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.