More Right Rudder!

Aircraft: C172 4653G

Weather: 90 degrees, wind 070@5, beautiful as usual

More right rudder... Words every student probably hears a whole lot of. I'm pretty sure I have it the worst! That isn't even the worst of it. I don't use enough ,or any, rudder in any of my turns. What is going on? For some reason I am afraid to push on any of the controls too hard. The word for next lesson is AGGRESSIVE. Be more aggressive with the controls.

So today was great! Dan emailed me a couple days ago and said that there would be no wind today, so instead of doing our lesson on ground reference maneuvers, we would do some pattern work, and learn how to land. AWESOME. I love to land! It is so much fun taking off and landing, taking off and landing! Total I landed 7 times, with help from Dan. Mostly he kept pushing the nose down and telling me to aim at the numbers. (for the non-fliers, each runway is marked with numbers. For example, the runway we were landing and departing from was 4L. That means it's heading, magnetic I believe, is 040, which is NE.) Basically when you are landing you are supposed to be on a 3 degree glideslope, and you want to touch down within the first third of the runway. On final you keep the airspeed at about 55-65 knots with the flaps down, and at about 20 feet off the runway pull the power to idle. At 10 feet off the runway start the flare (holding back on the controls to keep the nose up) and at 3 feet try and prevent the airplane from landing by pulling back to the stops. You have to do this all while maintaining heading w/ the rudder. A lot of the problems that I had were rudder related. I would come down, and flare correctly but then I would just stop flying the airplane and let it drift off center, or it would just SMACK into the runway, which is not good. Dan kept saying I was doing a good job, but I don't see it. These were my first few landing so I'm not too worried about sucking at it only a few hours in, but Dan is talking about soloing me. I'm pretty certain I could do it, but I definitely need more practice.

Here is the full procedure from takeoff to landing, just in case you are interested, and also for me to write down and make sure I know it.

Takeoff is easy, just keep the aircraft centered down the runway and apply full power. Watch the gauges to make sure oil pressure/temp is ok and keep right rudder in because of the strong left turning tendencies of the plane. At 55 knots lift the nose off the ground and climb out. When the wheels leave the ground the left turning tendency increases so you have to increase right rudder. About 500 feet AGL (above ground level) start the crosswind turn. Left aileron, left rudder. By this time you are probably at pattern altitude so reduce power slightly and start turning downwind. Again left aileron, left rudder. On downwind slow the aircraft by pulling power to 2100 RPM, carb heat on, 1 notch of flaps. (all at the same time) At this point you have a few seconds to complete the before landing checklist. I did it 7 times so lets see if I can remember it off the top of my head.... Seat upright, seat belts on, Altimeter check, Heading indicator check, Mixture rich, fuel selector on both, make sure carb heat is on.... Yep I got it. Sweet. So you are cruising along on downwind, listening to ATC for landing clearance, or whatever else they want to tell you (today was crazy, but that is another story), looking for traffic, and waiting to come up abeem the numbers. This means you are directly across the edge of the runway you will be landing on. At this point, start a 500fpm descent, power to 1700 RPM, and another notch of flaps. Once at a 45 degree angle to the landing runway, start the turn to base, and keep the descent at 500 fpm. When you come up on the runway start the turn to final and throw in a nother notch of flaps. On final set up the airspeed to be 55-65 knots and aim at the numbers. That's pretty much it. I went over the actual landing in the previous paragraph so I won't go over that again. Oh, and for a touch and go, which is what we were doing... after landing and you are stabilized going down the runway, flaps up, carb heat off, full power... do it all again. FUN FUN!

I mentioned the controller up a little bit. I don't want to pass too much judgement because I am new to this game too, but the controller we were dealing with in the air had to be a newb. He was getting all stressed out, called my base turn way to early, cancelled our landing clearance a couple times... Craziness. I mean I guess that's what I'm going to be dealing with in the "real world" but I was just trying to land and this dude was throwing all kinds of stuff at me. Like I said, it is probably good because I learned a lot, but Dan was getting annoyed. He said if the controller gives an instruction that you cannot follow, you are the PIC. You are the one responsible for the safety of the flight. So if they tell you to do a touch and go, and you can't make it happen, too bad!

Anyway, it was a great flight. Next time we go up I think we are going to be working on rudder control in the practice area. Dan said to bring a puke bag because he has some fun exercises to teach me control, but I should be ok. Looks like I need to get going on my medical. I need to have a 3rd class medical in order to solo, and Dan is harping on that, so I guess I should go out and get it. I think that is going to cost another 90 bucks, so I have to figure out how to work that in. I'll figure it out. I can't wait to get up again. That's the thing I hate about learning to fly... you have to come back down. 1 hour just isn't long enough.

Oh, I almost forgot to remind you.. click on my adds! I could really use the clicks. They were going good for a while, and it seems that.. unless I ask, people don't click. Honestly I wouldn't either unless someone asked because I hate adds. But to help an aspiring pilot.. I would click away!!!!!

Today's flight: 1.1 hrs

Total time: 12.1 hrs

I get one thing, and let another go.

Aircraft: C172 - 4653G

Weather: Cool, rainy, 7500 ceiling, minimal wind.

Today we had a great flight! The weather is not typical to this area, low clouds, humid, cool, and a little rain. Perfect for flying though, it was so nice and cool!

Again I got to the airport early, but Mike was close behind to open up the school and get some fuel in the airplane. After we had the fuel I started the pre-flight. Everything was in check, so Dan and I went in to the training room and went over the maneuvers we would be practicing today. Basically it would be a review of the last flight, w/ stalls, but this time adding one more. Steep turns. Steep turns are a lot of fun. Basically when you fly normally you use 30 degrees of bank, to keep the passengers comfy and because you don't really need anything more than that. With a steep turn you use 45 degrees. The procedure goes like this-

Clearing turns, flow check, start coordinated turn (aileron and rudder - my weak point of course) in either direction, after 30 degrees of bank add 200 rpm and trim the back pressure off. Now continue the turn for 360 degrees and roll out on the heading you had assigned all while maintaining altitude and 95 knots. Seems easy right? NOT. First I attempted one to the left, and that went rather well. When I tried to the right, that is a different story. It's a completely different picture outside the airplane and for some reason I just couldn't get it. We tried a few more times and had to move on. I'll probably be doing a lot more of those in the future!

This week was pretty busy for me so I had zero time to study. Better yet, I didn't make time to study, and it showed. Dan asked me to do a power off stall and I couldn't remember the procedure. I need to be doing more chair flying at home so I can get the flow down. It really isn't difficult to do, but if you don't remember the steps... it just won't get done correctly. So, I've learned my lesson there. Chair fly at home for free, and don't spend hard earned money while the engine is running to learn something all over again in the air!

Now for the title of this post. As you have read in the past, the one major hurdle I was trying to get over was talking on the radio. Well, I think I'm past that. Today I think I sounded like a pro. I think my only slip up was when I called ground and forgot to add the ATIS in my transmission. Other than that, I read back everything well, and remembered what I read back. I did minimal instructor assisted takeoffs, and did rather well in the pattern and on landing. Granted I had more assistance on landing, but according to Dans syllabus, I should be landing fully unassisted in a couple lessons. In fact, after my next lesson, all we do is solo prep. Which will probably landing after landing after landing, which.... I'm okay with! :)

As for the things that I let go... Basics. For some reason this lesson I couldn't maintain my heading, mostly because I was too busy chasing my altimeter. I don't know if this is because I'm trying to be a perfectionist or what. I do know one thing, and that is that I need to keep my head outside the airplane. Again I kept trying to chase down my altimeter so I was focusing on it instead of looking outside. Next time I will just keep my head outside and see what happens.

Next week we are working on ground reference maneuvers. Dan said these are fun because we are close to the ground and we look outside and fly around stuff. That is the very basic description, but basically the idea is to fly around a point, and make sure that I stay the same distance away from it. This sounds a lot easier than it is because the airplane is effected by the air mass that it is in. If the wind is blowing at all, you need to turn (crab) the airplane into the wind so you don't stray from your course.

So today was fun, but it became a little more stressful than I would have liked. I got 2 landing under my belt, and another 1.3 hours in my book. I have to look but I think that puts me at 11 hours even. 1.3 in the plane is getting up there in price for me.. 125$ but.... that is still less than one hour at Angel air! And of course... if you are still reading.. click the adds. I think I'm almost to 30$ right now and google won't pay me until it reaches 100$. I will pay you back with more detailed write ups of my adventures in the sky. I enjoy writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it. And please, if you are reading this and have had some similar experiences or whatever, please leave a comment! Thanks everyone!

~Joe

This flight: 1.3 hrs

Total time: 11 hrs

$250 Fajita

So Tuesday was my first flight to an actual destination. A good friend of mine, Steve, his wife, Noel my wife Brittany, and I, all flew to Sedona for the day. The night before I was freaking out about the weather because we all really wanted to go, and some weather was rolling in. Luckily it all went well. We flew out of Deer Valley Airport in North Phoenix. Steve is working on his Commercial rating there with Westwind. A few more flights and a checkride and he will have it. I wish he had his CFI because then I could have made this flight and logged the time, but oh well.

So we show up at the airport and rent some headsets for the girls, and head out to the awaiting Arrow. The plane is beautiful and we can only put 20 gallons of fuel in because of the four of us in the plane. That was more than enough to get us there and back with time to spare. As soon as I stepped onto the ramp I was soaked. I sweat like a pig and the 95+ degrees just totally jacked me up. Steve preflighted the plane explaining everything that he was doing to my wife because she was scared. She doesn't like to fly in big planes, let alone tiny planes like this. Once the preflight was done we all got situated in the plane and started her up. Finally the giant fan was on and I could cool down a little bit. Brittany kind of freaked out when I told her we wouldn't shut the door until takeoff, but she quickly understood why. The taxi was great, but it was so busy there. Steve said that Deer Valley is the busiest general aviation airport in the country, and I believe it. There are 3 pilot factories on the airport and we quickly had 6 planes lined up behind us waiting for departure. After the run-up we waited about 15 min to takeoff because of all the traffic. Finally it was our turn. We lined up on the runway and away we went. It took a while to get off the ground due to the fact we had a lot of weight on board. We were well within limits but it still took a few extra feet of runway. Brittany was already starting to look sick so Steve kept everything as smooth as he could. Once we climbed up it got a little cooler and more comftorable. The view was amazing. As we got closer to Sedona you could see the terrain changing to the red rocks. It was amazing! When we got close and descended to pattern altitude we could see the runway. We entered the left downwind pattern on the 45 for runway 21. It was really funny because every time Steve called to make a position report, he would say "Sedona Tower, Arrow... turning base". I made fun of him pretty bad, but it's just because he is used to flying out of a towered airport. The runway is on the edge of a cliff. If you took a step off the end of the runway you would go tumbling. It was a little intimidating for me, but Steve is a pro and put us down very gently. We taxi'd to the parking spot and were out of the plane in time to see a Waco take off. I really want to fly in one of those. I don't have the money to do it right now through a commercial place, but if anybody is reading this and owns one... Hook me up!

Once the plane was secured we went in and rented a car. We drove around Sedona and grabbed a bite to eat at a Mexican restaurant. I had fajitas, hence the title of this entry. I also had a great Margarita! Total we probably spent a couple hours on the ground in Sedona. It was fun, but I was along more for the ride than the actual destination, even though it was nice to have a destination. By this time some weather was rolling in and we had a couple rain drops. I think Steve got a little nervous about beating the weather so we headed back to the airport and got situated. This time Brit was happy to be flying and enjoyed it a lot more than the trip to Sedona. It could be due to the fact that the temperature felt like it dropped about 20 degrees.

We taxi'd to runway 21 which had a direct crosswind, but again, Steve handled it like a pro and got us up quick. On the way back we climbed pretty quick, but even at 8,000 MSL we were only about 4,000 off the ground. Was a great view. Back down at Deer Valley, we got parked and shut down, and went inside to pay. The trip was exactly 2.0, and that is pretty bad because we spent a lot of time on the ground and had to pay for it.

After that trip, I think I’ve found a place I would like to visit again. Even if I just fly there and fly back, the view is worth it. Maybe I’ll go there for a solo cross country when I get there in my training! Nothing like a 250$ fajita!

Sedona

I have a couple of things to write about but don't quite have the time to get them down in detail. I'm flying up to Sedona with my friend Steve, his wife and my wife tomorrow, so I will be back to give details about that! I also went flying with another friend Joel, that I met on AOPA forums. Tomorrow will be a busy blogging day so be sure to tune in for that! I hope the weather rolls out of here in time for the flight tomorrow.

~Joe

Slow Flight, Stalls, Emergency!

Aircraft: C172N

Weather: Perfect, light breeze, nice and cool!

What a beautiful morning to go flying! Showed up at 0630 and Dan was right behind me. We walked over to the terminal to go over what we did last week and to prep for the flight we were about to undertake. We talked about stalls and angle of attack, and how to set up for each of the 3 maneuvers we would do today.

The airplane had little fuel in it, so we had to call the fuel truck to give us some gas. While they topped of the tanks, I pre-flighted the aircraft. Did my walk around to make sure nothing was loose, checked the tanks to make sure they did in fact put fuel, and the correct fuel in the tanks, (they did) and we were good to go. (there is more to the pre-flight, but for the purpose of this writing I won't bore you with the details.)

Once we pulled the plane out of parking I started her up, tuned the radio and picked up the ATIS. (for those of you who are non fliers reading, that is the Automated Terminal Information Service, which is recorded once an hour by the controllers to give information like wind direction and speed, altimeter setting, and general information like which runways are in use.) After writing down the information I needed I pulled up to the tower to make my initial call to ground. I've been practicing all week so it went pretty smooth. "Chandler Ground, Cessna 4653G at base of the tower, taxi for departure to the South, information Yankee." Ground cleared me to 4L via Alpha and Delta. I read back the instructions and started the taxi. I've gotten pretty good at taxiing in my last couple flights so that was a non-issue. Then Dan looks at me and says, "hey Joe I didn't catch that. What runway were we going to?" I froze and said, I have NO IDEA! Great, so I think I'm good, all confident in myself, read the instruction back to ATC, and I still have no idea what I'm doing. Oh well, no big deal, Dan just called again and asked.

Finally we got to the end of the runway and did our run-up. We do this because we need to check the engine and instruments on the ground before we go in the air. Parking break set, full throttle, check the mags, L, R, Both, make sure engine instruments are in the green, Oil Pressure, Oil Temp, Suction good, Ammeter not showing discharge, Throttle Idle, Throttle just over 1000 RPM. I think that's it, that is from memory, so if I missed something oh well, we use a checklist for that anyway. Someone else is doing his run-up so Dan tells me to hurry up so we can get in front of him (which we did! :) ) I took off (Dan was on the controls too, but lets just say I did) kept runway heading and departed w/ a downwind departure. Above 2500, we turned over the aiport to the left and headed to the practice area.

On the way to the practice area we did some IR - Instrument Reference. Dan gave me some foggles (the foggles block all vision outside so all you can see is the instrument panel) and I put them on. This was pretty cool, because it looked just like my flight simulator. I was actually really good with this practice. I could hold pretty much anything he threw at me and we were done with that after just .3. Pretty fun stuff.

Slow flight was the next maneuver we did once in the practice area. The point of flying slow, is to learn how the aircraft handles when you are in the landing configuration (slow flying w/ full flaps) coming down to land. The maneuver goes like this - Power 1800 RPM, maintain heading, and altitude. When you are in slow flight, pitch controls airspeed and throttle controls altitude. So, back to the maneuver - 1800RPM flaps one notch at 110KIAS. Pitch up to slow down, and put another notch of flaps in when inside the white arc. Keep putting in flaps until they are all in and pitch the nose up to slow the aircraft until the stall horn starts going off. Put in power to maintain altitude and ride the stall horn just before the airplane stalls. The airspeed seemed to hang right around 40 KIAS. I think I did pretty good keeping everything lined up correctly, but then we did some turns. For this maneuver you need a lot of right rudder, and Dan had to keep telling me to push it in. Turns were pretty hard for me to do and I'm not sure why. The controls in slow flight are very sloppy, so it seemed like when I turned it was in short bursts of heading change. I don't know if that makes sense to you, but that's the best way I can describe it. Dan said I would be able to get it down after trying it a couple times. Recovery from slow flight is pretty easy, just pitch the nose down lose the flaps one notch at a time, make sure you're above 60KIAS before yout take out the last notch of flaps. After all of that, you should be at the same heading and altitude you were assigned.

Next we have power on/off stalls, otherwise known as approach or departure stall. Obviously the power off would be approach, because that is when you would be in that configuration, and the power on would be the departure because that is when you would be at full power pitching up. These are pretty east to get into. For power off here is the procedure- Power 1800 RPM slow down and get full flaps down one notch at a time. Once flaps are out, start a 500fpm descent. After 200ft descent, throttle idle and pitch to maintain altitude. Once you are at a high enough angle of attack the airplane will stall. Once stall breaks, nose down to horizon, full throttle climb back to your assigned altitude and get flaps out one at a time. For a power on stall- set power to 1800RPM, slow to 60 KIAS, flaps if specified, @60, full power and pitch the nose up 3 degrees per second while maintaining heading. Once the stall breaks, pitch nose just below horizon and let the aircraft accelerate, above 60knots remove flaps and resume normal cruise. I should tell you, that no maneuver should be attempted before making clearing turns and a flow check, which means looking at panel and making sure everything is right. Master is on, which would be pretty obvious if it wasn't, circuits in, carb heat on.

I don't remember which maneuver we had finished but Dan reached over and pulled my power idle. He told me that the engine had just quit and asked what we should do. I immediately said - find a place to land. Wrong answer! The first thing you do when the engine quits is establish the aircraft's best glide speed, which in our aircraft is 65 knots. Once you are on that slow glide, then you can start looking for a safe place to land. Dan pointed out a good road that had no power lines and that was good with me. We set ourselves up to land and got pretty low. Once we were satisfied that we could make the landing safely, our engine miraculously started working again and we recovered. By this time it was time to head back, which is always the least fun :(

We were pretty low because of the emergency we just simulated so we kept that altitude for the flight back which was perfect because we needed to be low to land anyway. It was really cool flying low because you could see the ground in much better detail and the mountains we flew by were really pretty. Now, I love flying, but as a passenger you get much more time to enjoy the view. Next week I'll bring my camera and have Dan snap some pictures for me. He might as well, I mean I'm paying him to just sit there and get an airplane ride. ( just kidding Dan if you are reading this. I'm sure it is difficult to keep me from killing both of us! )

Once we were near Chandler airspace I made the call for landing. "Chandler Tower, 5 miles SE landing with Zulu" Tower asked us to Ident (which means to press a button in the cockpit so our little blip flashes on their radar screen) and we were cleared for a right base approach to 4R. By this time I was starting to realize where we actually were. I really don't know how pilots manage all this crap in their head. We have to be practically over top of the airport before I realize we are there. I mean I'm guessing it will come to me eventually but jeeez. We put the plane down and taxied off the runway on November. How I remember details like that I don't know, especially when I can't remember what runway we were assigned when I even repeated it back. Anyway, we had to taxi off and hold short of 22R for departing aircraft. It seemed like a long time, cuz Dan and I were both getting pretty antsy watching the Hobbs meter tick by just sitting there on the taxiway. I am charged for every minute the engine is running, whether we are flying or not. Finally tower let us cross the runway and head back to the parking, but the Hobbs had already ticked over for another .1 so we just relaxed and went slow, considering I had already paid for it. (as a side note, I just went to find out online why the Hobbs meter is called the Hobbs meter, but there was nothing. If anybody knows, I would be interesting in knowing.)

After securing the airplane we walked into the school and talked about what we did and what we are doing next time. STEEP TURNS! Woot! I've watched a couple videos on them and they look fun. Should be a good time! Dan signed my logbook and we were good to go.

Well I think that's all I've got. Remember, if you are still reading - CLICK THE ADDS and pay for my flying! I've already made about 11 bucks, but google wont send me a check until I reach 100$. So clicky away! Time to go read about steep turns and work on my chair flying. Thanks for reading!

Today's Flight: 1.2 hrs

Total Time: 9.7 hrs

Total Cost: $1172.87

Total cost does not include the 6.5 hours I had from back in 2003. This is just the cost since I started flying this year, which so far is 3 flights and all the books I bought. Oh... and my headset.

Clicky Clicky!

Night Before

Sitting at the computer mentally prepping myself for tomorrows flight. I think I have everything together. I wrote out all the radio transactios that will take place, that way I will know what to say beforehand. I have been watching a video blog online on EAA's website. Here is the link. http://www.eaa.org/apps/blog/learntofly/17/Default.aspx It is so much fun to watch. This guy is trying to earn his sport pilot rating which is a little bit different than the private that I am going for. The private allows for a little more freadom and I think with the sport rating you are restricted by milage you can fly from your home airport, but it still seems really cool! Anyway, I have to get up early and go fly, so watch the videos. They are fun!

101 Degrees

Aircraft: C172N

Weather: Clear 101 Degrees Wind Minimal

Let me tell you, I picked the wrong season to start flying in! Today was 101 degrees in beautiful Arizona. Lets just say, I need to start drinking more water.

I guess this would be a good time to explain the way this flight school works. This small flight

school called Wings 270 (wings270.com) is owned and operated by a guy named Mike. He comes in every morning that someone is going to be flying and unlocks the door so we can get the key to the airplane. If Mike isn't available, the door doesn't get opened. I was a little bit early this morning so no big deal. After parking my truck I walked up to the building and it was locked. My flight wasn't scheduled until 1100 so that was no big deal. Dan (new flight instructor) wanted me to show up at 1030 so we could go over the pre-flight together. I put my bag in the airplane before they showed up and was able to do so, because the security on this high tech 1980 Cessna 172N is so great. The door can be opened with any key. In fact, if your fingernail was long enough you could turn the lock to pop open the door. Mike and Dan both arrived at the same time and I went in to prep for the flight with Dan.

Dan uses the Jeppesen syllabus for training which is fine with me. It has me soloing around flight 8 which is great. Seems a little more high speed than the Cessna kit that I got. Todays flight was

basically a review of the first 3 lessons from his syllabus and getting some of lesson 4 demoed to me. The first 3 lessons are all about the 4 fundamentals of flight, climbs, turns, descents, and straight and level flight. I must have done really good with all of this because we moved through it pretty quickly and moved on the the next task. Dan demoed slow flight and power off/on stalls. Those will be concentrated on next flight which will hopefully be on Friday if all goes well. We used the same practice area as I did last time with my previous flight instructor. I recognized the same small mountain that we were flying over which was cool. This time I got pretty turned around and really had no idea how to get back to the airport. Of course Dan knew and pointed me in the right direction when it was time. I don't think I actually knew where we were going

until we were on base leg of the pattern, which is pretty bad because ATC had us enter the pattern on the base leg. Listening to the radio we had at least 2 other aircraft behind us trying to land, so Dan expedited our trip to the ground. The tower kept calling our position out to the other planes as if to almost rush us onto the ground. He told us to do a short final to the runway, which Dan did. He said that we didn't have to if we didn't want to, because he is the PIC (pilot in command) and we have the final authority when it comes to how we fly the airplane. He said since our time is up anyway, we might as well just put it down and get back. Dan greased the landing and I followed along with my hands and feet on the controls. I can't wait to get into landings!!!! It shouldn't be too long.

Dan handled all the radio work from when we left to when we got on the ground again. After we exited the runway he turned it over to me to make the call to ground. Talk about being scared. Why is that, I don't mind flying all over the place in an aluminum machine barely bigger than my truck, but when it comes to talking on the radio I FREEZE! Dan told me what to say and that is not what came out. I think I managed to squeeze out something like this "Chandler ground Cessna 4653 g g golf, clear of the active, request um...... ..... .... Taxi to..... Wings 270? 53Golf" You could almost hear the controler laughing, but I'm sure he gets it all day because there is a lot

of training at Chandler. I didn't even have to say "student pilot" at the end, because I made it very clear that I was a student pilot. Oh well, after he spit out my instructions, I had a little bit of confidence and read back "Taxi to wings 270 Cessna 4653 Golf". What really kills me is that I KNOW what to say. I've even practiced at home. I made little cards w/ the things I'm going to say at different stages of flight. But when you finally get in the airplane and press that button, it is different. I'm sure I'll be ok next time, but we will see. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Now when I get hot, I sweat. I don't think I am normal! I sweat more than anybody I know. When I got out of that plane I was soaked from head to toe with sweat. I feel bad for Dan because he has to sit next to me in such tight quarters, but he seems to be a sweater too, so that is good. LOL. Like I said, summer in AZ, not the best time to start flight training. At least when I

get done, I will be able to take Brittany up and it wont be 100 degrees outside. She will throw up without the heat, so I think Brittany will stay on the ground until the weather is nice and PERFECT.

That's all for this installment of "Joe Has the Greatest Life Ever Because He is Finally Flying" and be sure to tune in next time when I don't crap my pants when I have to say a couple things

on the radio. Thanks for reading! I've included a couple pictures of the new plane I'm flying. For the cockpit picture, subtract the GPS system because we didn't use it for my flight, and probably won't.

Oh BTW, If you are still reading this, please click on an add or two on the right, I make money for every click, and It would really help my flying fund. If you see something you like, click away my friends. Thanks!

This Flight: .9

Total Time: 8.5 hours

Too Good to Be True

It was too good to be true. I was flying, learning more than I could ever imagine about aviation and not getting charged a whole lot for ground instruction. Sounds great right... Wrong. I consider myself a very integrity conscience person. So when my instructor wanted me to pay him cash instead of paying the flight school for a ground lesson that sent up a red flag. My instructor wanted me to pay him $25 cash instead of paying the flight school $55. Sounds nice right? Wrong again! Turns out, flight instructors only get paid about $15 of the $55 that I pay them. That's why Alex wanted $25 from me. He was making out. Also, he told me that I would need about 75 hours of ground instruction from him. NOT!!!! I talked with my friends on the AOPA forums and they told me that I should only need .1 here and .2 there of ground instruction after each flight. Alex wanted to charge me 75 hours x $25 = $1875 bucks for instruction that I didn't need. What did I do you ask... I canceled my future flights with Alex and went shopping for a new CFI.

I decided to check out Craigslist. I figured everything can be sold on Craigslist. Sure enough I found a guy in my area that is a free lance instructor. No fancy flight school, just him and a plane. I mean that's what it's all about right. Why pay more than you need to for the exact same instruction. My costs are going down dramatically from here on out. I'm going from 135$/hr at the flight school to $89/hr w/ him for the plane. Then instruction is $45/hr. But, I will not be needing 75 hours worth of ground time. I checked his references and tomorrow we have a meeting at Chandler Municiple. I'm pretty excited to meet him. He is a 10,000 hour former airline pilot, and has over 2,000 hours dual instruction given. I think this guy is going to be great. We exchanged email addresses and have been chatting ocasionally. Not sure if I will be flying tomorrow or not but I will report back here for sure. As for now... hitting the books!

Saturday

Saturday, a day to relax. Not for me. I woke up this morning and looked at the bank and crunched some numbers to see if I could fly again. Yay... It is possible!!! Called my instructor to set something up, but he is busy today. Oh well. We set up a ground school session for monday before I go to work. 0830 to 1030. Should be a good time. For now, time to hit the books again. Still lots to learn!

Straight and Level

Aircraft: C172 N199SP

WOOT! That was great!!!! I love flying, and it turns out, I'm not half bad. I made all the common mistakes for a first flight, but that was to be expected.

Took off from Stellar, headed south to the practice area. Alex handled all the radio work, and I concentrated on keeping my eyes outside the airplane and keeping the wings level. Once we passed Memorial Airport, we were in the SW practice area. It's so great because I have a sectional and I can show you exactly where we were the whole time.

The main mission for today was the four fundamentals of flight. (climbs, descents, turns, and straight and level flight) I didn't realize how well the airplane flies by itself. Once you set the trim (which is another thing that I am amazed with, it works so well w/ only slight movement) the airplane remains at that pitch and if you maintain a certain pitch, the airspeed will remain the same as well. We practiced increasing the speed at cruise. Just keep the nose down as you increase throttle and your airspeed will go up. We practiced turns, 45deg 90deg 180deg and my favorite 360deg. By the time we got to the full 360deg turn I was pretty much on point. I chose Memorial Airport as my reference point for the full turns and I nailed every single on of them. Just have to keep the cowling on the horizon and you only have to look at the instruments to verify what you are seeing outside. You can fly the airplane without looking at the instruments.

Alex stressed the importance of collsion avoidance, and I got used to thinking outloud, by verbally saying, "checking traffic left, checking traffic right" before executing a turn. We only saw one other aircraft in the practice area, and it was at our same altitude. I saw it off our right wing, heading away from before I executed a turn.

Coming back from the training area was great too. We had to stay clear of Chandler airspace and Alex showed me where that line was. There is a row of houses that clearly shows where not to go. On our way back I used everything I had learned about turns and descents, and used them to get us back to Stellar. For pattern entry we just needed to be left of the Chandler mall and right of the runway. Start base when we get to Ray rd, and final when abeem the runway. Alex did a great job putting the airplane down on the runway, and for this time, I followed along w/ the movements of the yoke and throttle. I taxied back to the parking spot and we shut down and completed the checklist.

Things to work on:

• Don't be afraid of the airplane, you don't have to be so careful with it. He kept telling me to be more aggresive with the controls and throttle.
• Don't overcorrect on taxi, keep right foot on the yellow line.
• During turns, keep the cowling on the horrizon and the plane will stay at the same altitude.

Next flight:

• Continue working on 4 fundamentals.
• Slow flight
• Steep turns

This flight: 1.1 hrs

Total time: 7.6 hrs