Lesson 2: Head in the Clouds

Turns, Slow Flight, & Gliding

Wow! Had my official first flight lesson today, and it was absolutely incredible. As my wife Laura and brother Bryan can attest, I won't shut up about it! As 5:00 approached, I started to get nervous, and as I drove out the CURT parking lot, I started thinking to myself... "Dennis, what are you doing, are you sure?" As I arrived at the airport, the excitement and nervousness were much more intense. I met Jack, my flight instructor, we went over the FAA medical stipulations and the CFI requirements. After that we talked about my goals, our baby arriving soon, and how that would affect my training. So, with that out of the way, we set out to begin our first lesson.

Jack had preflighted the plane ahead of time, but left a few things to do. We went around the plane briefly, more to just check the oil and the flap rollers. The plane look darn new, apparently the result a recent paint job, it looked nice on the outside. The inside was very nice too. After verifying the oil looked good, we went through the startup checklist. Its difficult for me to remember everything, its amazing how overwhelming it all is, and its hard to imagine a day when it all comes naturally. But we checked mixture, throttle, primer, shouted 'clear' to make sure everyone was safely away, and fired it up. I can't remember if we did this before or after startup, but we got on the radio and listened to weather. We calibrated our altimeter and directional gyro. Called up tower for taxi, and we began to move!

Controlling the plane on the ground is exactly as I remember, but executing was another story. But it didn't take too long to get a hang of it, the brakes are the hardest to master since they are located near the rudder pedals and require you to push with your toes while you are steering with your heals. I did ok here, but misunderstood what Jack was asking for when making the turn into the wind to do the run-up check. We basically held the brakes and ran the engine up to I think 1900 rpm, then turned on just the left mag, and saw the RPM decrease, back to both and saw it return to 1900 rpm. Then did the same for the right mag, it was a little bigger decrease, but within tolerance. Set trim to takeoff. Did another check on oil pressure, fuel. Radioed for clearance to taxi to the runway. Jack gave a complete explanation of what happens if we have an engine failure during takeoff and what the plan is, there will be no thinking, just action if required. If engines failed at anytime, Jack will take complete authority over the controls. If engines failed during takeoff roll, we basically roll to a stop on the runway. If a failure occurs above the runway, we set it back down. If we are beyond the runway and below a certain altitude, we are going straight ahead into some pre-picked fields off of runway 04. If we are a safe altitude with an engine failure, we'll attempt to turn back to the runway. I can't remember what altitude that was, I am sure I'll be reminded of that again. Once we cleared, we taxied onto the runway, smoothly but assertively pushed in the throttle, keeping the plane on centerline with rudder pedals (nose wheel controls), and before long we were off the ground. I admit, I was quite nervous during that roll, I also imagine I will carry that nervousness for quite some time, because my biggest fear is losing engines right on take off or on landing. But once we were at a decent altitude, I relaxed and began to really enjoy the flight.

Okay, once in the air, we headed to the southwest for some practice maneuvers. Once we were about at 3000 ft, we practiced steady flight. Basically keeping the plane level and at a consistent altitude. I had a natural tendency to fixate on the instruments, but it wasn't too difficult to maintain attitude and altitude. However, I feel it will take me some bit to master the trim. Although Jack explained a lot of students tend to become overly dependent on it and constantly overuse it to maintain altitude, I didn't feel that inclination. However, I found it difficult to remember to even use the trim, I wanted to continue fighting the controls to maintain position. So, that will be something I will need to work on, among the many things!

Next came basic turns, only to about 30 degrees and trying to maintain altitude. I was surprised how well I did, I struggled with the rudder control, and I understand that will take many hours to master. When Jack first told me, look out of the plane and get a sight picture in mind, it became much easier instead of staring at the instruments. So, we practiced a few turns both to the left and right. Turning to the right was much more difficult because I had less points of reference in the sight picture because my view is more obscured.

Onto slow flight, we reduced throttle and felt how the plane wanted to right itself. Obviously it wanted to nose down, but after adjusting pitch and trim we were fine. Turning in slow flight was also interesting, the controls were much more sluggish and mushy. We also contrasted that with increased throttle and how the plane wanted to pitch up.

Before we began work on gliding and descent, it was time to head back to the airport. Jack calmly asked if I knew where I was and where the airport was. I realized I was concentrating entirely on figuring out the plane, and I had absolutely no clue where I was, hah first real lesson and I am lost somewhere over Eau Claire. I answered, "uh... Honestly, I have no idea." I learned its better not to guess, and admit when you don't know and ask. So he asked for me to look around to see if anything is familiar, I saw a freeway, and said that could be I-94 or Hwy 29. It was I-94, and figured on our current heading, the airport should be .... that way. Jack indicated that was more-or-less correct, which is a nice way of saying, "good guess, but not quite." Driving a car through Eau Claire is much different than your understanding and recognition of how things look when you are a couple thousand feet in the air! Navigation is several lessons away, so there is plenty of time to figure that out, for now we are concentrating on controlling the plane.

Finally onto gliding, and descent. Here we wanted to repeat the rule: Pitch, Power, Trim. So we set our pitch descent angle, then adjust power appropriately to get our target speed (around 75 knots), then trimmed to reduce control pressure. I also learned how flaps affects the airplane and how as flaps are increased we have to redo the Pitch, Power, Trim formula again. So, we radioed back to the tower that we were entering the pattern for a landing, we approached for almost a straight in landing, but we came at an angle, intersecting the pattern roughly at the downwind and base legs. So as we "glided in" we made a small turn to base and then final. Jack was aiming for the "4" on runway 04. Just as he touch down the stall horn was blaring along with a nice soft landing. I can't wait for me to do that someday! Jack did the entire landing, but had me put my hands on the controls to feel what he was doing.

So, as we taxied off the runway, I begin to think to myself uh-oh, I think I've found myself a challenging, fulfilling, exciting, and expensive new hobby. We'll see what the weeks bring and where the dollars fall, for we know a the weeks will definitely bring a baby! I am so excited to go home to tell Laura all about it and relive the experience with her. I will be making another appointment shortly! Woo Hoo!