January 5, 2012
Pain Field
Ground lesson
.6 hours
I woke up around 7am, feeling like death and congested like no other. Worried I’d have to cancel my flight I got up and jumped in the shower before going downstairs to make myself something to eat. By this time I felt much better and noticed my congestion would come and go. I waited a little longer before calling my instructor to see what he thought. He said we could give it a try.
As I sat in my car, I could feel the wind shaking it. Definitely not a good sign. I got out and walked toward the flight school, as I did so the wind was blowing my hair all over the place. I had a sinking feeling it was going to be too windy to go up. My assumption was correct. My CFI was already waiting for me, and told me there was wind shear so we wouldn’t be going up. We had a few things to go over though. So at least my drive there wasn’t a waste. He talked about spin recovery. Not that we had to do them, but that I’d need to know the procedures to get out of one. So here we go again with the acronyms: PARE.
Power – idle
Ailerons- neutral
Rudder- Full opposite
Elevator- forward to break stall
I thought it was really odd that you’d need to push forward on the yoke, wouldn’t you want to pull back so you could get out of it? But no, you wanted to push forward so you could again get lift, break the stall and then pull up.
Then he briefly talked about forward slips. You know, if you’re too high when you’re coming into landing. Or if there’s crosswinds. You want to turn into the wind and then apply opposite rudder.
Power- Idle
Rudder (usually full)
Alierons
Nose down- not up ( you don’t want your air speed to increase)
Flaps 20- not full
15 minutes in and my instructor is already putting me to sleep. So many different procedures for all these different maneuvers. Would I honestly be able to remember all of them? How many more did I have to learn?
“So what do you think a runway incursion is?” he asked. As with almost every other thing I have no idea. So I throw a guess out there. “When two planes run into each other on the runway….?” He shook his head and said, “that would maybe be a runway collision”. A runway incursion is basically when a plane is on the runway when they aren’t supposed to be. I laughed at myself. Apparently, my CFI had thought the same thing when he was asked way back whenever it was he learned all this. So that didn’t make me feel so retarded. Which is rare because usually at these lessons I always feel dumb. I never know anything, even if I try and read up ahead of time. So whenever my instructor asks me anything, I normally guess, and about 95% of the time is a wrong guess.
Next he discussed wind shear. He said he usually keeps his knots up when coming into landing. Let’s say the winds at 5, with gusts at 20. You’d take the distance between the 2, which would be 15 and cut it in half to add to your approach speed. Which would be about 7, so you would add that. If the winds are strong you also don’t want to have your flaps full. And finally, there was a quick discussion of microburst.
Before I headed out I asked him if ground school (which I’ll be starting in 4 days) was going to be as boring as this. He said the guy teaching it was a cool guy, and usually students didn’t come out complaining about him. Plus they had videos and PowerPoint’s. Not just a whiteboard and a marker. I still am not looking forward to my ground school, not mixed with everything else I have going on. But I am looking forward to becoming more knowledgeable.
On a side note, my solo was brought up finally, and how after this that’s what we’ll be working on- getting me to solo. I’m excited and terrified! My goal is to solo by my 20th birthday which is in March. That gives me about 2 months and a couple weeks. I hope I can do it.
Total cost invested thus far: $2475
Showing posts with label Ground lesson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ground lesson. Show all posts
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
How I Hate Winter Weather
December, 2011
Pain Field
Ground lesson
1.2 hours
I scheduled my next lesson which unfortunate got canceled due to bad weather. There was however and always are things to go over. So it was a ground kind of day. Disappointed that I wasn’t going to be able to fly I sat and took notes while my CFI went over instrument flying because you need a set amount of time of instrument training before you get your private pilots. You know, in the case you get stuck in bad visibility conditions. Speaking of, in case you’re wondering I’m VFR which is visual flight rules, so I have to stay a certain distance away from the clouds, where as IFR is instrument flight rules, flying by your instruments without visual reference. After I’m done with my private pilots I’ll be working towards my instrument ratings. Which, you’ll hear all about once I start it.
So, back to sitting and taking notes. I remember I had to try extra hard to focus. Who wants to sit down and learn when you’re used to flying and learning? Not really much to report here, just which instruments to look at when doing straight and level/ descents/ turns. Then there was a discussion of the magnetos, and the go around procedures. He also went over the emergency landings, in an ABC way:
A: airspeed
B: best landing spot
C: checklist
Set myself up for the best glide speed, find a suitable landing spot (no roads, if it’s a field make sure to land with the rows not against) and fly over it using the traffic pattern (after I figure out where the wind is coming from so I can land into the wind), and do the emergency landing procedure on the checklist.
At this point I remember thinking about changing my flight instructor (not because he wasn’t doing a good job I just needed to stay focused). When in the plane I’m completely focused on the job at hand- flying the plane. But outside of it doing these boring ground lessons I had to force myself to listen to what my instructor was saying. This wasn’t one of my college courses where I could easily just daydream and pass effortlessly, here I needed to stay alert. This was all completely new to me, sure I was raised with my father’s love for planes but I was never told how the engine worked, or what the emergency procedure for landing a plane if the engine fails on you was. The thought of changing instructors was pushed out of my mind as I rationalized my feelings, and chose what was best for me. I also, began to notice how I fell into the student role more with each passing flight.
Total cost invested thus far: $971
Pain Field
Ground lesson
1.2 hours
I scheduled my next lesson which unfortunate got canceled due to bad weather. There was however and always are things to go over. So it was a ground kind of day. Disappointed that I wasn’t going to be able to fly I sat and took notes while my CFI went over instrument flying because you need a set amount of time of instrument training before you get your private pilots. You know, in the case you get stuck in bad visibility conditions. Speaking of, in case you’re wondering I’m VFR which is visual flight rules, so I have to stay a certain distance away from the clouds, where as IFR is instrument flight rules, flying by your instruments without visual reference. After I’m done with my private pilots I’ll be working towards my instrument ratings. Which, you’ll hear all about once I start it.
So, back to sitting and taking notes. I remember I had to try extra hard to focus. Who wants to sit down and learn when you’re used to flying and learning? Not really much to report here, just which instruments to look at when doing straight and level/ descents/ turns. Then there was a discussion of the magnetos, and the go around procedures. He also went over the emergency landings, in an ABC way:
A: airspeed
B: best landing spot
C: checklist
Set myself up for the best glide speed, find a suitable landing spot (no roads, if it’s a field make sure to land with the rows not against) and fly over it using the traffic pattern (after I figure out where the wind is coming from so I can land into the wind), and do the emergency landing procedure on the checklist.
At this point I remember thinking about changing my flight instructor (not because he wasn’t doing a good job I just needed to stay focused). When in the plane I’m completely focused on the job at hand- flying the plane. But outside of it doing these boring ground lessons I had to force myself to listen to what my instructor was saying. This wasn’t one of my college courses where I could easily just daydream and pass effortlessly, here I needed to stay alert. This was all completely new to me, sure I was raised with my father’s love for planes but I was never told how the engine worked, or what the emergency procedure for landing a plane if the engine fails on you was. The thought of changing instructors was pushed out of my mind as I rationalized my feelings, and chose what was best for me. I also, began to notice how I fell into the student role more with each passing flight.
Total cost invested thus far: $971