Learning to Fly
Well, finally I have started flying lessons. There is a nice convenient airport and
flying club and flying school just off Highway 6 about 5 minutes drive away.
Discovery Flight
Many peoples first experience of flying a small plane is on a discovery flight.
These are usually a half hour flight costing about $50 where an instructor takes you up
and lets you handle the controls and do a few simple manoevres.
I did mine Saturday 27/Jan/2001. It was pretty choppy up there, but fun. The view from a C-172 is tremendous, especially on a clear day.
Lesson 1 - Feb 2001
Continuation of the discovery flight. I helped with the preflight, which is a
fairly long process. Checking all the control surfaces, and general condition of the
aircraft body and engine. No hitches.
Some level(ish) turns and climbs and descents
and putting it together into climbing and descending turns. We even managed some slow
flight and a demo stall. Pretty choppy, from turbulence and thermal activity.
Lesson 2 - Feb 2001
I flew the take-off this time. That was really neat. Looking out out of an ascending
cessna is cool. We held a climb until about 3000 ft then levelled out and flew some turns
and practiced some basics.
It took a few goes for me to fully remember the transition into slow flight. Check
fuel both, full rich, carb heat (no fuel injection), circuit breakers, mags both,
avionics on, master on, oil temp and pressure, fuel, suction... That is quite a list to
remember when the plane still needs to be flown, and we haven't even tried to slow down
yet. Revs to 1500, hold the nose up, airspeed in the white, flaps 10, wait, flaps 20,
flaps 30, increase revs to keep from stalling... woo-hoo, slow flight !! This is really
fun to fly, plane is nice and slow, control inputs are easy, turns are really nice.
Alas, it has to end, revs back up, carb heat off, nose down, flaps up as we gain
airspeed and retrim. We did a few of these though dirty (flaps down) and clean (flaps up)
so I was quite busy. I think I can remember the checklist now... This is really important
as all this is leading into getting the plane ready for landing... can't wait...
As well as the slow flight, we did some stalls. Hmm, I am not quite so good at these.
It takes some pretty fast timing to catch the plane. We used the same basic procedure
as for slow flight, but instead dumped all the revs and held the nose up high until the
plane stalled. At this point, the nose falls and you have to release back pressure on the
yoke and get full throttle in and get the plane flying and level. Practice, practice,
practice. Actually, the first stall was a bit scary, but after a few it doesn't seem so
bad. I bet I'm not the only student pilot to be a bit nervous of being in a plane that
isn't flying (even for a short time) and is 3000 feet in the air.
Actually, even flying back to the airfield, the fun wasn't quite over... we, err,
must have have hit a little patch of err, tubulence, and we went up and down reasonably
abrubtly, enough for a little bit of weightlessness... That was cool too!
Lesson 3 - Feb 2001
Bit windy, with scattered clouds at 3000 or so. I was quite surprised to be flying
today. We lifted off SGR Runway 17 West departure and flew up through a big gap
between the clouds. Practiced stalls power on and off and did some steep turns. This
was really a lot of fun. The stalls need a bunch of work, mainly on directional stability
but are feeling a bit better than the first few, where I spent much too long admiring
the scenery before gassing it and recovering. However, I managed the steep turns not
too bad, and discovered a few times what it is to fly into your own turbulence. Aargh,
I bet that an examiner is probably going to be looking for that. As usual, I was shown
another manoevre to add to my list of cool things to do one day, a fighter style steep
banking descent which gave a nice view of the ground from over 5000 feet up. Did some
more turns and stalls and heading back down through the clouds.
Lesson 4 - Feb 2001
2000 ceiling with wind 160/10 approximately. I got the choice on the ground to stay
in the classroom for some ground instruction, or to fly the pattern and do my first
landings. I treated it as a serious choice... 5 minutes later I was preflighting
the plane...
Well, I'm sure some people manage reasonable landings at the first attempt, but I
was not one of them. I have few more grey hairs I think, same for the right seat guy...
who had to take a couple of swipes at the yoke to get the nose I when it was pretty
much going to hell in a handbasket. I guess the best thing was that at least I mostly
made it over the runway, even if I wasn't pointing staight down it.
They build those Cessnas pretty strong
obviously. It got a bit better at the end, and the last landing felt almost reasonable
apart from ballooning it a bit in the initial flare (well maybe I ballooned twice, but
there was one landing) at the start. Hopefully it will get better.
That was hard, but I am looking forward to the next time. I really want to nail that
flare and practice some slow flight so I have some more confidence with rudder inputs.
I guess most of my rudder input is just to coordinate turns, so I am used to feeding in
some rudder pressure until the ball centers... otherwise I pretty much don't mess with
it. Slow flight in some choppy air with the plane bucking around a bit. That's what I
need.
Lesson 5 - Feb 2001
Nice day. Winds 030/16 approx. Did some practice of basics and started on ground
reference manoeuvres. Woo-hoo! This looks a bit dry in the book, but the following :
1. Flying at 1000', 2. Flying when it's windy, 3. Flying around square boxes nice and
tight, and flying around points is extremely fun. This lesson was a bit of a revelation
as I like to spend a lot of time looking at the instruments normally, but with ground
reference, it was pretty much just occasional checks to verify altitude and airspeed.
Most of the time was spent tweaking the heading to maintain alignments and waiting to
pass ground marks, then turning briskly to draw boxes in the sky. The turning about a
point was fun too. Hopefully, I will be able to put all this to use and fly better patterns
than last time. The right-seat guy did the landing on return to Sugar Land as it was
pretty bumpy. No argument from me after my efforts last time.
Lesson 6 - Feb 2001
2500 ceiling with winds 200/16. Windy and cloudy. Not the best weather for a flying
lesson. However, we filed an IFR to DW Hooks and I got my first little chunk of IMC
flying. That was fun. I will look forward to doing that again. We got vectored in to
DW Hooks and I did my first decent landing. I really really wanted to get it right and
did an ok flare then held some rudder in and some backpressure and just kissed into the
runway. Whew! Awesome. First proper landing, and the first glimmer that I am hopefully
not completely wasting everybodies time with this. After some lunch, we preflighted and
flew back to Sugar Land, and I did a straight in landing which was ok, but not quite as
smooth as the first one, though it was pretty smooth. Landing feels much nicer if the
plane is lined up straight, and that just seems to make it so much easier for me. Trying
to land crooked before just scared the crap out of me before, so no wonder I couldn't
do it. The flights there and back were really choppy, so I really had to fly with plenty
of control input, though I tried to trim the elevator as much as possible, to stay at
the right height. I might as well try and fly to the commercial targets as it should
help with everything in the future. If you try and fly with no altitude deviation, then
the +-50 for commercial should be no sweat. ha-ha, there is lots of sweat at the moment.
One neat thing about flying is just how far you can see. On a decent day, you can see the runway at Sugar Land municipal, from above the I-10, even though it is about 10 miles away. It takes a bit of adjustement, as 'surface dwellers' mostly can't ever see this far.
Lesson 7 - Feb 2001
Windy, windy, windy. It's Saturday and the flightschool is essentially deserted aside
from a few dispirited looking instructors. I hang around and work 1.5 hours groundschool
covering different types of airspeeds, pressures, and bearings. After the lesson, I head
off to Clearlake to the Aviation Shop to buy a knee board, flight computer and some maps
to practise flight-planning with.
Lesson 8 - Feb 2001
Cloudy, cloudy, cloudy. 500' ceiling. Despite repeatedly looking away from the sky
then looking up again, the mist and cloud stays resolutely at 500'. My instructor checks
several different weather sites to confirm that to 500' ceiling really is at 500'. It is,
from several different angles. Oh well, so it goes.
I recheck the book and toy with the idea of scheduling a big bucks half day or
full day session. Only problem is, it's still a bit early in my training for that. The
long sessions will wait until the cross-country work.
As a preview of what's to come, stalls and slow flight recap, steep turns recap, lots
of takeoffs and landings, more ground reference manoeuvres, emergency procedures. It will
probably take a couple of hours just to get the stuff I already have shined up again. I
think that soloing is in there somewhere if we get a decent day... Yikes, what a thought.
I had better keeping practising the radio stuff, or I might find myself saying things
like "N4555 Tower calling Sugar-Land Cessna, on final taxi." Confused students can be
extremely humourous, unless it's you of course...
Lesson 9 - Mar 3 2001
Cloudy, windy, cold. The weather has been fairly bad for the last two weeks, and
don't I know it... This is the third or fourth canceled lesson. I am beginning to worry
about being rusty.
On the bright side, I tag along with the guys taking the Seminole up
to Beaumont for some multiengine IFR time. After preflight we take off into the clouds
and are vectored towards Scholes/Galveston. The view of the clouds once we break through
is superb. It's always great up there. It seems to be one of the great things about
flying: the views are always great. With a tailwind, we make good time, and are soon on
an ILS into Beaumont. Safely down, we head off for a burger.
This was my first time in a piston twin and it was definitely cool. Definitely in a
different leaugue from the C172N I seem to have settled on flying. Two sets of engine
controls, prop controls and retractable gear. Pretty neat.
Lesson 10 - Mar 4 2001
Weather absolutely brilliant. Light winds and clear skies. Preflight is fine, aside
from me be unable to find a POH (to read the checklist) because it was in the glovebox.
I had to be told, then shown. Maybe it was a bit early in the morning... We fly Cessna
172 xxxUG (Uniform Golf). This is an older 172 with an electric blue plastic interior. Someone driving
a 50's Chevy might feel quite at home... Aside from the interior, the chaps at Cessna
have done a great job and the plane starts, flies, and behaves perfectly.
After a takeoff and west departure towards Richmond and Rosenberg, we climb to 3000
and start the process of rust removal on my basic maneouvres. Steep turns, power off and
on stalls, slow flight and ground reference maneovres. We cram a lot in, with me making
the clearing turns nice and steep for practice. We abort one power on stall due to my
'bad attitude', almost turning it into a spin entry. Ooops. After a little more practice
I fly a decent power on stall. It all against you really... you need large amounts of rudder to counter the torque/p-factor/slipsteam and left aileron to stay level. All of
this at full throttle with the plane pointed above the horizon...
The slow flight and power off stalls are fine. We work a
little on steep turns and these improve a bit. They improve more after I copy Teacher and
use some nose up trim to take some of the control pressures out in the 45o bank. Without
the trim, and with one hand on the throttle, I am about at the limit of my left arm just
to keep the nose back in a steep bank.
Descent for some ground reference, and we do some S-turns which are pretty straight-
forward, then some turns about a point. TaaP is ok once I find a small enough point,
then it's just changing the bank to draw a circle, and holding altitude correctly. I am
starting to feel better what the plane is doing, so these kind of exercises are getting to
be easier.
After this, we climb, then head back towards SGR and I do the initial radio call. I'm
getting close to solo now so the pressure is on for me to improve a bit with the radio
calls and positional awareness, which is still pretty bad really.
Final approach is ok, balloning a bit in the flare, but touching down smoothly with
a couple of chirps, then letting the nose come down.
That was 1.4 hours to add to my 7.3. Excellent! Homework is an assignment to read
the POH (Pilot's Operating Handbook for the 172N - $24.50 at a flying school near you -
and familiarise myself with the emergency procedures. Emergencies ? Yikes.)
Lesson 11 - Mar 2001
Good weather and a long lesson ahead.
After sitting around chilling out and talking about emergency procedures, and drinking
coffee, we sat and updated my training records and wrinkled out a few things that we
have missed out. Time for the hood, for one, and emergency procedures.
I walked out to preflight 89er7. This done, it was time to buckle in, fire up the
engine and radio for taxi for a west departure as usual. After letting a KingAir take
off ahead of us, we complete the runup and take off and turn west.
Time for my first 'hooding'. After doing some maneouvres under the hood, I receive
'vectors' from Teacher and carry them out using only the instruments. A fair amount of
time goes by, and I am a little drained when he finally says "Ok, take off the hood". I
look up and Eagle Lake airfield is coming up on the left. I turn base and we continue
the descent set up under the hood and land (badly), then we do touch and goes for a
while, mainly badly, with the occasional exceptionally slammed landing in there for good
measure.
After all this punishment of all concerned (including the ground) we give up
and climb for some emergency procedures. ABC, Airspeed, Best field, and Cockpit check.
We drill this and practice some emergency approaches and go-arounds. Then it's time to
head back for one last slam onto the runway before taxing back to the school and letting
the landing gear regain some kind of shape for the next time.
Probably not the best lesson I have ever flown, but I think I know what I have to
work on. Oops, I forgot the slips. I had a hard time with these, as the force required
for full rudder deflection seems to be quite high, and it's a pretty long push. That
definitely needs practice also.
Lesson 12 - Mar 2001
Slightly cloudy, but clearing, after a terrible Sunday.
After preflighting 89er7, I contact the tower and am cleared for a west departure to
the practive area. About 1500 feet, we decide to turn back and do some pattern work
instead. (Indecisive?? Not me, well maybe not) We do about 4 or five landings which
improve a little over last time, aside from one that veers heavily left, after a longish
737 style sqeal of tyres (a 172 tankslapper ??)
After this, emergency procedures. I make a decent emergency approach to a field, and
we go-around after reach 500' or so. 100' climb later, the throttle is pulled again and
the only option is a tight turn to head back to the field which is behind me.
After this, we fly up to Westheimer airpark (uncontrolled) and land on the (tiny)
concrete strip. I have a landing demoed to me the first time, and get talked through it
for my attempt, which goes pretty well. No margin for error here. Time to head back and
land at SGR. This landing is ok too.
Lesson 13 - Mar 16 2001
Nice day.
After preflighting 75897, we takeoff and head west. We do some emergency training
which is going to be a big part of training from now on I guess, and I do enough to show
that I could have made it down to a decent field and hopefully not died in the process.
We fly to Wharton and do some pattern work there. One crosswind landing is set up right
but goes wrong to the right and the aircraft is headed for an off runway landing/crash.
But before you can say 'life insurance' I call 'go around' and push the throttle in. This
was the bang-on right thing to do, and I am quite pleased I didn't need rescuing. At this
point, getting near solo (hopefully), I feel like I should be running the show, and if I have a problem, I should be able to fix it myself.
We flying up to Eagle Lake (ELA) and I get to play with the VOR. The ergonomics of the
radios are brilliant. It works just how it should. Good design is really neat.
After another 'emergency' we do some touch and goes at ELA and head west to visit a
field neither of us has seen before. As usual with these small fields during the week,
it is dead quiet with only us flying around to disturb the peace. I think the field was
Wells, just to the West of ELA.
Flying back to ELA for a last practice tng, I am pretty serious slagged for a non-
pattern that is more of a teardrop hold entry than a pattern. Hmm, better work on flying
in rectangles.
Heading back to SGR, I practice some power on stalls, which are hopeless, as usual,
being more like pushing the plane sideways off a tall building.
My usual too-fast landing and taxi back to parking. Not great. Maybe this is a plateau
.
Lesson 14/Solo Checkout - Mar 17 2001
Clear but very windy.
No students are allowed up by themselves today. Despite this, I go up for a few runs
round the pattern with Mark, the most senior CFI, who vets the solo candidates before
they can be signed off.
It is too windy for there to be much point going and checking my flying out much,
but I did get a couple of landings in. As usual these were too fast and Mark works with
me a bit.
Once back at the school, we schedule Thursday lunchtime for a repeat of the check.
Go to my gliding page to see how I got my confidence back and learnt about being a PIC, and the RIGHT ATTITUDE.
Lesson 15 - Mar 18 2001
Clear and breezy day, with clouds just starting to come in from the West.
After I preflight 733UG, I call ground and am cleared for a SW departure. After a
couple of holds and some 'fixing' of lead covered plugs by leaning at 2000rpm in the
runup to get a good mag check, we takeoff on rw35 and turn out for SW, flying down to
the practice area where we work on steep turns, power-off stalls, power-on stalls,
slow-flight (lots of that) and the mandatory 'emergency' which, once you've identified
a decent field, is a piece of cake with some fun power-off flying...
After proving I could find a large square of green, and fly an approach to it, we
head back to SGR for a tng and a full stop landing.
**Cue fanfare**, after yesterday, I think I have cracked it. With a mere 15 hours or
so (joke), I actually do the *right thing* and transition my eyes to the end of the runway and
hold the plane at the right attitude for a couple of pretty smooth landings. Excellent.
Awesome. I am really really pleased about this, and was starting to wonder if there was
something I was doing wrong. It's odd, but you can be told and told and told to do
something, but sometimes it doesn't work for a while. That was me and managing getting the
plane in the right attitude just after flare. It's hard, but possible, if you are looking
right in front of the plane, like I was, but it's **much** easier if you can transition
your eyes forward instead of down. If you look towards the end of the runway, then the
attitude of the plane is so much easier to control, and suddenly "holding it off the
ground" seems to make a lot of sense.
The non-landing flying today was pretty good today as well. In the debrief, I got
some praise for a demonstration of increased confidence, which I think, probably came from
just flying the plane with a bit more authority.
Unfortunately, this was a bit of a false dawn, and the confidence thing wasn't upto withstanding another 'few hours' (as flight instructors like to say) until solo.
Lesson 16 - Mar 22 2001
Weather clear and breezy.
Not a good lesson.
Lesson 17 - Mar 22 2001
Weather, scattered clouds, wind 170 at 10.
Not a good lesson.
Lesson 18 - Sun Mar 24 2001
Nice day. We took one of the C-152s and headed west. Did some standard drills and then a couple of spins. This was quite impressive. I took a photo during the second one just to record what the instruments were doing, and the view of the ground through the windshield. Entry was as for a power-off stall, but full rudder just before the stall break. Rather than a flat rotation as I had expected, the aircraft rotated with very pitch oscillations, much more like tumbling. Lots of fun.
After this diversion, we headed back to SGR for a few touch and goes. First one went PIO, but the rest were ok.
Flying is not any good at the moment.
Lesson 19 ?? - Fri Mar 30 2001 10-12
Back to the 172. This must be getting as dull to read as to write (and to fly). Another departure for the pattern, and some bad pattern flying at that. A few decidely ropey landings and off on a North departure for West Houston to practice some more landings. Even my pattern flying is suffering now. It's all going tits up. The worst moment at West Houston is at 300 feet up after a touch and go, realising that I am flying too slowly. Can you guess what got forgotten during the tng ? To be quite honest at this point I would have been quite happy to have got out (on the ground of course) and just walked home.
At this point, inexplicably (not if you read the prev few hours) I am not coming back for a while. I don't think my flying is strong enough to withstand the 'chief' instructor checking me out for solo. Besides, I need a couple of hours with no mistakes, and that is starting to look increasingly unlikely, just due to my struggling for the right attitude. Plus, it's expensive and I just feel like I am throwing money down the drain at the moment.
It's hard to explain how painful this is... I love flying, but based on the last few hours, I almost dread getting in the plane. It's awful. I'm pretty sure that my instructor hates it too.
I packed it in at this point, and switched to glider flying. I soloed on my fourth lesson, with approx 2 hours time, and 16 flights. Hey, I can fly !!!
POSTSCRIPT 23/May/02
I wish someone had given me 'Fate is the Hunter' by Earnest Gann before now. It might have saved me from myself during this early part of my flight training.
POSTSCRIPT
I do love flying. I love the view. What's wrong ? Consult www.pprune.org. Lots of supportive people tell me to keep at it. One person who's been where I am now (whirly) says taking a break is a good idea. My thoughts are towards switching to a different branch of flying and trying and get my love of being in the air and love of flying a plane back in sync. I checked out the glider club last week and will see if maybe trying the basics will help... I've been in a glider once before, at the Deeside gliding club near Aboyne, but that was 20 years ago...
NOTE: This worked !! I passed my Private (Glider) checkride with about 12 hours in the logbook on 10/March/2002.