Lesson 3

After a long delay (2 out-of-town trips by me and 1 by my CFI), I finally got around to my second flight today. It was a beautiful day, quite rare for the middle of July in Virginia.

We went out to the plane, did the preflight checks, and started up. This time the radio worked fine and our ADIZ flight plan actually arrived in the tower in a timely manner. So we were able to taxi right out to the run-up area. I found it much easier to taxi this time and I mostly stayed on the center line. We did our run-up, everything looked good, and we proceeded to the hold short line. The tower cleared us for take-off and I steered us onto the runway.

I was surprised that the CFI just told me to advance the throttle to full and, with his prompting (and with him on the controls too), I steered the plane down the runway and pulled back on the yoke and we were flying. Of course I didn't put any right-rudder in (to counter p-factor and torque) until he told me to do so, resulting in a crooked path in the air. I was also a bit timid on the amout to pull back so he had to prompt me to establish a higher rate of climb. The tower told us to turn left, I turned on course, and we departed the area.

After about 15 minutes of flying, and climbing to 2000 feet, we arrived in the practice area. He kept telling me to establish a pitch attitude during climbs where the cowling appeared to be about even with the horizon. My climb attitude was consistently too shallow so there's an item for me to work on.

I did a couple of 10 degree turns left and right, then a couple of 20 degree turns, and then I tried steep (45 degree) turns for the first time. On the steep turns I was surprised at just how much it seemed we were tipped over. It was challenging trying to hold altitude. Of all of the maneuvers today, the steep turns gave me the most trouble (from a comfort/confidence point of view that is). It was cool to look out the side window to see how tight the turn was, how we seemed to have the wing pointed to one spot on the ground.

And then we did climbing turns, which went OK. Then, slow flight. We did a bit of that last time, but this time we did a lot more of it. So I throttled back and maintained altitude, with the nose pitched way up. Then we did it again, using 1 notch of flaps, then 2, then full flaps. Then I tried throttling well back, too much to maintain altitude, and tried to maintain altitude until the stall horn sounded, which was my cue to add power. That went well. Then we tried slow flight with the stall horn sounding continuously. I couldn't quite get it.

Next, stalls... My CFI demonstrated a power on stall, followed by a power off stall. On the power off stall, it felt like we suddenly dropped like a stone, but only briefly. I did a power on stall myself and recovered. I was expecting more vibration or buffeting.

Then we called it a day, and I headed back to the airport. I descended to pattern altitude near the airport, turned final, and with the CFI's help, got it lined up and on a stabilized descent. We were initially high so we put in full flaps and sank faster. I had a hard time keeping it on the center line, but it was surprisingly easy to establish a descent in which the runway simply grew in the windshield. Then we wound up low, he added power, and we set it down. I taxied to the parking spot and we shut down, tied up, and went inside.

This time I used the rudder a lot. It was surprising how much the rudder helped to establish turns. The weather was great, much smoother than last time, and that made it a lot easier to maintain course and altitude. I didn't chase the needles nearly as much. All in all, this lesson was fun, much more like the experience that I was hoping for when I first contemplated taking lessons.

For this lesson, I logged one hour.