Today was my fourth lesson. I knew ahead of time what we would be covering today and I had done my best to study it. Unfortunately it is a little hard to study slow flight, stalls, and steep turns without flying the maneuvers. I did my best, which amounted to little more than learning the procedures. I did find my Jeppesen Private Pilot Maneuvers Manual very helpful. The lesson began with some ground. We covered V speeds more in depth than what was covered during the ground school I have been attending. We also covered instruments also a little more in depth. This was very interesting because Josh used actual instruments with cutaways to allow me to see the inner workings. I’m in complete awe of the people that came up with these instruments. Our final topic was magneto checks. Josh wanted to make sure that I understood why it is important to check the magnetos during run up, what I to look for, and what the magnetos do.
The preflight was much more pleasant, but I was in a different plane so I had to remember to set the heading indicator. Also, I was a bit leery considering when I had just arrived Josh told me his last student had gotten ‘sick’ on the last flight. After all the stuff Nathan told us during ground school I am paranoid about my preflights. I cover every detail. I don’t want to get caught out on something silly like a switched registration. Everything seemed to be in order so we got in the plane. I think I’m finally getting the seat belt under control. I proceeded to start the plane which was successful but my technique was bad. I do know what I did wrong though.
We recieved our clearances and I did the run up. Then we taxied out to runway 5. That took a while but I am doing much better controlling the plane with the rudder. We were pretty much immediately cleared for takeoff. We did a pseudo-short field take off where I gave it full power and held the brakes then let off. We got into the air pretty quickly. There was a pretty stiff crosswind so I had to compensate for that on take off but otherwise it was normal. We headed out toward Walland Gap. I was interested to see how it looked from the air as I hadn’t been out there in a plane.
On the menu for this lesson was flight maneuvers. We would do slow flight, power on stalls, power off stalls, and steep turns. I had studied the maneuvers on paper and prior to getting in the air I had a good idea what I needed to do. Unfortunately, all that left my mind the minute we left the ground. Not that it mattered. We did power off stalls first. The basic method that Josh employed was that he would perform the maneuver and then I would do it. Power off stalls simulate landing so the procedure is reduce the power, drop the nose a bit, slow the plane, full flaps, and pull back until the horn sounds and let it stall. Then recovery is the name of the game and the true point of all the other stuff. Recovery seemed simple enough – drop the nose, full power, right rudder and pitch for level whilst raising the flaps. As usual however, easier said than done. I did alright but the minute I gave it full power the plane pitched up.
The next exercise was power on stalls, which simulate take off. They are similar to power of stalls but do not involve flaps or reducing power. They seem simple enough but I learned that there is a particular risk of creating a spin at the stall point if you’re not careful. I also realized that everyone was right about how steep the pitch seems. It felt like we were really laid back and that the nose was way high but looking out the window, I realized that we weren’t that far from a normal climb. The plane stalled after what felt like an eternity and I pitched for level. Easy as pie.
Slow flight is exactly what it sounds like – slow. Set up is a lot like a power off stall except for the stall. Stalling in slow flight is generally frowned upon. The name of the game here is “pitch for airspeed and throttle for altitude.” It doesn’t make sense on the ground but it is completely useful in the air. This felt like the longest part of the lesson. Of course flying a plane at about 57 miles per hour and making turns that take 2 minutes to complete a 180 should by all rights seem to take forever. Also, the near constant blare of the stall horn is probably what makes it seem so long.
Our final task was steep turns. I had but one question, what is the steepest one should go? This was answered with Josh performing a 60 degree steep turn. I felt like I was looking almost straight down at the ground. Then it was my turn I stayed closer to 45, which is nothing to shake a stick at. I lost some altitude but not bad for a first try. Josh had me do a steep turn to the right and we headed back to the airport straight away.
I set the plane up for landing, which was a real chore because of the crosswind. Then Josh took over because if I was to land we would surely have crashed. Also, there was a C130 shooting touch and goes so there was wake turbulence. I do have to say though C130s are much easier to see from the air than little planes. Overall it was a good lesson.