Aileron

I took Thursday and Friday off from work this week to focus on wedding preparations, but I also snuck a flying lesson in last night.

I got to the airport before my instructor, and Lorraine, the airport owner, suggested I try the preflight myself. The preflight is basically walking around the plane and inspecting all the important parts to satisfy yourself that nothing will fall off or explode or otherwise make for an exciting time while flying. Preflight is easy enough since every airplane model publishes a checklist on what to do during the preflight. I just go down the checklist. Pilots love checklists. Right about the time I finished, my instructor arrived, we hopped in, and we were on our way.

I did a mighty sloppy job taxiing from parking to the hold-short line. I feel like taxi to departure is difficult because that's the first time I'm handling the plane after being away for however many days and it takes me a bit to regain the feel of it, though that sounds like an excuse more than anything else. A part of me also has this mentality that my skills in the air are more important than my skills on the ground (if I can just get away from this silly ground-thing I'll be fine), but that too isn't the best thought to encourage. More realistically, I was excited to get in the air and taxied faster than I should have, so there was a lot of overcompensating with the nose wheel. And I still haven't gotten the hang of applying equal pressure to both brakes, so I tend to turn a bit when braking. My poor CFI. I always wonder afterwards if anyone was watching, because the plane doesn't always look quite right when I'm flying. My takeoffs are getting better, but they still need work in staying perfectly straight through the entire roll (again with the pesky earthy meddling with my awesome flying).

It was another clear evening, no wind, no turbulence, just the big round sun growing big and red on its way behind the hills. There was a little bit of haze, but I noticed for the first time I can see both Philadelphia and New York from the practice area, at about 2500 ft over Round Valley. Indeed, we used the skyscrapers of Philly as a heading reference during our maneuvers.

First up was steep turns. They felt really good. I could better estimate bank angle from the outside sight picture whereas last time I relied more on the attitude indicator. I also anticipated the necessary back elevator much better, which meant my altitude was kept within tighter bounds during the 360°.

A couple hot air balloons were launching as I pulled into the airport, off for an evening float. This one is just getting inflated. The way they start on their sides during inflation makes them look like big, fluffy giants waking up from a nap.

Next was slow flight and stalls. These also felt better, but they still make me nervous. The plane becomes unstable during slow flight, where small disturbances can quickly become large ones if left unchecked. My CFI had me fly around 45 kts, just above stall speed, with the stall warning horn going the whole time ("why are we doing this? wahhhh," it said). The plane felt mushy and heavy but I had more control over it than the last time we tried it. Actual stalls also felt much better. I was able to recover much faster and kept in mind all the things that need attention during recovery – throttle, carb heat, flaps, all while recovering and establishing climb. My CFI gave a helpful tip that since the carb heat and throttle both get pushed in during recovery, and the levers are right next to each other, I can combine them into one step, just shove both all the way in at once and be done with it. I got a little too confident with my recoveries and for the first time, I did a secondary stall, where the recovery is premature and a second stall is induced, which then needs to be recovered from; embarrassment, altitude loss, etc. I didn't realize what was going on until after the full recovery and my instructor described it. That's not the way to recover, but I'm glad I know what it feels like now.

After stalls, we tried another simulated engine-out. I had gotten us pretty high up by this point, around 3500 ft, with all the climbing that follows a stall recovery, so there was a lot within gliding range. We picked a field that was fairly close, and I had to do descending 360°s to set up a landing approach. If I was in the house below the plane, heard the engine lose power and start spiraling down, I would be worried, but maybe people are used to it in that area since they are below the practice area. As with last time, it was good to physically feel the plane remain controllable without power.

At that point it was getting quite dark so we brought the power back up and headed for the airport. I like my instructor's strategy of having me fly the landing pattern and then taking over to complete the landing. He never tells me beforehand when he will take over and it's always later and later in the process as I progress. Last night I flew it all the way down, over the runway threshold, and he took over to do the flare. Landing no longer seems like an impossible thing. It wouldn't be pretty, but I feel like if I really really had to land it, I could.

I'll be traveling for work starting tomorrow so unfortunately, flight training will suffer a two-week hiatus. I expect to lose some of the muscle memory over that time, but hopefully it's like riding a bike and the loss won't be significant. I went almost three weeks between my first and second lessons because of weather, and I don't feel like I forgot much in that interim, but that early in the training there wasn't much to forget either. We'll see. Of course I'll have my study materials along with me, so at least I'll have that to keep my head mulling.

• Flight Hours: 6.6
• METAR N51 132300Z AUTO 34007 10SM CLR 26/9 A3006

The 152 we flew. Doing the preflight by myself means I have more time to do things like take pictures and watch the model airplane that usually flies around on the other side of the field at N51.

Labels: Flight Lessons