So, my flight lesson got cancelled thursday. The wind was coming at 320, blowing 9kt gusting to 21kt(!!). Since our runway is 020/200, that pretty much grounded student pilots. But I went back friday, and things were much calmer.
On friday, the Piper Warrior that I really wanted to fly was taken, so I ended up in a Cessna 172,
. It was N7419G, or 19G (that's pronounced, "One Niner Golf") for short. So my flight instructor and I preflight the aircraft, and everything checks out.
At this point, I've never flown a real airplane before. I've had a copy of X-Plane since I was about 12, so I know a surprising amount about aerodynamics, flight instruments and regulations, etc, but I've never really been in the left seat of anything. So, I figure he's gonna take me up, let me make some 15 degree turns to headings he'd specify, work on trimming the aircraft, get it into a positive static, neutral dynamic oscillation, then he'd land. But no.
He makes a call to the tower requesting permission to get on the ramp (the taxi-way leading to the runway), and when they answer with an affirmative, he turns to me and says "Ok, take us to the runway." So, I nervously fumbled with the throttle and rudder pedals, and manage to get us to the runway in one piece. (I don't know who's idea it was to make the steering of an airplane on the ground UTTERLY BACKWARDS, but I have to give you a hearty fuck you.) At this point we walkthrough the immediate preflight, just checking some more minor stuff, he calls our takeoff into the tower, and just tells me to get us in the air. So I take us out onto the centerline of the runway, and push the throttle to 100%.
There's this thing that happens to an airplane as you're accelerating (or when you have a high angle of attack) where, for several reasons, the plane steers very hard to the left. I knew the theory behind this, I knew to correct for it. But boy is it ever different when it's happening to you. We're going down the runway, 40kt, 50kt, and suddenly the plane just starts left. and I mean, it's going LEFT. I'm pretty hesitant to just slam full right rudder to bring the plane back to the centerline, cause I don't want to flip the thing. So. we're coming dangerously close to the left side of the runway, and I'm sure we're going to die because I'm incompetent, and my CFI says (as calm as can be) "Ok, you've had sufficient airspeed for a few seconds now. Why don't you give the yoke a tug."
And then we were going up.
From here on out we did some basic stuff... turns, navigation, etc. He did all of the first landing, and I did a good portion of the work for the second, though he finally took over and put us down.
To me, there's just something exhilirating about being in a situation with complete and utter sensory overload, where your brain is at 100% and you can't quite keep up, and then starting to make sense of it. Starting to aclimate to certain things, leaving more concentration for the rest. This type of learning is why I get up in the morning, it's what I live for.
I can't wait for my next lesson. It should be in the Warrior.
On friday, the Piper Warrior that I really wanted to fly was taken, so I ended up in a Cessna 172,
. It was N7419G, or 19G (that's pronounced, "One Niner Golf") for short. So my flight instructor and I preflight the aircraft, and everything checks out.
At this point, I've never flown a real airplane before. I've had a copy of X-Plane since I was about 12, so I know a surprising amount about aerodynamics, flight instruments and regulations, etc, but I've never really been in the left seat of anything. So, I figure he's gonna take me up, let me make some 15 degree turns to headings he'd specify, work on trimming the aircraft, get it into a positive static, neutral dynamic oscillation, then he'd land. But no.
He makes a call to the tower requesting permission to get on the ramp (the taxi-way leading to the runway), and when they answer with an affirmative, he turns to me and says "Ok, take us to the runway." So, I nervously fumbled with the throttle and rudder pedals, and manage to get us to the runway in one piece. (I don't know who's idea it was to make the steering of an airplane on the ground UTTERLY BACKWARDS, but I have to give you a hearty fuck you.) At this point we walkthrough the immediate preflight, just checking some more minor stuff, he calls our takeoff into the tower, and just tells me to get us in the air. So I take us out onto the centerline of the runway, and push the throttle to 100%.
There's this thing that happens to an airplane as you're accelerating (or when you have a high angle of attack) where, for several reasons, the plane steers very hard to the left. I knew the theory behind this, I knew to correct for it. But boy is it ever different when it's happening to you. We're going down the runway, 40kt, 50kt, and suddenly the plane just starts left. and I mean, it's going LEFT. I'm pretty hesitant to just slam full right rudder to bring the plane back to the centerline, cause I don't want to flip the thing. So. we're coming dangerously close to the left side of the runway, and I'm sure we're going to die because I'm incompetent, and my CFI says (as calm as can be) "Ok, you've had sufficient airspeed for a few seconds now. Why don't you give the yoke a tug."
And then we were going up.
From here on out we did some basic stuff... turns, navigation, etc. He did all of the first landing, and I did a good portion of the work for the second, though he finally took over and put us down.
To me, there's just something exhilirating about being in a situation with complete and utter sensory overload, where your brain is at 100% and you can't quite keep up, and then starting to make sense of it. Starting to aclimate to certain things, leaving more concentration for the rest. This type of learning is why I get up in the morning, it's what I live for.
I can't wait for my next lesson. It should be in the Warrior.