First time flying a C-172

As I mentioned in a previous post, I need to get some more instrument time done before I’m able to do my flight test. I had hoped to get that done last night, but alas, it was not to be. More on that later.

Since 150s are in short supply these days, Brad suggested I book some time on one of the 172s that the club has. His reasoning was that I was going to have to get checked out on them eventually anyways, so why not start now. Good point.

I showed up at the club for my 12:30 booking. It was a bit windy today and man was it ever cold! In reality it wasn’t that cold, I’m just not used to it yet. The walk around was not comfortable, but I got it done with no problems. Checking the stall horn on a 172 is somewhat challenging.

The C-172 is pretty much the same as a C-150, just bigger. It’s a four seater rather than a two seater, and it’s got a bigger engine. Other than that, it was pretty much the same to fly as a 150. When you’re flying straight and level though, the attitude is a bit more nose down compared to a 150…of course since I spent pretty much the entire flight under the hood, I didn’t really notice.

Got a solid hour or so in of instrument time. We even did a couple of stalls with me under the hood. That was pretty cool. Most of the instrument time was full panel, but towards the end Brad covered up the heading indicator and the altimeter so I was basically flying by the attitude indicator. Brad also showed me how to change headings when you don’t have a heading indicator. It basically comes down to doing a rate one turn and knowing that it takes 10 seconds to change your heading by 30 degrees.

Coming in for a landing Brad advised me that the 172s tend to float quite a bit more than the 150s. He told me not to keep any power on too far into the approach…he told me that a few times before I realized he was telling me to close the throttle right then. Oops. The landing wasn’t actually that bad. In the end I got an hour of instrument time in and also one of the three hours I need for the 172 checkout. Not a bad deal.

Now…onto why I didn’t do the flight last night. I’m going to attempt to keep this brief because if I think about it too long, I’m sure I’ll get a little pissed. :)

It gets dark quite early these days, well before 1700 anyways. I had booked a 150 for Tuesday night in hopes of getting some instrument time in as well as my first experience at night flying. I checked the weather before I left work and then called up Brad (it was Brad’s day off but he agreed to come in to help me out) to make sure we were still on. Yep – everything was a go. Brad told me to make sure all the lights worked when I was doing my walk around.

When I got to the club, they gave me JZP for the night. I went out and did my walk around and even remembered to check the lights. Problem was, the dome light didn’t seem to be working. I wasn’t sure if maybe I just wasn’t doing something right or if there was an actual problem. I waited until Brad showed up to get him to check. Turns out, it definitely wasn’t working. Plan B – check out XAM. Unfortunately its landing light was burnt out.

Hmmm…it sure would have been nice to know that NEITHER plane was fit to fly at night before I wasted the time and gas to drive to the club. I felt bad for Brad too since he even came in on his day off. I said to the guys, “It’s times like these that I wish this place were run like a business instead of a club.”

Oh well, so I didn’t get to do any night flying last night, no big deal I guess. It was disappointing, but at the same time, if I haden’t gone in yesterday, I wouldn’t have booked the time on the 172 that I flew today.

I don’t want to get down on the club because for the most part I think they do a fantastic job. I think there are just some little things that could be improved to keep people happy.