Back in the Air

After several days of being grounded by bad weather, I was back in the air.  First, my CFI and I spent about 45 minutes on ground school lessons.  Topics we covered were:

·         Human Factors in flying

·         Different types of Altitudes

·         Collision Avoidance

·         Taxiing in the wind

·         Runway layout

·         Flight Patterns

Landing Pattern

Each of these subjects could be a blog post themselves, so I’ll hold off on going into a lot of detail on them now.

Next, I completed the pre-flight check on the 2009 Diamond Eclipse DA20-C1 (N322DC).  Everything went smoothly and we climbed into the cockpit.  My CFI requested permission for air traffic control to take off and for runway assignment.

I taxied out to the runway.  This time I was a little more comfortable on taxiing the plane.  It was not perfect, but showed marked improvement.

My take off was smooth, and I must say that is my favorite part.  There is nothing like that first feeling of floating.  I hope I never lose my awe of the sensation.

We flew to a practice area and I preformed the basic maneuvers of turning, ascending and descending.  Next we practiced a power off stall, and power on (or high speed) stall, low speed flight.

Stalls are practiced with two goals in mind.  One objective is to help the student pilot gain familiarity with the stall characteristics of the aircraft so they can better learn to avoid them.  The other is to condition the pilot to recover from an inadvertent stall quickly and with minimal loss in altitude.  Stalls are practiced at high (at least above cruising altitude) altitude because it is expected to lose about 500 – 1,000 feet.

The purpose of maneuvering during slow flight is to help the student pilot develop a feel for the airplane’s controls at slow speeds as well as gain an understanding of how load factor, pitch altitude, and altitude control relate to each other.  Speed tends to hide a lot of the effort put on the plane.  With enough speed, the plane design does most of the work.  At slower speeds, aerodynamics alone can’t keep the aircraft up.  It is then necessary to adjust the pitch, flaps, rudders and other controls to keep the plane level.

Next, we were ready to land.  My CFI sought permission to land.  I put the plane into position and lightly touched down and slowed the plane to idle.  There are a 2^nd set of controls on the CFI’s side of the cockpit, so he was ready to take over if need be.  Before we came to a complete stop, at my CFI’s instruction, I opened up the throttle and down the runway we went for another takeoff.  I was surprisingly pleased with my landing and takeoff. 

We flew in the traffic pattern once and made our final landing of the day.  This time it wasn’t as smooth.  As you land the plane, you want to have the nose of the plane slightly higher than the rest of the plane.   This is how I came in, yet is also make the plane float longer, so you have to bring the nose of the plane down eventually.  As it got to the point to bring the nose down, my CFI gave the command, and I lowered the nose of the aircraft.  I may have maneuvered quicker than ideal, as the front tire (just about a foot off the ground) hit the pavement move rough than I would have liked.  Overall, the landing was safe and adequate, but will require more practice.

Ground instruction: .6 hours   Flight time: 1.30 hours

Cost:  Plane rental - $156.00, Instructor Fee - $76.00