Thursday, July 09, 2009

S S S S S Stuff

2009/07/09

Third lesson in three days - I'm loving it. Today's weather was sunny with a large number of Cumulus clouds and a high ceiling - the glider pilots were loving it as well.

The aircraft was back a little late, so RK and I briefed Emergency Procedures. I'm doing the emergency procedures OK, my approach to the procedures is logical and reasonable, but not exactly what the manufacturer has prescribed. Time for some more study.

Preflight was very thorough, since we were going to be doing utility-grade work today. Taxi, checklists, and a normal take-off all went well. We flew up to the practice area, staked out an area between Meech Lake and the Gatineau River, and started the upper-air work. Most of these activities I had not performed since the fall of 2006, so while I knew what I needed to do, I was apprehensive.

Stalls:
  • Several power-off stalls (the C172 is very gentle in a stall). I recovered at the first sign of a stall, rather than seeing if we could get a good clean break&drop.
  • Power-on stalls. The aircraft breaks a little harsher, but recovery is routine.
  • Climbing turning full-power stalls - I've not seen one before. These are really interesting - one second you're climbing to the left in a very nose-up attitude, and the next second you've tumbled down to the right. This was demonstrated only, I didn't recover one myself (time constraint). Must do that someday.

Spins
  • My last spin was in October 2006, so I had RK demonstrate spin entry and recovery. We lost 1,000 of altitude in the spin.
  • I tried twice to put the C172 into a spin, but was too cautious in kicking it in, or we were not quite stalled enough when I tried the entry, and achieved two spiral dives - which I recovered easily.

Spiral Dives
  • RK put the aircraft into a few spiral dives, which I recovered correctly and readily (in addition to the failed spin attempts).
  • As a quick demonstration, RK put the airplane into a steep spiral dive and recovered. It felt like we were going to launch a torpedo attack on an aircraft carrier. Impressive. And what I am likely to see on my flight test.

And I put in a few forward slips on the way home, to lose the required altitude when leaving the practice area. Still not slick.

RK quizzed emergency procedures as I made radio calls, scanned for traffic, switched from the practice area to the aerodrome frequency. Nothing like keeping your mind busy.

Circuit good, final approach good, and the touchdown was the best yet.

Overall, I was very pleased with today's lesson. We reviewed a lot of items, I handled all of them (except entering a spin) well. Good enough to move along. I'd like to go back and review all items again, sometime in the near future, just for the practice. I was apprehensive and now feel comfortable, however, I would appreciate some additional practice.

Dual: 1.1
Landings: 1

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