Tillman -- Flight Lesson #3

// For those with a certificate and those with acrobatic training, y'all are going to laugh at me. Just remember I have less than 3 hours in the air As usual, any inaccuracies in this are due to my faulty memory and do not reflect on my instructor \\

I realized last night that I had the day free and an extra $200, and so subjected poor Ron to a pop-up training. For the student it's a great thing to be able to schedule planes and instructors online -- I'm not so certain it's good for the instructors

Ron had asked me to read about stalls and instruments before the next lesson, and I had honestly planned on doing so, but the last minute decision meant that I hadn't actually read the materials. Oops. We worked through a few basic concepts (like, don't deploy the flaps at 100 knots...), preflighted, and were on our way.

There's a big air show out at Alliance this weekend, so there's a TFR that says "stay out of our airspace" just to the southwest of Northwest Regional. We head north and west, angling around the TFR and out to the mobile homes in the Justin area.

So, this lesson is about stalls. To set the scene, I have a fear of heights. One of the reasons I am flying is to beat that fear. Now, I have no problem when the plane is flying -- I have faith in physics and Bernoulli's principle. That faith gets strained when the plane stops flying, and that's exactly what we're trying to make it do.

Up to 3100 feet headed west, and we make some clearing turns to check for traffic (Cessnas, large vultures, F18s with TV personnel aboard...) and don't see anything.

Power off stalls, aka landing stalls. Now, explain again why we're slowing down midair?? Speed down, flaps in landing settings, pitch up and listen to the warning buzzer. Airspeed down, down, down......and we're FALLING OUT OF THE SKY!

Ok, so maybe we're not, but I'm certain that yelling "oh my God!" isn't the proper first reaction. Nose drops, left wing drops, and my heart drops too. Ron shows how to pull out of the stall safely, and loses less than 100 ft in altitude. Maybe that's not so bad after all. Ok, my turn.

Same move, pretty much the same reaction from me but at least I don't actually have a verbal outburst this time. I lose more altitude than my instructor, but not too bad. Got to remember when to get rid of the flaps. Watch the rate of ascent, and we're good.

And again, and again. I have a real problem keeping it level when stalling, and that added drama of a wing dropping makes this a bit harder than it needs to be. Torque steer, rudder pedal, flap lever, throttle, it's all a lot to keep an eye on. Still, we're not falling out of the sky. That's a good thing.

On to power-on stalls, AKA departure stalls. In theory a bit easier to deal with, because you don't have to mess with the throttle. That is, of course, ignoring the fact that you're going to be pretty close to the ground if this happens for real...

We're still out west over the farmland. Clearing turns, and nothing seems to be in the way. Power all the way on (hear that mighty Rotax roar!), pitch up, and the speed drops, drops, drops....all the way down into the 30s. The alarm is wailing, the plane kind of stutters for a second and then the nose drops hard. Power stays in, keep the nose down until the airspeed comes up, and the rate of descent finally goes positive again. Fix the flaps. So, Ron can do a stall. Can I?

My turn. Power on, pitch up and watch the airspeed drop. Briefly wonder again why we would ever want to stop the plane midair, but things are about to get busy. Alarm is going, speed drops, and then the nose goes over. Again I have the wing drop, which makes things more interesting than it needs to be. Too much down pressure on the stick, and the rate of descent is higher than RP wants, and the airspeed comes up in a hurry. We regained the height and chatted a bit about it, especially about over-controlling the plane.

Up again, power on, pitch up, alarm on and it noses over. Better this time, still dropping the wing dagnabit.

Time for some pleasure flying. For the very first time that I've been up the weather is beautiful and I can see miles and miles. RP takes some time to point out landmarks and makes sure I know where I am. I do, and I have a particular destination in mind.

We cruise for a bit, and I find the piece of property that I've been looking at buying. A few turns-around-a-point (ground reference maneuvers from the past lessons come in handy) to get an idea what it looks like from above. This flying thing really changes your perspective.

Then it's time to head back. Ron chats with the ATC out of Alliance to make sure we're OK. We head back to the east, north of 407 and Justin to stay out of the TFR. Ron calls out our position and height. We receive back a radio call from another plane headed to 52F, pretty much at the same place we are. Ron and I are both looking for the traffic and can't find him. A bit of chatter and we establish he's above and behind us. I guess I'd make a lousy fighter pilot....

Back to 52F for a right hand pattern. Due to the TFR most people are flying a right hand pattern, but there's some still running the normal left hand pattern. Makes for an interesting time with multiple planes running touch and goes in different patterns. There was one Cessna 172 a lot closer to us than I liked, and I never heard him on the radio at all.

Ron handles the landing because there's traffic stacking up behind our little Sportstar. We are too long to make the turn into NTFA, and end up pulling into a parking space further down the runway. The east taxiway is under construction, and so we will have to back taxi up the runway to the hanger. There's lots of traffic inbound, and 2 planes waiting to take off, and so we're stuck in that lot for a while as the various machines take off and land. Gotta love that Hobbs running on the ground. Finally there's a good opening, and we back taxi to the hanger.

Today 1.2 / Total 2.9 Next lesson -- lots of touch and goes