Well, just got back from my 2nd flying lesson.
It was a perfectly clear day. Not a cloud to be seen. A little blustery on
the ground, but nothing major.
Today, I did my first take-off. I wasn't expecting it to be such an intense
experience. It was much twitchier than I was expecting. Not really sure what
I was expecting to be honest.
Anyway, barrelled down the runway, and at 50kts gently pulled the stick
back. Up we went. Pretty much nailed the climb rate which I was pleased
about. I had been worried about pulling back too hard, or not enough.
The air was fairly rough for the first 500ft, but then settled down, with
the exception of a few hefty reminders that the wind was still about, thrown
in for good measure.
It had been just over 2 weeks since my first lesson, due to bad weather the
previous weekend.After about 10 minutes or so, my instructor was satisfied I
was once again comfortable with the handling of the a/c, and we moved onto
todays lesson. Climbing and descending.
We did about 3 step climbs, and she was satisfied I was understanding the
concept well. After the 3rd one, I was feeling confident with it. Same with
descents. I actually enjoyed the descents for some reason. It's hard to
explain why I felt that way. I think I maybe felt like it was ME flying,
rather than the plane flying. You know what I mean? I know I AM flying the
plane, but it's hard to describe. Maybe it was because the power was down,
and I could hear more, I don't know.
Next was climbing turns and descending turns. Didn't really have any trouble
with these, again, I enjoyed the descending turns a great deal! :-)
Lastly, we covered medium turns and steep turns. Medium turns were fine, as
most of my turns so far have been a bit closer to medium turns than shallow
turns anyway! ;-)
Steep turns were a little more difficult. On the first one, I lost some
altitude, but on the second attampt I was within the 40-50ft tollerance she
allowed me. Was getting a little more blustery by this stage too, so half
way through a turn, mother nature would say hello and push my nice 30 degree
turn into a 45 degree turn for a brief second.
So, now I have a total of 1.9 hours, with the next lesson booked for next
weekend. Next lesson is Stalls, providing the weather affords us a high
cloud ceiling. If not, it's landings apparently! My instructor says she
thinks I'm progressing sufficiently well enough to proceed to the next steps
so I must be doing ok. :-)
One thing I did notice, and I commented on it with my instructor, is that I
don't feel that I am using the rudders enough because I can't physically
feel any movement with my feet. She told me that I am moving them, and that
it only requires very small movements, and the a/c is responding to my
miniscule inputs just nicely. Maybe my shoe soles are just too thick? :-)
Crash Lander