Learning to Fly: February 2006 Archives

The fist page of my log book from flying lessons is completed.

• Airplanes: 2
  
• Airports: 3 (SAC, F72 2Q3)
  
• Landings: 22
  
• Hours:11.6 (1.2 hours simulated instrument)
  
• Days up in the air: 7
  
• Cardiac arrests for instructor: 1
  
• Cardiac arrests for student: not telling.
  

Topics so far:

• preflight
  
• engine start and runup
  
• take offs and climbing
  
• turn coordination
  
• gliding
  
• descent without flaps
  
• go arounds
  
• slow flight
  
• normal landing
  
• power on stalls (simulating takeoff stall)
  
• power off stalls (siulating near landing stall)
  
• traffic pattern communications
  
• ground reference maneuvers
  
  
  
  • turning along a rectangular box
    
  • turning around a single point
    
  • "S" turns
    
  
  
• simulated instrument-only conditions
  
  
  
  • straight-and-level
    
  • constant airspeed climb
    
  • descent
    
  • standard rate turns
    
  • turns to headings
    
  
  
• slow flight (45 knots)
  

As part of getting a private pilot's license, the FAA requires instruction in flying by instrument alone. Instrument ratings are a seperate deal all together, and let you fly routine flights in the fog or cloud - a region forbidden to the VFR only pilot. However, things happen. People make mistakes; weather changes, whatever. So, in the end, FAA requires at least basic training - enough to do a 180 safely to get out of the clouds you ran into, or to get help over the radio, and follow instructions.

First off, flying without outside reference is hard. Balance is hard without vision. I've experienced this outside of the plane environment, and after this weekend, while at the controls. Try walking in unfamiliar territory with your eyes shut - and notice how you tend to wobble a bit more. Or, keep track of what direction you're going while you're in the passenger seat of a car, keeping your eyes shut.

So, for the purposes of the exercise, we put on what they call a hood. Think blinders for horses, only these blinders block my view of the outside world, and still allow me to see all my instruments. The point is to learn to trust the instruments, and override the body's sensations of what it thinks is happening.

My instructor put us into a steady turn while I had the blinders on. After a couple minutes of that, you really get used to the sensation, the pull of gravity, the centrigal force, etc. Especially, since you're fairly balanced amongst all those forces when in a coordinated turn. "You have the controls, level us out." Now, when you go and fix that turn, it feels like you're going from straight to a turn - not from a turn to straight. This is VERY disorienting. I can see very much why periodically someone gets into the clouds, freaks, and plows into the terrain.

We spent over an hour doing this sort of thing. Turn this way, turn that way. Turn 180, stay at altitude, and keep it "standard rate". Do a 360. Go up. Go down. Basically, his job was to watch traffic, keep me from killing us, and tell me what to do - much like an air traffic controller might, if I called in saying I got lost in the clouds. All this went pretty well after the first minute or two of disorientation.

I can say I was looking forward to this lesson. It was indeed fun. I could however see wanting to do more of it for practice. I'm not sure if I *want* an instrument rating. Scratch that - I want it, I'm just not sure I want to depend on the skills from it. Flying blind is not fun!

No, actually, this is a good thing.

Slips are where you intentionally decrease lift on the plane, without nosing down (which would cause you to accelerate). To do this, you use the rudder to change the angle your plane is facing, then bank the opposite direction, to maintain your original heading. You'll maintain your airspeed - but with a lot less lift. As such, you'll sink.

What are slips used for?

• Allows you to descend at a steeper angle without using flaps, and without increasing airspeed.
• Some planes don't have flaps. Citabrias, for example. If you fly a citabria, you always slip to descend steeper.
• Maybe your airplane has flaps - but your electrical system parachuted out at 3000 feet, and left you to operate the plane by yourself. No power? No flaps!

Now, as to why you'd *want* to slip, instead of use flaps? It does provide an alternative to full flaps, and you can "undo" them once you descend to the level you want. You don't want to unextend flaps when you are close to the ground. Other than that, best I can tell, it is mostly a matter of practicing in case of an emergency.