Flight Lesson #3 (now with 30% less lift)

Firstly! before we get to the meat of this post, i would like to mention, to you, the reader, comma, why i did not post this post a week ago after i had my flight lesson. Quite simply, i was on spring break. Although it was hardly a break, as i worked 65 hours in 9 days. However i still enjoyed spring break, because none of those 65 hours of work required me to do homework, or any other form of work outside of the scheduled work time.

I was going to have 2 flights last week, but to my UTTER HORROR, one of them was cancled when a fierce and magical (not entirely unlike a unicorn) blizzard/ light snow prevented me from taking to the skies.

However! on tuesday i did in fact go up in my favorite cessna 152, which coincidentally is the plane with the least amount of duct tape on the wings. Actually the reason i like that plane is because it has only one fuel drain in each wing, as opposed to the 5 in each wing that one of the other planes has.

As usual we began our day with the preflight inspection. I completed it by myself and only had to ask my instructor one question, which regarded whether or not we needed to use the fuel measuring stick that we used in the other plane. The answer: we did not, because this tank was much smaller, we could do the fuel quantity check visually.

It was fairly windy that day, so my instructor gave me some options (or more specifically, 2 options), we could finish off the ground reference meneuvers that we didnt cover in the last flight, which didnt seem like a good idea, because it was so windy, and i would probably end up spewing all over the cockpit. The second option was much more to my liking, we could climb to 3000 ft and do some high altitude training.

So we got ready for takeoff and the usual mumbo jumbo. although i will mention that i am getting much better at steering the aircraft on the ground. You would think that that would be the easiest part... but its not. for that takeoff i did throttle and rudders, and my instructor did the yoke.

once we were airborn we began our climb to 3000 ft. best climb speed is 76 knots, if you were wondering. i learned three maneuvers on tuesday, the steep turn, slow flight, and stalls. the steep turn was probalby the most basic. It is a 360 degree turn at a 45 degree bank angle. the FAA regulations for passing this maneuver on a check ride are that your bank angle remain within 10 degrees (i think) of 45, that your final heading be within 10 degrees (i think) and that your alitude loss be less than 100 feet. On my first attempt i think i lost 200-300 feet. WOOT! But im a quick learner. By keeping the nose a little bit higher up on the horizon during the steep turn i was able to complete the maneuver a second time with less than 100 ft loss from altitude, and then again a third time.

the second maneuver was also not very difficult. Slow flight is achieved by first lowering the engine power to 1500 rpms (cruise flight is usuallya bout 2300 rpms). Then the nose is raised until you lose lift, and the stall warning horn sounds. At that point you increase power up to 1900 rpms, and you have achieved slow flight. i learned some more things about slow flight and how you use it to land an airplane, and then we went to the last maneuver.

The stall was the final maneuver i learned on tuesday, as well as the most fun. Nothing makes my day like losing all lift in an aircraft 3000 ft above the ground, and going in to a death spiral which you have to recover from before you hit the ground. okay... maybe im exageratting a litle bit. The stall starts out like slow flight. You lower engine power, and raise the nose. Only this time you ignore the stall warning horn and keep raising the nose until you begin to feel vibrations in the yoke, and eventually you stall. all that happens in a stall is you lose lift, and drop out of the sky like a rock. But this only takes place for about a half second or less, as lift is immediately regained by lowering the nose and taking the engine back up to full power.

We learned a little bit about emergency procedures, which i dont remember anything about (hmm...), and then we landed the plane. or rather my instructor did. I just sat and watched. tomorrow i will begin landing the plane, with help from my instructor of course.

well! im not dead... yet