Finally flying new Skyhawks!

Hi all,

This is probably a rather mundne thing for most of you, but it's something
I've been wanting to do since I got my ticket a few years ago. All of the
aircraft I've flown to this point have been early-model Cessna 152s, 172s
and a few Piper Warriors (only because the FBO's I flew out of either didn't
have any new aircraft or they were rediculously expensive). I've been dying
to get myself into the left seat of a 172SP and I've finally done it!

I recently moved from Sacramento, California to Surprise, Arizona where I
bought a new house. Glendale Muni is a short 5 mile drive from my house and
the folks at Glendale Aviation have proven to be wonderful so far. They're
an authorized Cessna dealer so, needless to say, they have a nice selection
of FBO-owned aircraft available for rental and a few leasebacks as well.
I've been saving money for my new house so flying had been put on hold for
the last nine months, but last Friday I decided to go get checked out in the
new SP.

What a thrill! The plane felt more stable, controls felt "tighter", that
extra 20 horsepower adds a nice kick on takeoff and I was impressed with the
avionics stack (GPS, MFD, dual-axis auto-pilot, etc). Not having flown in
nine months I was a little rusty but nailed all of my landings (although my
approaches were high). Phoenix airspace is also quite complex...our Class D
butts up against the Alert area for Luke AFB (the world's largest F-16
training base from what I was told), Phoenix Sky Harbor Class B is right
above us and there's a plethora of other airspace to be aware of. Should be
good experience. Overall it felt good to get back in the air again,
especially flying one of these newer aircraft.

The only "negative" thing I noticed was that I felt like my visibility
underneath the left wing was obstructed more than it was in the older 172s.
Maybe my seat just needed vertical adjustment but I felt comfortable with my
position in relation to the instrument panel and forward visibility was
good. When I looked out the left window on downwind though, I found that
sometimes I had to lower my head just to be able to see the runway off the
wing. I'm sure there's no fundamental design change responsible for that,
but it was still something I noticed nonetheless.

Anyways, I had fun. We did some power on/off stalls, steep turns, emergency
landings, etc. Other than my high approaches and and a little too much
forward pressure on the yolk during stall recovery, I did pretty good for
not having flown in nine months. Looking forward to flying in Arizona and
handling all of the challenges the environment here will throw my way! A
Sedona trip isn't very far off I think!

Blue Skies!

Scott Schluer
PP-ASEL