Slowly Onwards
by Russ Knize on Jan.29, 2016, under Flight Training
My second lesson started with a supervised preflight inspection on N9831G. We did the usual procedures and then I did the radio calls to ground and tower. After take off we did a few ascending/descending turns and then moved on to slow flight in the clean configuration. He slowly worked me down to 50 knots a little at a time to get a feel for it. I then tried to do some turns and made a mess of them. He demonstrated how to quickly get from cruise to slow flight and back again. After a few tries I got it. It is very challenging to keep the heading and altitude while the attitude is way nose-up and the controls are like mush. Next time we add flaps….
My rudder work is generally terrible, but at least my taxiing is improving. I keep forgetting to clear my turns and I’m definitely still staring at the instruments too much.
I could tell he was trying to get me to apply what I had just learned in slow flight to the landing, but I was pretty burned-out by then. The take offs and landings have been a blur, but they are getting less so each time. I want to mount a camera in the cabin so that I can review my flights later.