Started flying lessons today

[dmcummins]

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.

[Tim Hancock]

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.

[KarlCarrera]

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

[crustychief]

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.

[oldschoollear]

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

[romad]

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.

[dhoward]

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

[recycled sixtie]

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!

[dmcummins]

Originally Posted by dhoward

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

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

[dhoward]

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

[dmcummins]

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.

[dw1]

Originally Posted by Tim Hancock

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.

+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!

[cgarr]

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

[azasadny]

Congrats!!!

[Joeaksa]

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

[MauleM5-235]

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.

[Joeaksa]

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

[petrolhead611]

Fly floats, that's the real fun

[dmcummins]

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.

[cgarr]

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