Started flying lessons today
 

Originally I was going to wait till I got back from vacation, I am taking off for two weeks the first of January. But I'm I got tired of waiting and went ahead and started. I was suppose to start Monday, but the weather was bad, so today was my first lesson. I'm training in a Cessna 172.

So today was easy, a couple of takeoffs and landings, turns, and climbs. The instructor was calm and just basically talked me thru everything. I was a little nervous on the landings. Both times I had to increase the throttle as I was coming in to short. It's not natural for me to control the throttle by pushing a rod in, but I'm sure I'll get use to it. I figured today that I would just basically get to cruise around and make some turns.

So I survived, didn't freak out, and I hope we have good weather on Friday for my next lesson.

The throttle will be a non issue after a couple flights. The hardest part I had in initial lessons was attempting to manage the following three things all at once while landing in the nearly always present crosswind:
1- Keeping the airplane pointed straight ahead while 2- flying straight down the center of the runway while 3- flaring.

On a dead calm day or when the wind was straight down the runway, ailerons naturally keep you heading "straight" down the runway then your brain can concentrate on flaring. With any crosswind however, one needs to feed in opposite rudder while rolling in additional aileron to maintain runway heading and to keep the wheels inline with the pavement.

I was quite frustrated at first as I understood what I was supposed to do, but applying/varying just the right amount of crossed controls was not natural for me. IOW, I could juggle any two factors while landing, but the third item (opposite rudder) overtaxed me. Eventually muscle memory started to take place and somewhere before 10 hours the instructor hopped out and soloed me.

The rest of my experience in learning to "fly" an airplane seemed very simple, although I can remember being nervous when being taught how to talk to air traffic controllers.

Good for you! You're gonna love it!

Talk about an (expensive) slippery slope.........but worth every penny, At least for me

Enjoy!

Karl
88 Targa

Congratulations! I second everything Tim said, I think the throttle mindset vanished after the third or so flight, probably when practicing turns around a point.

have you heard, " more right rudder" yet? You will:)

I remember dang How do you do this .......

turn on downwind
check traffic
make radio call
carb heat
mixture rich
reduce power
trim
first notch of flaps
at 45 degree of runway turn base
make radio call
run tho GUMP again without the "u or p" even
flaps
power
turn final
make radio call
last flaps
maintain centerline
slip or crab
watch for deer..........

and that was in a Tomahawk
5-10 hours in and its almost muscle memory.

That's cool Mark. You flying out of Smart?

You landed too fast......
 

I think that I made nearly every mistake in the book years back when I first learned to fly. I did not crash however. My mother told me back in the 1930's my father crashed three times in the Royal Air Force. Tiger Moth etc. Crashing in those days was not so big a deal. It was not unusual! One thing my instructor used to say was that I landed too fast. He would demonstrate this by his taking over after I landed and hauling the aircraft back in the air, flaring and landing it again. Landing too fast takes too much rubber off the tires. As regards xwind landings, that was also hard for me to learn. I took 14 hours to solo but after a while a good x wind landing becomes natural. And then there's learning to fly a helicopter which I did not have patience for.....that's another kettle of fish altogether. Enjoy the ride!:)

Yea, you know how close it is to my house. And its not busy, which is nice.

Youi'll have to fly over Longshots this summer and give me a wag. :)

I go over to Longshots from time to time. But I generally go to Palisades. There is so many places to chose from in this big city.

+1 on flaring!

I was either 6 feet too high (ouch! it's not supposed to bounce like that!) or too low (oops...oh *****.....followed quickly by... instructor: "I've got it")

Learning crosswind landings was a challenge, but got much better with practice.

Congrats, keep us informed of your progress, and have fun!

Winter flying is the best! if you have good heat?

Congrats!!!

Glad to see it and hope things go well. It really broadens your horizions...

Get Taildragger time if you can ASAP
 

Because you have just started flying, you can avoid learning the bad habits (i.e. "dead feet") that are too easy to learn if you fly only a nosegear airplane. If you can get time in a taildragger early on, you will learn a lot more about airplane control.

I learned this the hard way when when I was transitioning from Cessna 152s & 172s to a Piper PA-17 taildragger. The Piper was a modified one that was particularly twitchy and difficult to land. I had several CFIs who claimed to be taildragger qualified who could not fly it. It took me several months to get comfortable with the transition.

Lots of good advise above. A taildragger teaches you how to use the rudder pedals while a "spam can" (modern airplane) really does not.

Get some time in both if you can, it will really help you. Too bad you are not closer, would take you up in one!

Joe A

Fly floats, that's the real fun

The instructor has a couple of taildraggers, one is a 150 and the other I believe is a Champ. Not sure though. And someone has a piper on floats sitting at the marina on the Mississippi River.

I'll ask about them next time I'm there. Hopefully tomorrow, weather permitting.

That 150 might be an aerobat! That would be fun!

1946 piper with floats
 

I saw this the other day and thought Id go down to the marina and take a pic. When I got there the owner was getting ready to move it for the winter. Really nice guy, let me bother him with some questions and take a look.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1323377831.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1323377883.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1323377911.jpg

Taildraggers
 

The instructor has a 150 taildragger? Those are pretty rare because it has to be a conversion. Cessna never made a taildragger 150. Supposedly the quality of the different conversions can be quite different.

It can be difficult to rent a taildragger because the insurance rates tend to be high.

A Taylorcraft would be a great plane to learn in. You will actually learn about adverse yaw in a Taylorcraft and/or most taildraggers. A spam can will almost not teach you about adverse yaw.

The 150 Aerobat is fun but it doesn't really fly any different from a "normal" 150 or 152. The only real difference is that the frame is beefed up so that it is certified for limited aerobatics. You are not likely to be doing any aerobatics as a student other than maybe some spins. Besides, the normal 150/152/172 is certified for spins.

Try to get spin training if you can. Not the currently required "spin avoidance/prevention" but true spin training. Being able to get yourself out of a fully developed spin is a good skill to have both for the skill itself and the confidence it gives. It makes you less fearful of stalls if you know you can get out of a fully developed spin, not just "avoid" one. Most pilots either love or hate doing spins. BTW, unless you do not like your upholstery, do not practice spins with a passenger!

I was wrong on the 2 seat Cessna, it is a 140.

Well I've got a little over 7 hours in now, the weather hasn't really been cooperating, but I'm doing a little better. The only time the instructor took over was when we went out with a front coming in and the turbulence started nocking us around. We went back to the airport and just worked on takeoffs and landings that day. I'm impressed with you guys that soloed at 6 hours or so. I'm doing better on the landings but its still a pain worrying about the radio and lining up correctly with the wind bumping you around. The instructor said I'm doing fine and told me last time I need to bring my logbook and medical with me in the plane. I'm set up for three more times next week and then I'm on vacation for a couple of weeks. I plan on studying for my written while I'm on vacation.

Logbook and medical has to be in the plane? Why? OH! Maybe to help ID the bodies in case of a crash?

I am sure that is supposed to be green. More likely close to solo time.

he wants you to bring it so he can sign you off to go solo!!

but probably because, yes you have to have your medical with you in case you get ramped..

GUYS DAMMIT!!!

How about we let things go naturally and be a SURPRISE!!!

dont wear a nice shirt when you take your logbooks with you....

Yep..it was...sorry.

Awesome achievement on your first day....Happy Flying!!

do a couple spins with the instructor.. my first spin was on my first solo. exciting!

Great advise... but make sure you are ready. They took this off of the FAA training program but IMHO this needs to be taught to ever student.

Before you know it, you'll be doing this:

(which by the way, is the definition of haulin' A$$!! )

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1324769479.jpg

At that temp, bet you are shoveling JetA out the tailpipe...

BTW, thats cheating with a 100+ knot tailwind...

No tail wind here. Hit 185 (GS), but did not get the pic.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1324709169.jpg

Ha! exactly.. I think it averaged @ a 94knot direct tailwind today! and we were only at 38,000 ft in this pic burning about 1,150 pph a side, but the TAS and Mach numbers don't lie! :)

Dave, we have iPads and WiFi on our planes, so they are quite useful!

No wifi for us. :) Just a little GPS unit to throw on top of the instrument panel for the iPad.

What setup/program are you using with the iPad?

The app in the pic is by Jeppesen, although there is also a Foreflight app. Using one of these for the GPS unit.
XGPS150 Universal Bluetooth GPS Receiver

looks good. We use a Jepp app also, but just for charts and approach plates.. It does have a moving map, but we dont need it as the plane has its own, so we turn that feature off.