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Flying Lesson 29
| Checkride is around the corner and checkride prep was the basis for tonight's lesson. Tonight, I might add, is purely a figure of speech. As the days have gotten shorter I seem to begin my lessons in daylight and finish at dusk. By the time we debrief, discuss, and settle up, it's dark outside. So I feel like they are evening lessons even though technically they're not. We started off today with a soft-field takeoff. Our field is not soft so it was totally simulated but it was interesting. I have never had an opportunity to takeoff from a grass field but I feel like it would be challenging especially if the earth had softened up due to rain or wet snow. After one short field takeoff we headed out away from the airport pattern for a variety of other flight maneuvers. I believe I need three hours of checkride prep to satisfy the requirements. We had a number of flight maneuvers to practice and we wasted no time at all.
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View of the Valley Below |
We started off with some stalls. First were the power-on stalls. A power-on stall is meant to simulate a stall on takeoff. I had some trouble with these but I think I can improve quickly with practice. The trick here is to regain airspeed first, then regain a climbing attitude next. We also tried some power-off stalls. These stalls are meant to simulate a stall on landing. The trick to these is a fast recovery. Slow recovery from stall, in a real life situation, would mean a hard hit on the surface and possibly serious injury or even worse. We also spent some time practicing steep turns. I don't know what to say, some are good and some are not so good. I actually think I did better when the turn was to the left. I happen to be left handed and I don't know if that has anything to do with anything or if it was just a coincidence. The best solution to this maneuver is just more practice. Although some of these maneuvers got a bit frustrating, I can actually see improvement as I repeat them over and over.
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| My instructor also demonstrated the seriousness of a cross-control stall. This stall is most common on the base to final leg near landing where the pilot is trying to cut the turn to final too sharp using rudder. This was most certainly the most dramatic stall I have ever experienced. Cross control stalls are most certainly dangerous if not deadly and I feel like this is going to be easy to retain for future reference. We finished the lesson with a few engine-out landings which are always exciting. Again some good and some bad. In a real engine-out situation you only get one shot so I need to perfect these for my own good. Some engine-outs we don't do a full stop, we do a go-around to save time. Even these take practice. With the plane trimmed for best glide speed in the engine-out situation, a go-around means plenty of pressure of the yoke to build airpseed until you have time to remove the trim as well as the the flaps. The flaps however need to be removed very slowly as your airspeed increases. |
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