Lesson #3

Today was a much smoother flight. Very little wind, unlimited visibility, and almost no clouds. I spent the week reviewing the ground school material, and figuring out things to work on during this flight. My number one concern was using the rudders to keep the plane steady. Number two was holding altitude. Both were much improved. I still find myself using the instruments too much for level flight. The horizon line is still hazy, so I am finding it difficult to establish a "sight picture" which tells me "Yup, we're straight and level". One area where I'm still woefully behind is in using trim. Trim is basically small flaps on the tail of the airplane which help you relieve pressure on the stick. If you have to keep yanking back on the stick, putting in some nose-up trim will help alleviate that. In short, the airplane should always be properly trimmed for the airspeed and nose up/nose down attitude it is in. I'm so busy trying to do everything else, I sort of forget.

New stuff for this lesson: Simulated instrument flying, slow flight, and the traffic pattern. For the simulated instrument flying, my instructor gave me a set of plastic goggles that limit your line of sight to the major instruments. He'd then say "OK, hold the plane straight and level" or "Turn to heading 065". The idea is that if you ever get accidentally caught in the clouds, you can use your instruments to get your ass the hell outta there. It was harder than I anticipated. Slow slight is just that - handling and maneuvering the plane at slow speeds. Which you do every time you land. I still felt like we were still only dipping our toes in the water on this one.

Finally, the traffic pattern. This is just a fancy way of describing an imaginary rectangle over an airport. Everyone flies this course for landings and takeoffs. I will end up flying the pattern about 1000 times before this is all said and done. While heading towards Culpepper airport, we talked a little bit about radio communications. I've read alot about this, and when given the opportunity to do the radio work, I gladly jumped in. He said I sounded like a pro. So, we flew the pattern, and landed uneventfully. I elected to try another go around the pattern. I thought hey, this isn't so bad. Right until we ended up flying towards the runway way to high and way too fast. I pointed this out, said we should abort the landing, and we did just that. From there we flew uneventfully back to Manasass. The flying back was nice. I held the plane straight and level, and generally on altitude. And for once, I wasn't totally exhausted when we landed.

Lesson #2 - Plane vs. Wind

This lesson was a lot of review from the first. The biggest difference was the weather. Winds were 15 knots gusting to 20 or so. The type of wind you have to lean in to in order to walk. I was able to do all of the pre-flight checklist on my own, which was a nice step forward. Learned about positioning the flight controls into the wind so the plane doesn't get flipped on the ground. Due to the wind, my instructor handled the take off. I handled the actual turn out of the traffic pattern and climb to altitude. It was alot of work. The wind kept trying to push us off course, and it was extremely bumpy. Not fun.

Things smoothed out around 5,000 feet, and we practiced basic turns again. We also went over the basics of how and why you trim the airplane. In short, the plane has small flaps on the tail that you can set so you aren't always pulling up or pushing down on the stick. It makes flying much easier. I'm so wrapped up on keeping the plane straight, I tend to forget to use trim. One new thing we tried was basic slow flight. This is where you bring the plane to a slow speed using the pitch of the nose to control the speed, and the power from the engine controls altitude. This needs to be mastered because every single landing uses slow flight.

After an hour or so, we turned around and headed back in. Due to the strong winds, my instructor handled the landing. Totally uneventful.

Medical Passed

The FAA won't allow a pilot to act as Pilot in Command(PIC) w/out a valid third class medical certificate. I was a little concerned that some occasional health blips over the past few years would pose a problem. Thankfully, that was not the case. I'm in the clear for three more years.

Lesson #1

First real lesson. I chose Aviation Adventures(AvAd for short) out in Manassas, Va. for my training. From all of my research, they have the best instructors, and the best planes in the area. I did my intro flight with them this past February in a Diamond DA-20, tail number N228NH. For the time being, that is the plane I will be doing my training in.

One note - I don't plan on using my instructor's name here. I think the reasons are pretty obvious. So, with that out of the way, it's on to the lesson.

Met my new instructor, and got reacquainted with N228NH. I was able to follow along well on the preflight checklist. This is all just an organized way of ensuring the plane is in a safe and working condition to fly. Hope in, start her up.The first really new thing for me was taxiing the airplane. The Diamond doesn't have the rudder pedals wired to the nose wheel, so steering is done with the brakes. It felt every bit as awkward as first learning to drive.

After takeoff, we discussed the difference between what the manual says should be Vy(speed for best rate of climb) vs the reality of what you can actually see. At full power, to maintain the 86 knts/hr you need to pull the nose of the plane up so far that you can't see over the edge. Instead, we kept the nose just over the horizon line, which seemed to do the trick.

Most of today's lessons were just getting familiar with the aircraft. Regular turns(up to 30 degree bank) and steep turns(45 degrees), a detailed discussion and visual of what the trim and the rudder do. At one point, we banked the plane at 45 degrees, set the trim up, and let go of the stick. The plane turned through the turn w/out any input from us. We also took a diversion to Culpepper airport. Here I got a brief introduction into the traffic pattern. Like most things during the lesson, this was a reinforcement of a concept I've read about a great deal. We were too high on final, so we did a shallow descending 360 degree turn. My CFI(certified flight instructor) handled the rudders on landing, I handled the flair. Pretty uneventful.

By the end of the lesson, I was really tired, and getting a little nauseaus. The last 15 minutes are sort of a blur. I had really lost the focus from early on in the lesson.

All in all, a good start. I've already received several tips on the nausea. Apparently both that and the fatigue are pretty common early on in training.