Up, Up and Away

Lesson #3

3rd lesson down. All's well. Started out this morning with a fairly basic lesson. Once again, I forgot my keys. Not a good sign that my head is in this thing. Backup keys obtained, we preflight (one day I'll remember everything I'm supposed to do on that thing....getting closer), talk a bit about what it is that we're going to accomplish in our day, discuss whether a $350 million Powerball jackpot is enough to make me want to buy a ticket, run the checklist, startup and away we go.

I stayed a LITTLE closer to the yellow line this time. I had asked Kary to be sure that he tell me if he ever had to "help" me on the pedals to make the plane go where we wanted it to. I don't know why this is such a hangup for me, but taxing the 172 is kicking my butt compared to the Champ. I had gotten completely comfortable taxing the taildragger, now I'm figuring out that this plane has a completely different way of doing it AND it's even different than my Dad's plane (another 172). Oh, well, we must adjust in life, so as much as I want heel brakes in the Skyhawk, I don't think we'll be installing them anytime soon. I'll get past it. Just hope my DPE enjoys S-turning during taxi....I'll tell him that I'm prepping for when I get my P-51....he'll understand, I'm sure.

We run the pre-takeoff Checklist and take the runway. I THINK I did this one pretty much on my own. If Kary had been doing it for me, I don't think the extra takeoffs would have been necessary. Seriously, it wasn't too bad. I'm still trying to figure out how much rudder to use when and, of course, as the speed picks up, how much less is needed. Again, this is just a "feel" thing I think I'm gonna have to get used to. We depart to the west and head straight into the world of S-Turns and Turns about a point.

This part of the flight wasn't too bad. I actually picked up A TON of useful experience in just a few minutes. For those of you rookies out there who don't know (I have 3.4 hours you wannabes), S-Turns are done by flying perpendicular to some straight line on the ground (hwy, railroad, river, whatever). You cross the "line" and start a 180 degree turn. If all goes well, your supposed to end your turn exactly at the point that you are crossing the line again in the opposite direction. The point of all of this is to teach you how maneuver the plane the way you want it and how the winds effect that. In a perfect world, you just make the turn and bam, your there. Well, apparently West Marshall County ain't a perfect world.

With a wind that was roughly perpendicular to our "line"(I-65), one side of the turn would have to be pretty shallow, while the other side required a bit more bank. Now this sounds easy enough when perky Martha King is drawing it out on her whiteboard. But what threw me off was that the first half of the turn was actually setting you up for the last. For instance, on the upwind side of the road, when your flying INTO the wind, you'd better not turn parallel to your "line" (or so close to parallel that your not countering the wind) until your ready to have your butt moving quite fast toward it. It's all in losing the idea that, unlike a car, the plane isn't going to necessarily be going the direction your pointing. Cool stuff.

My 180 degree turns would ALWAYS end up 180 degrees right on cue....but I don't think the 180 he's looking for can be a sum (e.g. 160+50-40+ 10=180!). But, I got the point....

Well, after few of those, we moved on. Which was probably good, because Kary's incessant chuckling from the right seat was breaking my concentration.

We found a couple of reference points and started some turns about a point. Now, I've done several of these in the past. This, I thought I could handle, but...alas...no......again, I blame my partial paralysis. For some unknown reason, my feet have to be told to move. I think they're fond of Kary's voice....I dunno. I can think "putting in power, gotta push right...." or "nose coming up, gotta remember rudder", but nooo. Can't seem to get my feet to agree that it's a good idea. I knew we should have bought an early model Ercoupe...then I could concentrate on how to keep the nearly hysterical guy in the right seat from hyperventilating. But, I digress....

We worked next on power-off stalls. Kary demonstrated one and then I did a couple of them. Pretty neat how the plane gives you all kinds of different warnings (beyond the horn) to let you know whats about to happen. Recovery is as easy as easing back pressure and adding power. Kinda fun, in that strange "how to fall with style" sort of way.

We wrapped up the maneuvers and made our way back to the airport for a touch and go and a full stop landing. Landings are starting to make more sense to me now. I think my biggest concern is that even though I've worked on landings before, I'm still not confident in how the plane reacts immediately. Meaning, when your 3000 ft in the air, you can't really tell if you lose 100 ft or if you move 50 ft to the right or if you pull back, how much do you go up, etc.

So, when your working on these things in the safety of the sky, you can't "see" how much your inputs are really working. Now, move down to short final and you have about 20 seconds to get that "feel". So, in my flying career, I've now managed 80 seconds of "feel" time. I'd assume its just going to take more of it (at $4.05/gal).

We taxi back and shutdown...then I realize, "hey! I just taxied 3/4 of a mile without nearly hitting a ditch....AND I was discussing other things with Kary at the same time".....maybe I'm starting to catch on. Granted...getting the airplane to behave like a kindergartner's go-kart shouldn't excite me, but I gotta win em when I can :)

Oh well, I'm enjoying the heck out of it. Hoping to get another time in this week, but that all depends on work. More to come.....

jf

posted by Jeff Franks @ 7:55 PM