Aviation Forum / General / Learning / June 2009

Some improvement with level turns today, but not enough better, just can't
seem to get enough elevator in.  I confessed that I might have got too "book
smart" about lift and load factors, and might be scared of getting into a
stall with too much elevator.  So we bagged that part of the lesson and
climbed up a bit to do a couple of stalls.  They're fun!  Riding through
them really illustrated just how far from stalling we were in those level
turns, and I'm looking forward to working them some more.

Some improvement with the rudder, too.  I still get on it late in a turn,
but I *am* beginning to notice and make the correction, meaning that my
ability to divide my attention is improving.  I've found that I can keep us
going fairly straight during the takeoff roll, and that's nice to know.  On
final I'm not even -thinking- about the rudder, but I expect that to
improve.  Apparently I have some anxiety about landing, but after flying
four approaches I can already feel it easing.

I'm also learning to relax on the yoke a little.  All of my flying so far
has been in bumpy air, and I was working awfully hard to keep the wings
level.  Turns out that the airplane doesn't need constant attention, just a
nudge when a trend starts to develop.  That's something I read before, but I
guess it takes experience to believe it.

Next we did some constant rate climbs and descents.  Yuck.  I thought the
turbulence was making it hard to nail down and said so.  My instructor
conceded the point, he was having trouble making a decent demonstration of
it himself.  I will definitely try a few after-sunset flights to see if
calmer air will help me understand; it's hard to figure out what's going on
when I can't tell whether it's me or the wind that's moving the airplane
around.

Next, more approach work!  I'm getting incrementally better with speed
control, can't remember the landing checklist for jack, and need to work on
runway alignment.  We were using runway 16 with a nice little 12kt breeze
from 180, just enough to be interesting and show me why ground reference
maneuvers are important.

Oh, yes -- the artificial leg.  I thought I'd try wearing it today, thinking
I'd see if it improved my rudder work.  That did not work out.  The 172N I'm
flying is older than the one I had for my discovery flight, the door and
seat geometry is different, and I just could *not* get into the airplane
wearing my leg!  So, me being me, I took out the allen wrench I'd brought,
unbolted my leg from the knee down and threw it in the back seat.  That's
always good for getting a laugh out of your flight instructor.

But while I had it there and unbolted, I had a chance to see how the foot
and ankle interact with the rudder pedal.  I saw that with the ankle fixed
at 90 degrees as it is, my knee would actually have to be under the seat
before I could actuate the rudder without hitting the brake as well.  I've
no idea how I could possibly manage a left crosswind landing that way.

So today I got in more one-legged taxi practice, and did OK.  I still go
slow, much to my embarrassment when another airplane is waiting patiently at
the hold-short, but managed to complete all of our taxi maneuvers without
assistance.  So some progress there.

The syllabus says that next up is more approach-type flight.  I expect
there'll be quite a lot of that.