metaruss

After well over 2 weeks of bad weather, we finally got up again today.  I was already feeling rusty and struggled with simple tasks.  I made a few mistakes while on the ground and the takeoff was messy, but I held my climb this time.  It felt weird at first, but it started coming back to me.  I still have a habit of climbing during my turns.

Once at the practice area, we did some slow flight and then moved on to full stalls.  I had quite a bit of trouble with these.  I did the power-on stall reasonably well after a few tries, but I struggled with the power-off stall.  Part of the problem was that I was rusty and not staying coordinated.  However, the real challenge was that I think I was getting hung up on performing each step leading up to the stall (fiddling with flaps, etc) while trying not to forget things (which I did anyway…”carb heat!”) and not flying the airplane.  I think I need to step back from the procedure and just fly.  My instructor thought my problem was that I was nervous about the stall, but actually they were pretty fun.  I was actually nervous about forgetting things in the procedure and feeling generally rusty with my flying.

This was the first time that I flew with the GoPro mounted in the cabin.  And that’s exactly everything that I did…mounted it in the cabin.  I forgot to start recording.  I did hook up the audio recorder to the intercom, however.  Since that battery lasts forever, I just started it as soon as I connected it and so there was no way I could forget to start it.  That proved useful in and of itself, as I heard my instructor explain things that I didn’t pick up while I was in the cockpit.  At times it was painful to relive the experience, however.