Need some advice for new pilot in training

Right now, it's good that stalls scare you. That's why they're introduced
now, early in training, so you won't make the classic mistake of getting too
slow on final approach and stalling near the ground.

Pay very close attention to the sensations you feel just before the airplane
stalls: controls go "soft," you need a lot of rudder to keep the wings
level, the deck angle is odd; and when it comes time to solo, be ready to
take recovery action BEFORE the stall happens.

Don't worry about X-wind landings right now. I take it your airport has
only one runway. When you solo, your instructor will pick a calm day, or
one with a light breeze right down the runway. You won't be asked to do
X-winds seriously until your skills are much better than they are now.
Right now, just concentrate on coordinated turns, straight and level, and
stable consistent descents. When your instructor sees that you can do these
things without sweating, he/she will move on to the kind of fancy footwork
it takes to make smooth crosswind landings.

Seth
N8110R

"John Doe" wrote in message
news:ag10f.57708$8q.9073@lakeread01...

"Bubba" wrote in message
...
Hello everyone,

I'm sure you probably read at least 50 "newbie" messages a week and I
apologize in advance for this one. But as the subject reads, I'm a new
pilot in training. I've only been flying for about a month now, but I
only fly once a week, so really, I've only been up four times now. I
feel comfortable with my instructor and confident in his knowledge and
experience, but I have to admit, learning to fly is much more difficult
than it sounds/looks.

So far, I feel confident in my ability to pre-flight the aircraft, taxi
on the taxi-ways, and take offs. I feel pretty good about those three
things. In other words, I can get myself in the air and establish a
steady altitude and fly (which I really enjoy). However, my instructor
is now showing me "stalls." These scare the living hell out of me!!
We've done power-off stalls for two sessions now and I know what they
feel like and can recover from them ok, but I really, really don't like
these.

Also, last session, my instructor introduced me to landings. Now, my
log book only has about four hours of flight time in it, so you can only
imagine how this went. I'm really surprised the Skyhawks landing gear
held up to my abuse. Plus, for my first attempt, I was trying to land
with an unbelievable cross-wind. The wind was blowing from right to
left and from what I can tell, my instructor had the right rudder pedal
pressed all the way down. Again, this was scary as hell. I'm still
amazed we didn't crash.

So I guess my question would be this: Can any of you guys offer some
advice on how to get through stall training and landings because right
now my confidence is shot.

Thanks in advance,
Terry

Just think back and realize how cool it was that you were up there flying
while the rest of this planet was stuck on the ground. Then realize that
it takes everyone several hours before they get the hang of it and stick
with it. Don't give up. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and
if everyone was doing it, we'd have alot of stupid pilots up there flying
planes scaring the crap out of the rest of us.

Relax and enjoy it, you'll get it with time. You don't even have enough
hours yet to wipe your ass, don't worry about your landings.....

"Seth Masia" wrote in message
...
Right now, it's good that stalls scare you. That's why they're introduced
now

I hope you're not instructing.

Stalls aren't supposed to scare you. They are supposed to teach you about
slow flight and about recovering from stalls.

If an instructor ever scares you on purpose, that should be the last flight
you ever have with that instructor.

Pete

In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

"Seth Masia" wrote in message
...
Right now, it's good that stalls scare you. That's why they're introduced
now

I hope you're not instructing.

Stalls aren't supposed to scare you. They are supposed to teach you about
slow flight and about recovering from stalls.

If an instructor ever scares you on purpose, that should be the last flight
you ever have with that instructor.

Pete



Wow!!! Thanks to everyone who responded. I found the
rec.aviation.student group and will start posting more questions there.
I will see if my instructor will let me try holding on to the center of
the yoke for a stall recovery, that sounds ideal. I know the first time
I tried recovering from a stall, I pushed the yoke as far forward as it
would go and all I saw was ground. Scary, yes, but my instructor said
not to push that far, instead just nice and gentle push on the yoke only
enough to recover from the stall and gain some airspeed. I think this
weekend, I will feel more comfortable.

At four hours of flight time, I kinda felt it was a little early to
learn landings as well, but I have assumed my flight instructor knows
what he is doing. Maybe I should speak up and tell him when I feel
comfortable moving on to a new technique.

Anyway, thank you so much to everyone for your responses. I will
definitely keep reading this group and the rec.aviation.student as well.

Terry

Bubba wrote:

At four hours of flight time, I kinda felt it was a little early to
learn landings as well, but I have assumed my flight instructor knows
what he is doing.

It's never too early to learn how to land. I have a friend who soloed
with less than four hours in his log book. His first couple of lessons
never left the pattern. They were all take-offs, landings, and touch &
go's. Of course that was back in the 60's and they had a difference
emphasis back them.

In my case, we started working on landings the very first lesson. My
third lesson was focused completely on skills needed for landing
(stalls, simulated pattern over a corn field, and actual landings
including a go-around). By five hours I was doing touch & go's.

Since landing is a mandatory part of every flight, I feel that teaching
it early and often is the right approach. The sooner you start working
on it, the easier it will be. The first few hours of flight training
are very important to establishing habits and skills that will be with
you for the rest of your flying "career". An important skill like
landing deserves to be included in that time.


-m
--
## Mark T. Dame
## VP, Product Development
## MFM Software, Inc. (http://www.mfm.com/)
"In accord with UNIX philosophy, Perl gives you enough rope to
hang yourself."
-- Programming perl, Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz

On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 14:02:07 -0400, "Mark T. Dame"
wrote:

In my case, we started working on landings the very first lesson. My
third lesson was focused completely on skills needed for landing
(stalls, simulated pattern over a corn field, and actual landings
including a go-around). By five hours I was doing touch & go's.

This is a very high standard for a newbie. I think it would be better
to tell him/her about the guy who spent a thousand dollars learning
how to taxi the airplane, 50 hours to solo, 100 hours to check flight.
Then, when he/she beats the benchmark, he/she will feel very chuffed.


-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net
In Search of Lost Time: www.readingproust.com

Cub Driver wrote:
On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 14:02:07 -0400, "Mark T. Dame"
wrote:


In my case, we started working on landings the very first lesson. My
third lesson was focused completely on skills needed for landing
(stalls, simulated pattern over a corn field, and actual landings
including a go-around). By five hours I was doing touch & go's.

This is a very high standard for a newbie. I think it would be better
to tell him/her about the guy who spent a thousand dollars learning
how to taxi the airplane, 50 hours to solo, 100 hours to check flight.
Then, when he/she beats the benchmark, he/she will feel very chuffed.

(-:

My point has nothing to do with skill (or lack thereof), just that four
hours isn't too early to start learning how to land. And I had a very
conservative instructor. He didn't start teaching me how to land on my
first lesson because I was some kind of natural. Far from it. He
started teaching how to land on the first lesson because landing is the
most important part of the flight.


-m
--
## Mark T. Dame
## VP, Product Development
## MFM Software, Inc. (http://www.mfm.com/)
"I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead."

"Bubba" wrote in message
...
[...]
At four hours of flight time, I kinda felt it was a little early to
learn landings as well, but I have assumed my flight instructor knows
what he is doing. Maybe I should speak up and tell him when I feel
comfortable moving on to a new technique.

Just to clarify, I agree with Mark. My point was that four hours is too
early to be *worried* about whether you'll have trouble with landings. I
never suggested it was too early to introduce landings (though I did suggest
difficult crosswind landings might be inappropriate that early).

I will, however, agree with your thought of communicating with your
instructor about your comfort level with various aspects of training. You
should be able to trust your instructor, and I'll recommend you give him the
benefit of the doubt with respect to decisions about when to introduce new
topics. But at the same time, it's important for you to provide him with
feedback about how the learning process is going for you, and your feelings
about specific types of flight.

One of the great advantages of one-on-one training (as opposed to classroom)
is the ability for the instructor to tailor the instruction to the student,
and for the student to provide the feedback necessary for the instructor to
be able to do that. Don't make the all-too-common mistake of failing to
make full use of this advantage.

Pete