Today's flight lesson.

[2GvSAP_Dart]

"What the hell?" my instructor said, looking sort of bug-eyed at me.
"Sorry."
"You just landed the plane."
"Um, well, we were supposed to, right?"
"Yeah, but I didn't touch the controls."
"No wonder it sucked."
"Just taxi the damned thing and turn off at the next spot."

It was pretty much a good "Dart" landing - sort of a mushing glide, a bit of nose down at 40 feet when it seemed a bit slowish, then big flare and touch of the rear gear with a tiny bit of bump (no bounce, though). Rode the back wheels for a second until it dawned on me that it's tricycle gear so no need to keep it straight with rudder ( ) and pushed the stick gently forward to put the front gear down.

It was a pretty cool fourth hour of training - we did steep turns (which I liked, though I tend to climb 50 to 100 feet when turning right and descend the same amount when turning left) and emergency procedures (just field spotting and lining up on them) as well as stalls and this really wicked diving slip, which honestly scared the hell out of me. Anyhow, we get all done and I had been too broad on our approach patterns so he helped me from base to final. A little right of center with a crosswind coming from the left, so I had to do the "thing with the thing" to get us centered up and started flaring a tad bit too early. Caught it and made it a sort of mushing glide and did it over to pretty good effects. We were right of the centerline, though.

Anyhow, apparently I'm not supposed to be able to do this yet and wasn't in trouble. Personally I think we just made the guys in the airport waiting area entertained, and pray nobody had a video camera.

[2GvSAP_Mohawk]

Nice! You got to have the Mrs. or someone else take some pictures for us.

[2GvSAP_Flea]

and this really wicked diving slip, which honestly scared the hell out of me.

LOL.

I love a good slip when coming in for a landing. The C172 really wasn't good at them, but the taildragger SuperCub was awesome. Too high, too fast? No problem. Stomp of the right rudder and throw in a lot of left stick, and you'll either drop altitude like a rock (without gaining airspeed) or you'll slow down like you threw out a drag chute (without losing altitude), depending on how you play the elevators.

The day I solo'd, we were doing numerous TO's, landings and Touch n go's. Well she wants me to do a max performance takeoff (lift off but stay low gaining max airspeed then pull into a Vx max angle of climb upon reaching the departure end runway numbers.) So I lift off, retract flaps, and speed down the runway at about 20 feet. Hit the numbers and pull into a climb, which is pretty steep in a SuperCub. At about 800 feet, she grabs the throttle and pulls it to the rear and says "Engine Out." I look over my shoulder at the runway and think, I can make it (remember, I'm at 800' and only about 500m past the end of the runway.) In turning the plane around I glance at the airspeed... 41MPH (Stall in this config is about 38mph). Nose hard down to gain airspeed while aiming at the now approach end of the runway. Cross the numbers high and fast, start slipping. I held a slip from the approach (formerly departure) numbers to the departure (formerly aprroach) numbers trying to bleed airspeed. I finally straighten out between the numbers and the threshold markings. Wheel chirp on the threshold marking, full back stick, dump/raise the flaps, stand on the breaks and I stop at the end on the threshold markings, only feet from the end of runway lights. I'm shaking like a leaf (it's my 16th birthday) and she says "Ok, taxi back to the ramp and let me out, you're ready to solo."

[2GvSAP_Mohawk]

I'm shaking like a leaf (it's my 16th birthday) and she says "Ok, taxi back to the ramp and let me out, you're ready to solo."

I'll take shaking like a leaf as a compliment after that. I would have soiled my pants.

[2GvSAP_Dart]

Incredibly, wifey and son ("lame, dad.") are pretty disinterested. Or, perhaps they don't want any part of my somewhat hairbrained schemes.

We haven't got to the cutting power on takeoff stuff yet, just power off and do everything but land on a field from altitude.

Perhaps I should clarify the slip we made. I really LOVE the "happy slip."

What I was taught was sort of Sport Pilot required. "Let's say you're flying along and don't realize you've flown over a cloud bank. As a Sport Pilot it's not allowed - you have to see the ground at all times. But then you see a hole big enough to fit through just ahead, and you fly up to it. Then you do this...."

"This" is throttle back to half, stick to the top left, rudder full right. A horrible diving slip.

"Don't worry about the stall or spin....just give it a little off to keep it from happening....you're not an idiot; and if it does, you just unload the controls."



Criminey, the ground is coming up at 600 feet per minute from the side.

"Innit that fun?"

(bad words)

[2GvSAP_Einstein]

My checkout story:

I got my tailwheel signoff out of a tailwheel FBO at Love Field, Prescott, AZ. "Tailwheels and More" had a number of classic tailwheel aircraft (C-170, Citabria, Piper J3, J5, J12, Champ, Decathalon, etc.) but I got my signoff in an all-metal Cessna 140. Flying an underpowered aircraft with two adults at a field elevation of 5,280 feet and temps usually in the 80s is a great way to learn the practicality of density altitude calculations. We used to call the fuel truck to come drain fuel from the plane so we would be able to takeoff!

Anyways, on the day I was to get my tailwheel signoff, the instructor and I flew to a a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. This road had been our soft-and-short-field practice landing strip and was now the strip I would earn my tailwheel sign-off. We land, the instructor gets out, and I go up to make my three full stop landings (then do a 180, back taxi, 180 again, and takeoff. Short-and-soft field is hell on a tailwheel student and my instructor was a bit of a sadist). I had to go around twice: once because a UPS van mistook the runway for a residential road, and the second time because a herd of pronghorn antelope decided to camp out at the threshold. Both discovered (and rectified!) their mistake when I flew over them. Other than that, the takeoff/landings were uneventful, and I felt confident I had earned my ink.

After the third landing, the instructor hopped back into the plane, grinning ear-to-ear, holding a nearly full roll of toilet paper. "Uh, what's that for?" I asked. "This," the instructor said, still grinning mischievously, "is your final test. You don't get your signoff until you complete this." I was confused, a state I got to used to being in around my instructor: Phil loved being melodramatic. I knew he didn't mean I was supposed to use the TP in the obvious sense, but I was also pretty sure he wouldn't just come out and tell me. That's not Phil's style.

"OK, so what do I do?"

"Takeoff, climb up to 9,000ft, and we'll begin."

In a C-140 with two passengers, 9,000ft is forever away. We're talking a climb rate of maybe 200 ft/min, or 15 minutes or so of just climbing, but I knew better than to try and second guess Phil when he was in one of these moods, so I grind my teeth, push in throttle, and away we go.

After finally getting up to 9,000ft, I level her out, and Phil asks me to clear the area. Left turn, right turn, look back over at Phil who is now holding the passenger door open, grinning at me again. Calmly, I ask, "What are you doing, Phil?". Phil, with that maniacal grin, holds up the roll of toilet paper in his free hand and says "go get this". He then chucks the roll out the open door, slamming the door shut.

Used to Phil's "react in an instant or you die" scenarios, I pull the throttle back, wing over, and dive towards the roll of toilet paper and quickly figure out what he wants: the toilet paper is unraveling from the roll as it falls, leaving behind a 10-20 foot streamer of paper. My test is to cut through that stream of paper without A) over-revving the engine, B) getting TP into the prop or engine (burn baby burn), or C) forgetting to pull out and avoid the big bad ground. Even starting out 3,000 foot above the ground, I only get two or three runs at it (and I only remember cutting the paper stream with the wing once) before I have to disengage and pull back up. As crazy as Phil can be, I always learn something from his methods, and it's almost always fun (I always hated practicing short-soft takeoffs/landings, but the emergency drills were a blast).

I get my my signoff, but only after Phil makes me promise to never bring toilet paper in the plane again. I smile, and say, "but what if I have to go?" He just smiled back, flipped one of the paper sheets in my logbook back and forth a few times, then returned my logbook to my hands.

[2GvSAP_Dart]

I have come to the conclusion that all flight instructors are sadists. It's a good thing, too!

I got a little irrated with the wife for being so "whatever" about flying; I thought that maybe she should at least fake being interested in something I'm interested in, and said so.

Little voice in reply:

"I'm afraid I might like it, and maybe like it too much."

[2GvSAP_Wraith]

WOW!!!! Those are some awesome stories! I've been leaning towards gunsmithing school (via MGIB), but if I have any left over I may have to get flight lessons as well...

[2GvSAP_Einstein]

"I'm afraid I might like it, and maybe like it too much."

ditto lol

I think learning to fly is a great experience and am thrilled to hear folks getting into the hobby. It makes me sad that I'm not flying, however.

I keep a scanner in my car that's tuned to the local ATC and UNICOM frequencies. Sometimes I'll park in the parking lot at Tucson International airport and listen to the chatter and dream away. Although sims like FS2004 and IL2 are the closest I've been to flying in a depressingly long time, they're also frustratingly far away.

Those are some awesome stories!

Every pilot has a few stories per hundred hours of flight time (unless they're Part 141 (commerical) pilots. Those poor bus drivers rarely get to look outside the cockpit what with their approach plates and logs and clearances and junk! ). I've got a measly 160 hours logged, but they include such episodes as the Inflight Cockpit Fire That Almost Was, Entering (And Proceeding To Hang Out In) the Twilight-Zone, UFO Flyby, Damn The Spotlights - I Need My Night Currency!, the Case of the Active but Inactive Emergency Locator Beacon, So That's What An Inactive Runway Looks Like, Mountain Obscuration in the Valley, Scud Runners in Canada, I Thought *You* Were Flying, and, everyone's favorite, Clean Up In Aisle Two.

[2GvSAP_Dart]

Okay, so today was a thousand atta-boys and one BIG "aw sh**."

"Since you've done everything so well, we're doing ground reference flying today. Did you read up on them?"
"Yep, since I got all my flight ground school book stuff last week, I've been burning through it." (And they say security guard is a dumb job! Ha!)

So with yucky - and I'm talking thunderstorms - weather literally circling us (felt lilke we were in a big eye of a storm) and big potholes and pushy-up lumps off we go to commit some serious aviation.

Rectangular pattern, turn around a point, EMERGENCY PROCEDURE (throttle to zero when I wasn't keeping a close eye on my instructor), turn over a road, EMERGENCY PROCEDURE during a turn around a point, etc., with a landing that was all me, as nobody else would ever claim credit for it.

So it was one eye on the storm front that never came close to us, one eye on the sky for other planes, one eye on the ground track, one eye on the VSI/altimeter (sigh. I tend to dive in left turns, climb in right ones and have to unlearn this somehow.); I felt like I was one of those Beholder monsters in Dungeons and Dragons.

Ever Mr. Cool and collective, I was pretty wrung out, to be honest (plus it's 97 degrees, so sopping wet), and was pretty well done when we taxied up to the hangar.

Done and done. I reached up and shut the engine off.

I REACHED UP AND SHUT THE ENGINE OFF.

No checklist, no shuttting down avionics, generator, master switch, etc., I just turned that key to the left.

Frantic switching off of stuff (glass panel - gulp), but no harm done. Except I just blew the whole lesson.

[2GvSAP_Einstein]

Except I just blew the whole lesson.

Sounds to me like you just LEARNED a lesson - which is way more valuable than a training session where nothing happens!

[2GvSAP_Mohawk]

(sigh. I tend to dive in left turns, climb in right ones and have to unlearn this somehow.);

I'll blame that on the YAK-1 in IL2. You have been doing that since you started flying the Yak in early days of IL2.

A long time ago, I had made a comment to Hawker about tracking Dart when on his six, if he goes left, dive, if he goes right, climb and you'll never lose him. I think that lead to a discussion on coordinated turns. It is somewhere on these forums, just gotta find it.

Edit: Found the one regarding coordinated turns: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1203&p=5404&hilit=coordinated+turns#p5404

[2GvSAP_Einstein]

What a great thread, Mohawk! Should I start cranking a thesis out?

[2GvSAP_Dart]

Today was The Day of Vertical Turbulence and Crosswinds.

So what, perchance, do you think my instructor say with a smile?

"Finally decent weather to do emergency procedures, go-arounds, and landings."

Wow I sucked. Emergency procedures are a cinch. Total loss of power = take a look around and land. Go arounds are actually kinda fun!

Then came landings with this 90 degree crosswind at two airports* which were rather ugly. It's sort of like slipping down to land but less intuitive. Add in gusts that were vertical above 500 feet and horizontal below that and we had some interesting results. I stayed on the runway. The tire never, ever completely left the pavement into the grass on the right hand side.

Things are sort of coming together, which I account more to learning the aircraft more than skill increasing.

But man, I'm doing it the hard way. 98 degress temp with 80% humidity and wannabe thunderstorms makes it tough.

* Sneaked in the dual cross-country requirement on me.

[2GvSAP_Einstein]

Great progress, Dart! "Sneaking in" requirements is your instructor's way of saving you flight hours. Thank him and buy him a beer.

Overall, your instructor sounds like he really knows what he's doing. You're dang lucky.

Can't wait to hear the AAR from your unusual attitudes lesson.