Sunday, October 08, 2006

Lesson 4 - Slow flight

Today was all about slow flying... so much for screaming about the sky, white scarf flapping in the breeze behind me.

In the pre-flight we covered the theory of flying for range, flying for endurance, entry into and exit from slow flight, and took to the skies.

Pre-flighting was all mine. This instructor is good (or maybe they all do it). Before there was coaching, and this time he didn't say a word. I, on the otherhand, chatted my way through, telling him what I am looking at and what I am seeing. The silence is reassuring, and marks progress.

We have new checklists. Still compliant with the manufacturers' lists, but now slightly re-ordered to be more logical, and also with a few new entries. Early in the list there is a section where we ensure all of the non-flight controls move freely (cabin heat, etc) and I comment that there is no check to make sure the alternate air source is free. I check it anyway.

Startup, and taxi to the run-up area. When I look back at the earlier posts and read about taxiing like a drunken sailor I'm smiling, as my taxiing is much much better. Seat-time does that to you.

Today's take-off was smooth (see last post), I maintained rate of climb quite well, but I didn't counter-act the yaw from the climbing take-off power and so we ended up about 20 degrees left of the runway.

We covered entry into slow flight, turning, recovery from slow flight, flying clean, with take-off flaps and with landing flaps. We used the empirical method determining of determining best endurance speed (the Eclipse's manuals don't illustrate anything below 2400RPM, and under yesterday's conditions the best endurancespeed in this aircraft was about 1650RPM).

Turns without losing/gaining altitude are getting better. My trimming of the elevator was a bit ham-handed, and that was the biggest factor in my barely adequate altitude control.

Radio calls were OK, though clumsy from time to time.

But the weather was wonderful, the sunlight bright, the air quite clear (the brown smudge of smog in the distance was evident, but that barely affected looking down at the trees in their fall splendor).

We had some extra time and a partial fuel load, so the instructor demonstrated stall recovery and spin recovery. I really need to make a video of a spin recovery.

The circuit and setup for the landing went well. I flared a bit high and then didn't fight to keep the aircraft flying, so we landed well but it was a bit of a drop. I'll probably have 5-6-7 landings under my belt before we start circuits.

The bonus was following the lesson. After each lesson there is a de-briefing, which covers the core of today's exercises and takes 5-10 minutes. The next student was solo, and after he was dispatched, I had lots of time to discuss every phase of the flight with the instructor.

The weather is wonderful today, so I'm going to do a few hours of paperwork and yardwork, and then I have another lesson this afternoon.

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