH).  Then we attempted to get her running.  Amongst other problems, the battery was dead, so we went to town to seek a battery that would fit an airplane.  Keep in mind, that this is a country, larger than California, that boasts around 15 airplanes.  Naturally we went to the motorcycle battery store to look for the proper size and voltage cell for an airplane.

Well, would you believe that in a city of 500,000 it took us half of the day to find the only battery in town with the right length and width, but it was to high?  And would you believe that the fellow who aided us in our search offered to cut the top off the battery and shorten it for us?  As you will read in part 2, I found that these Cameroonians are skilled at salvaging parts, so I believe he would have done it and done it well too.  Since it was for an airplane, however, we declined.

In the end, N37JN had to ride the pines so N211PH could use her battery.  The latter was a larger ship and could transfer people and supplies much quicker.

For Valentine’s Day, I asked the bride of my youth to fly with me for an hour.  She needs to gain some confidence in my abilities so it was an opportunity to gradually introduce her to flying in a Cessna 172 with a romantic overtone.  We started off practicing some takeoffs and landings and I soon realized that with passengers who are new to small airplanes, the pilot may need to shallow out most of his turns.  The winds were fairly gusty, they were quartering from the right, and my crosswind landings still need work, so we decided to do a little sightseeing instead.  We flew over to Omro and back to Oshkosh and then landed and let C get out while we practiced a few more crosswind landings.  My technique is getting better, but I still need to get better at correction.  I am looking forward to practicing some more.

Afterward, we stopped for dinner at Fratello’s on the Fox River and had the privilege of seeing a bald eagle.  We figured it was unusual to see a bald eagle in the city but probably the birds that normally hang out to the west of Oshskosh had come to the open water to find fish.

During lesson 16, I took my first solo flight.  It was a gorgeous day for flying, with temperatures at 20 degrees, calm winds, and sunny skies.  You really can’t ask for better.  My good friend CP was excited to hear that I might solo and wanted to bask in the excitement and ambiance of the airport in January, so he came along to hang out.  When we got onto the airport, it was apparent that several others wanted to play in the sun too.  Among others, we shared the perfect weather with a gyrocopter, a Cessna 182, a Citabria, and flight of two consisting of an Ercoupe and a Cessna 120.  Those aren’t all aircraft you see every day.

We started with three dual takeoffs and landings.