I took my second flying lesson today. Larry was waiting for me outside, and noticed that I was riding my bicycle. “Do you live around here?” he asked. When I explained that I lived in the city, he shook his head. “You must really want to do this. Why don’t you drive?” I told him I didn’t own a car and didn’t have a driver’s license. He looked at me for a moment, then said “OK. Let’s go”
Larry handed me a small book. On the cover, it said Pilot’s Operating Manual – Cessna 150. We went through it covering basic things like the fuel capacity, the controls, operating limitations and so on. He then opened it to a page that showed a plan view of the plane, titled Preflight Inspection. We walked around the plane, following the diagram, and he had me point out each part and gave me a short explanation of its function.
We took off, and Larry then showed me the landmarks that delimit our “practice area”. First on the flying agenda was power-off stalls. He demonstrated one, and then it was my turn. I pulled the power back, and started to raise the nose to maintain altitude as he had showed me while the airspeed bled off. It was interesting to feel the controls ‘changing’ as the plane got slower and slower. The little warning horn (which is almost a ridiculous sound, a little reedy whine that gets louder as you get closer to the stall) kept getting louder. I sort of got anxious waiting for the stall to happen, and when it did I was a little rough and abrupt pushing the yoke forward to start flying again. My head hit the roof of the cockpit, and Larry said “Well that wasn’t exactly necessary. Just release the back pressure and it will start flying again.” Two or three more attempts produced slightly better results, but I envy his ability to do it so smoothly.
Next on the agenda was slow flight- flying the airplane right on the edge of a stall, without letting it actually stall- keeping the airspeed at about 60 mph. I couldn’t do this at all at first- I kept feeling like I was balancing on a beach ball, and had no feel at all for what the airplane was doing. Not knowing what I was doing was truly scary for a bit, sort of like being in a dream where you are on a high-wire somewhere and it’s windy, and you don’t know how you got there.
Mercifully, Larry cut this part of the lesson short. We went back to regular flying and headed toward the airport. On the way, we practiced flying a rectangular pattern around a farm field. I couldn’t do this at first either, until Larry pointed out the wind direction, and showed me some neat ways of determining it from the air. Once I got the idea of how to angle the airplane so the wind didn’t blow it off track, it was easier. I need to study the wind more.
We landed, and Larry had me keep my hands lightly on the controls as he kept a running commentary of what he was doing. It quite a view out the from window when you’re landing- watching the runway get closer and closer- sort of mesmerizing.
I bought a copy of the pilot’s manual, and a private pilot coursebook from the guy who runs the airport- it turns out his name is Orville! Heh.