Lesson #1
Well, I woke up this morning in the middle of a huge lightning storm. I was 3 hours away from my lesson, so I was sure we'd be a no go. I went ahead and got ready for work and headed in. From my house, I have to drive past my office to go to the airport, so a wave off on a weekday just means I get an extra 30 minutes of work done.I called my Instructor to see what he thought. The clouds over me were clearing up, but when he checked the AWOS at the airport, it was 1700 broken. Oh well, lets give it a shot and see what happens.
By the time we got to the airport and re-introduced ourselves, the ceilings were over 5000 and scattered (I cheated and looked at the AWOS screen...can't quite look up and tell......yet). We sat down in the terminal and did the obligatory paperwork that the TSA now requires. I had to affirm that I loved Jesus and that I only used the word "Allah" in my magic shows. A few signatures later and we were ready to go.
Out to the plane we went....kinda funny. I've been around planes my entire life, but this time the plane seemed a little different. Dunno why, even though I knew Kary (my CFI) was "in charge", I guess this was the first time I really felt like some of the responsibility of flying the thing would start falling on me. Now, don't get me wrong, I was far from pushing him out of the way so I could take over...but it was different this time. Kinda neat.
I had asked Kary to be sure to start me at the beginning. Even though I know lots of big aviation words and know the highly technical things of flying (like you don't really get a "license", its a "certificate" and that "pitot" is not pronounced pheonetically) and I know lots of TLA's (three letter acronyms), I wanted to be sure that he didn't skip anything. Mainly because while I'm styling in my Ray-Bans and new leather A-2 talking about the last time I was at Oshkosh, I wasn't really sure if the fuel caps on airplanes adhered to the univeral "lefty loosey, righty-tighty" rule. So, needless to say, I can cover some ground, but have LOTS of holes in my coverage. (Almost pornographic, the amount of holes)
So, from the beginning, we start with a preflight. Do the full walkaround and I learn what I'm actually supposed to be doing rather than making sure my Ray-Bans look good on me while I kick the tires. Preflight done (oh, BTW, thanks John for the fuel strainer!), we get in and work through the pre-startup and startup checklists. We fire up and taxi the mile to the end of Rwy 20......driving like Otis the Drunk all the way. You'd think I'd want to drive on the right side of the center line, but no....I have to be British and like to keep the centerline well to my right. Just the rebel in me I guess.
We do a runup and we're ready to go. All the way, Kary is pointing out this and that and making some very good points on how to remember certain items at specific times (Cross the hold short line, go Full Rich, Carb Heat off, Check for Both Mags....simple). We takeoff...er...ahem...."depart"...on rwy 20 and I do my best not to buzz John on his tractor (I think he just ducked). We climbed straight out and did several turns to a heading, straight and level, climbs, descents and a couple of turning climbs. Kary kept playing with my leg...thought I might have to rethink this whole thing untill he informed me that him tapping my leg meant that I was supposed to do SOMETHING with the rudders.
Lets just say it happened enough that I figured out that just stomping on them wasn't what he wanted....and did you know that you can't push them both down at the same time!?!? Wow.
Well, we worked our way back to the airport (using my keen eyesite and Kary's ability to keep up with where we were :) ) and entered a really wide downwind for 20. We worked our way down (with less power, mind you) until we lightly slammed into the ground. Well, not really, Kary had it under control, thank God. I could have sworn we were a good 10 ft off the ground when the wheels touched. Guess I might need to do one or two more of those landing things before I try it on my own.....
Taxi up to the terminal, shut it down and badaboom, badabing, the lesson is over. 7.5 gal of fuel burned in 63 minutes and 53 seconds. I think I'm gonna like this :)
jf
posted by Jeff Franks @ 4:02 PM
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