PPL Lesson 3

1.5 hours in the air today, this time focused on steep turns and slow flight.

Departed Palo Alto and headed out to the ocean in a steady climbing cruise.  Leveled off around 3,200' and spent an hour or so doing maneuvers.  45deg turns first, then moved on to slow flight and turns at minimum controllable airspeed.  The steep turns were fun.  Slowed the plane to 90 (attitude, throttle, trim) and entered the turns.  A little disorienting for me without the wind in my face feedback I am so used to.  At times it felt like the plane was just spinning on a wingtip.  I think this will get to a more normal feeling with time.

The slow flight I found a bit more intimidating.  Have to hold the nose high and drop power to slow down, then bring the power back up to maintain level flight.  We slowed to 60mph or so, both with and without flaps, then executed some shallow but rapid turns.  Lot's of right rudder needed to keep the plane straight in this high power, high drag configuration.  So much right rudder that left turns were accomplished by simply applying less right rudder.  The stall alarms going off freaked me out a bit, and I kept thinking "what if we slow down too much?"  But my instructor wasn't worried, so I tried not to worry and just focus on the tasks he gave me.  Carb heat, power, mixture, flaps.

Next lesson Monday.

Adding Power

I decided to take the plunge and get my private pilot license.  It's a new thing for me, so I figured I would use my defunct blog to chronicle the experience.  No one reads blogs any more, and even fewer read this blog, so I realize I am just blogging to myself.  But that's ok, I like myself a lot.  Go me.

I've had two lessons so far, with a couple hours of ground school and about 1.5 hours stick time.  For now I am training in a Cessna 172K, which is very familiar to me having spent many hours in the right seat of my dad's 172.

At this point we have only done very basic stuff.  Takeoff, climbs, descents, level turns, climbing turns, and descending turns.  I am enjoying learning the fuel mixture, power, and trim basics since I've never really touched any of those controls before.  I don't have a good feel for proper rudder inputs yet, but that will come with time.

I think my biggest hurdle for now is going to be letting go of my hang glider instincts.  I'm very used to having direct and instant tactile feedback on how the glider is flying in the form of wind on my face and sound in my ears.  I'll need to learn to rely on the airplanes attitude, yolk position, engine sound, and instruments instead.
Landing I expect will be the hardest for me to get comfortable with.  I'm used to the idea that "speed is your friend" on my glider.  When I get ready to land on my glider I speed up to increase my control authority and give me extra margin above stall speed to account for any gusts.  Slowing down when we enter the approach pattern in the 172 freaks me out.  I get that we don't want to land at 120mph, but it just feels wrong.  It might take a while to get used to that.

Next lesson in 2 days!