Living the Dream

9/29/12

    I arrived to the airport early naturally to get the plane out and get it fueled up. I fly rental airplanes so I don't pay the company for fuel directly. I ran through the cockpit while I was waiting for Craig. You can never be too familiar with a certain airplane. When Craig arrived he supervised me following the preflight checklist. This time, there was nothing forgotten. I had preflighted the airplane with no help. You can cross that step off the long road to becoming a pilot.

    We did the normal taxi, run-up, and takeoff but this time with me at the controls. I had a nice climb-out as we headed to the practice area. This lesson was more of a review day. I got better at skills that were learned the last lesson. We accomplished the normal turns, climbs, descents, and turning climbs and descents. We also did steep turns and slow flight.

    We did want to learn one new maneuver, however. Last lesson, Craig only demonstrated a stall. It was my turn. The maneuver is called a "power-off" stall or an "arrival stall." Basically, it simulates what could happen on short-final of a landing. A pilot could lose airspeed too fast to the point where the airplane is no longer flying fast enough to fly. It is very important for a pilot to know how to recover from this maneuver. 

    So I turned on the carb-heat to prevent ice in the engine. I put down full flaps and pulled the throttle to idle to simulate a landing. The point of this stall is to try to maintain altitude. Naturally, much back pressure on the yoke is needed to attempt to keep this altitude. Then, as stall speed quickly approaches, the controls get very "mushy," the airframe shakes, and the nose drops. The recovery of this maneuver is to turn of the carb heat, add full throttle, and, when a positive rate of climb is achieved, take the flaps out in increments. Stalls are one of my favorite maneuvers!

    After a nice review lesson, we decided to return to JXN. Craig demonstrated a short-field landing and I "shadowed" him on the controls. We taxied back to the hangar, pushed the plane in, did our post-flight, filled out the logbook, and then I was on my way. As I exited the airport property, I just looked out the window and at this moment I realized that I was living the dream.