Flying Lesson #2

Another fantastic morning for flying today. We started with a few minutes at the whiteboard talking about profile drag vs. inverse drag and the power curve. It all made sense at the time, as they had also covered those concepts in the King school courseware, but you just don't get the feel for it until you experience it, so off we went.

Pre-flight went fine. I finished it up a bit more quickly than before. I'm also feeling just a wee bit more comfortable with taxiing (a wee bit). I was able to roll along at faster than idle this time, anyway, and I'm pretty sure I never once felt the pedals bouncing around under my feet as John gave me some help the way he did last time.

HOWEVER...takeoff was another matter. I kind of saw it coming. A little more comfortable with taxiing though I was, finding that straight course down the center line still eluded me. Therefore, you can only imagine how it went, as I barrelled down the runway at about 40-50 knots. John has nerves of steel. He wasn't worried at all as he helped me keep us out of the grass. Did I mention he was a carrier pilot in the Navy? His calm demeanor is really a help sometimes.

So we climb to 2900 ft. or so and he puts me through some climbing and descending turns. This comes to me fairly easily and we work quite a bit on trimming the aircraft. This is where my time in Microsoft Flight Simulator didn't do me much good. For one, I never could get trim to work very well in MSFS. It seemed that if I was climbing or descending at all, the slightest touch on the trim caused me to start in the other direction. I never could get it to trim for even straight and level. However, at least I was familiar with the concept at this point (and at least with *trying* to do it correctly - ok, so it did help a little), so my main concern was getting a feel for just how much trim wheel was necessary. I was finally able, at several points, to trim for hands-free flight.

Next came slow flight. Ya know, there's just something that doesn't seem right about flying along without a care in the world with the stall horn going off. John walked me through the exercise, pointing out the various changes in control responsiveness during slow flight. Of course I assumed that climbing would be difficult, but I didn't realize how tight I could still turn under those conditions. One tip for all you other new trainees out there. When your CFI has you trim the plane for slow flight, be ready with the forward pressure on the controls when he says, "Ok, now lets apply full power and gain some altitude." Crikes.

We then headed back for the airport. This time he talked me through entering the pattern and preparing for my approach. As we entered the base leg, it suddenly occurred to me - he was expecting *me* to land this bird! All I could conclude was that he had been drinking...heavily. We had been discussing where in the pattern to apply flaps, what my airspeed should be at various points, but I didn't realize that I would be doing a landing today. I must admit, and many others may likely feel the same way, the thought of landing the plane myself is what has made me the most nervous by far. I was really caught by surprise, as he hadn't mentioned we would be going there during this lesson. I used to like him, too. On the bright side, I checked later, and they don't charge students for having to steam clean the upholstery. Of course I'm on the hook for my shorts, though.

I think he got the message, as mid-way through final, I piped up, interrupting his final instructions with, "You just be ready to take the controls." As it turns out, the wind had picked up a bit while we were out, and we were crabbing a good bit at about 80-100 AGL, so John took over and got us down safely. My hero. Still, I'm thinking that Teacher's next apple is gonna have a worm in it.

When all was said and done, John complimented me on how well I had done with the various maneuvers, trim and slow flight exercises. He said he is very pleased with how quickly we've been able to progress. We logged my flight time (1.8 hours now, woo hoo!) and talked about the fact that I need to be spending some time with my nose in the POH (that's Pilot's Operational Handbook for the Cessna 172S I'm training in, for those of you who, like me, had no idea what he was talking about). He promised to start grilling me on the details such as load capacity, fuel capacity, etc. We also went over the METAR report, and he showed me how to decipher it. I'll be showing up early for my lessons from now on to check the METAR for that day's flight.

I've got five days until my next lesson. I'll be sure and prepare myself for trying the landing this time. He'll probably surprise me with evacuation procedures or something at this point.

Flying lesson #1 (more or less)

Well, it's technically my second, but my first fell on a very windy day, which kept me on the ground. Having received my flight lessons (including the Cessna student pilot instruction materials) as a birthday present from my wonderful wife, I really had no idea what I needed to be prepared for that first lesson. As they follow the Cessna curriculum pretty closely, the CFI just kinda winged it (no pun intended), and we spent that first hour and a half or so going over the instrumentation and pre-flight checklist. When the lesson was over, he told me to proceed through the first three lessons in the courseware in preparation for my next visit. Then he proceeded to go on vacation for the next week and a half. :/

Not wanting to go too long between lessons, I went ahead and scheduled my next few with another CFI, we'll call him John because...well...that's his name.

So, I show up bright and early this morning for my first actual flight instruction. It was an absolutely beautiful day today - not a cloud in the sky in the morning hours and about 60 degrees. I'm training in a 172S, so we grabbed the keys and checklist and headed out onto the ramp. As I guessed might be the case, John's instruction on the pre-flight checklist varied slightly from Pat's - some things stressed more than others by each, but I got the general idea. Basically, make sure I cover everything on the list and keep an eye out for anything else as I go. I think I've got it covered. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that AV fuel doesn't leave early as lingering an odor as normal gasoline. Good thing, as I couldn't avoid getting it all over me it seemed. As I hadn't had any instruction on them yet, all checklists after pre-flight pretty much required me to follow the list one by one, occasionally having to ask where to find a particular switch or avionics component. John was pretty patient with me, helping me to understand each item as we came to it. I got though the checklists ok, but I don't have any sense of rhythm to them yet. A couple of times he showed me how a few items were checked in sequence across the panel, grouping them for better retention, but it seemed to go in one ear and out the other. I'll get it all down in time, but right now I'm just being hit with so much data that some of it doesn't stick right away.

Finally, after some instruction on handling windy conditions, we start to taxi. Believe it or not, of all the maneuvers and other things I did today, taxiing gave me by far the most trouble. I expected it would take some practice before I could ride the center line consistently, but I didn't think I would have such trouble with my right and left. As logical as it is (if you want to turn right, use right rudder and vice versa), I just seem to have a natural inclination to push my right foot forward to steer left. I guess I just picture my feet pushing on each end of an axle, where I would push the right wheel forward to turn left. As such, occasionally when I would notice the aircraft drifting left, that drift would only increase as I wondered to myself, "Why is it moving faster to the left? I'm pushing the left ped....oh." I did notice a marked improvement during my taxi back to the ramp later, though. I just need more practice with it.

I was surprised when we got onto the runway and he gave me a quick rundown on the process and told me to go ahead and get the bird in the air. To help out, he managed the steering until we were airborne. I guess he didn't want to be held responsible for my turning the plane
over in the grass off the side of the runway at 30-40 knots. Once we were in the air, it all began to feel more familiar for me. I'll mention at this point that I've spent some time with Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2004. While it didn't help me much from the standpoint of actually handling the aircraft, it did teach me quite a bit about what I was to learn during this lesson - things like controlling altitude with power and airspeed with pitch, applying a bit of back pressure when banking to maintain altitude, etc. I was pleased to see that I managed my turn coordinator pretty well. Flying the real thing is actually easier than the sim from a control response standpoint.

I mentioned that taxiing gave me the most trouble. Second was keeping one hand on the throttle. John had to remind me often as we passed control back and forth, that I don't really "have the controls" until I've got a hand on the throttle.

Anyway, we went through the basic flight actions (climb, descent, turn, straight and level flight) for a bit and then headed back to the airport. Naturally, he handled entering the pattern and the landing, not to mention all of the appropriate radio communication (thank God - comms is an area I think I'm gonna have trouble with).

After landing we went through the post flight checklists, secured the aircraft and called it a day. First log entry - .8 hours. John told me I did a great job for my first flight lesson, and that I seem to be a little ahead of the game. I think he might be being a little generous. ;)

My next lesson is scheduled for two days from now. I'm crossing my fingers for great weather like I had yesterday. One thing is for certain, I have a metric buttload of information to absorb.