Up, Up and Away

My Unusual Attitude

Well, I thought I'd get ahead of the game a little by emailing Kary the day before our lesson and find out what, exactly, we'd be doing during the flight. His reply was quick and to the point:

hood work ----unusual attitude recovery --- and locating yourself --- flying with an instrument or two not working
Kary

(It never occurred to me until now, how much double entendre there is in the flying vernacular.....but I digress)


With this bit of information, I figured we'd have a pretty fun flight....and we did.

After preflight and startup, we managed to make it out to our practice area. Even though the winds were calm, we noticed a pretty strong wind pushing us to the SouthWest once we got to about 500ft agl. We climbed up to 2500(ish) feet and he had me do a 180 degree standard rate turn....wow...1 minute on the dot...thats cool.

Then we started doing some basic instrument work. Kary showed me how to do a good instrument scan and not fixate on one instrument. Then we started doing some basic maneuvering from just the instruments. He had me hold heading, slow the plane to 80mph and hold it there. Then make some turns while holding the 80 and altitude. Real quick I figured out that this was both fun and horrifying all at the same time. I feel like I did a pretty good job holding both altitude and speed, but the heading tends to get away from me (even when I'm looking out the window).

Then we did some descents and climbs while holding heading and speed. This is when I really started to feel like I was "getting" it. When I first started flying, I was terrified to move the throttle for some reason. Now, I found myself using the entire cockpit of controls to make the plane do what I wanted. I still wish they'd nail the rudder to the Horizontal Stabilizer, but other than that, it was very comforting to know that I was doing what needed to be done without really thinking about it.

Next, Kary covers the DG (Directional Gyro....the thing that tells you which way you are going and is a bit more "Stable" than a whiskey compass). By doing this, I had to use the compass to navigate with. To be honest, I was amazed at how slow the thing responds. There are known issues where the compass will initially go the wrong way or will not do what it's supposed to, but it still just seemed awkward. Kary asked me to make a 360 degree turn and end up back at my starting heading. Well as slow as a compass is to keep up, I can't just "fly the compass". So, I remembered the whole 180 deg/min thing and made a standard rate turn for 2 minutes and viola! we got 360 degrees out of it.....thats just cool.

Well, then comes the part that I think Kary had been waiting on all day. We're flying along straight and level at a heading dead on 90 deg (east). He says "turn to 60 degrees". So, I glance at the compass and 60 is to the right (dang thing is backwards from the DG). My initial thought was....If I'm flying east, then 60 should be to my left. But, half the time, I get my math mixed up and thought, nope...it's to the right. So, about the time I start turning right, Kary does what all good teachers of history do...you know...Socrates, Plato, Mr Rogers.....they all would have done the same thing......belly laugh at the moron in the left seat!

I pick up my mistake as soon as the compass starts moving. I told him I was doing a "clearing turn", but I don't think he bought it.

Then Kary had me do some unusual attitude recoveries. This is where I close my eyes and he puts the plane in some....well....unusual attitude and expects me to fix it. The first couple were fairly easy. I closed my eyes for a few seconds and we were banked pretty good and diving or climbing. But the last one we did was a learning experience. I closed my eyes and he pushed and pulled, yanked and banked. From the "feel" of the plane, I just knew we were in a left bank and nose down. When he said "it's your plane", I opened my eyes and we were in a right turn and climbing..... Note to self: don't trust your inner ear.

By this time, we start heading back toward LUG. We work with the VOR a bit more to pickup the heading we need to get back to the airport. As we get to the airport, we cross at 3000ft and the Kary calls on CTAF to announce that we have a simulated engine out....joy.

I actually like doing these, but I have a terrible problem judging how fast our plane falls. At 3000ft over the airport, there is no "making the field". Now it's just a matter of putting it down on the 5000ft of asphalt. So, I turn what was really an upwind, then start a crosswind over the numbers. As I'm entering downwind, I'm still at 2500ft and Kary keeps saying "don't crowd it", meaning, don't get in so tight that I'll actually overfly the field. So, I inch out a bit more. Then as I'm turning base I drop about 10 deg of flaps and realize that I'm WAY high. As I turn a mile and a half final, we're still 800ft agl. This plane just doesn't sink. (STOL kit on it really makes a difference).

So, Kary helps me slip it all the way down to the runway. We touchdown right at the halfway point of the runway and exit. Pretty cool flight.

Next, comes solo ATC stuff...yea me.

posted by Jeff Franks @ 6:49 PM