The Life of a Student Pilot
11/28/12
As the weather becomes colder and colder, I begin to dread the preflight inspection of the aircraft more and more. It might be the natural reaction of some student pilots to speed along through their preflight inspection to avoid the cold as much as possible. I do not agree with this idea. I'd rather dread the cold temperatures for five or ten more minutes instead of risk my safety or the conditon of the airplane. Because I fly a club airplane and I'm not the only person flying the airplane, I always make it a point to check the squawk sheet. The squawk sheet is a piece of paper located in the airplane which lists the pilots who have previously flown it, how long they've flown it, and any problems they may have come across during their flight. The reason I check the squawks is so I know which areas of the preflight I need to look over in great detail. With everything in line and in working condition, we moved into the airplane to begin our flight portion of the lesson.
I'm still a little rusty on crosswind takeoffs. During a crosswind takeoff, ailerons are to be turned into the wind and the pilot is expected to keep the airplane flying straight down the runway with the rudder. Because of the ailerons turned into the wind, it causes the airplane to lift on one wheel before flying into the air. This always makes me a little uneasy because I feel as if the airplane is going to tip over. But, I have full confidence that I will perfect this maneuver soon.
Once in the air, I performed ground reference maneuvers. These maneuvers are required to be flown 600-1000 feet above the ground. First, we performed Turns Around a Point. Our point was an intersection of roads. At first, I was all over the place and was not accurate with my distance from the point. Then, Craig advised me to pick out points that are 1/4-1/2 mile out from the point and fly over those instead of allowing the wind to push the airplane away from the point.
Then, we did S-Turns across a road. The pilot is required to turn like an S across a road correcting for the wind pushing the aircraft away from the road. The same tactic from abov can be used for S-Turns.
We also did rectangular course. We picked out a rectangle of roads. I am supposed to maintain 1/4-1/2 mile away from the roads while compensating for the wind and maintaining altitude.
Then, we reviewed maneuvers such as the departure stall and steep turns. Craig also demonstrated a forward and side slip.
One thing I need to work on is my emergency procedures. Craig pulled the power on me while I wasn't looking and I was expected to choose a field. I forgot the first and most important step which is to maintain the best glide speed of the aircraft. In my plane, best glide is 80 MPH. My main focus was to find a spot to land and I let the airplane hurl to the ground. The field I picked out was a field that would have required a very great bank angle to reach. I'm going to need to do some chair flying. Chair flying is sitting in a chair and pracitcing what movements are required by the pilot for a certain maneuver.
We landed and taxiied back to the hangar. We had a ground lesson about weight and balance and I was given some practice problems to do. I'm going to do these problems, complete some chair flying, and schedule next week's lesson!
*Clip of Takeoff on runway 24 at JXN*
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlOybMKPZpY
*Clip of Landing on runway 24 at JXN*
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTxbgikG_mA
*Clip of Zero Gravity in 1956 Cessna 172*