Well another Sunday and another flying lesson. Today was fantastic, not only did we not have to do a pre-flight briefing (since we had a long one the day before) but the conditions were just perfect – no turbulance to speak of above 1600 ft! My only complaint (and I’m not really complaining) is that I had to get up early for this one.
The planes were all put in the hanger for the night which meant my walk around was done in nice cozy comfort. :) Once the plane at the front of the hanger was moved out of the way, we pulled the plane out and got ready to rock and roll. I guess you could say that I’ve pretty much been doing everything on the ground and even the take offs for a few lessons now, but today was different somehow. I felt really comfortable and it was more like I was going flying with a friend of mine rather than a lesson.
Take off was pretty good, I was happy with it. It was definitely all me this time and unfortunately I did kind of drift a bit to the left just before takeoff. Not that big of a deal, just need to give her a bit more right rudder next time. We climbed up to 1600 as usual and headed out over BC (Bells Corners). More radio work, which is good, I’m getting more comfortable all the time.
Eventually we were cleared up to 3000 so up we went. I did all the flying until we got to the practice area. Brad took over for a quick demonstation of ‘slow flight’ and then it was my turn. I was talking pretty confident before I started so he aked me if I wanted to bet some beers on whether or not I would maintain altitude. I declined since it was only my first go at it. Turns out I should have bet him. Oh well, I’ll know for next time. :)
I practiced getting into and out of slow flight a few times and then Brad showed me some power off stalls and how to recover from those. I even got to try one myself. I wasn’t as smooth as Brad in my recovery, but hey…it was still pretty cool. He said we’ll be practicing those more next time.
After that we headed back in. Usual route, over the quary, to the bridge, towards Mooney’s Bay. Then over the weird shaped apartment building and turn for final. I didn’t do the landing today because we were landing in quite a cross wind and we haven’t really gone over that yet. Brad did explain what he was doing as we were landing though.
All in all, a fantastic flight today. I hope they are all like this one!