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Hello,Today I went for yet another intro lesson, with a _third_ CFI. As you may remember, the first one was at PAO, with a Citabria. I got sick, and I couldn't afford him :-(. The second one was at far-off RHV, with a Cherokee. I could afford him, but RHV is just too damned far away :-(. This time I went back to PAO. I'd found another CFI who teaches people to fly his 1947 Cessna 120 taildragger. We were scheduled for 10:30 this morning, but wx was definitely not VFR. So we rescheduled for three this afternoon. He called me on the phone around 2:00: Him: "It's pretty windy out there - nothing I wouldn't fly in, but not what I'd want for an intro flight". Me: "That's OK. I still get sick whenever I get in an airplane anyway, no matter how smooth the air is :-). Let's just get acquainted, you teach me a couple of things, and maybe we'll go up for a half hour or so." So we were on! I drove down to PAO, got there right on time, he was waiting. We talked a bit, and strolled down to the airplane. Boy was it simple after that high-tech Cherokee! WWII-style black crinkle finish panel, round bat toggle switches, a *pull knob* to start the engine. Well, at least it had an electric starter :-). After a thorough preflight, we sat down and started up that big 85hp Continental engine. Got a taxi clearance and we were off. Look Ma, here I am steering with my feet again! Whups, the yoke doesn't do anything! He made me sit on my hands, and we weaved on down the taxiway. Um, we _will_ stop before we get to those planes over there, won't we? Whew, good. He told me to taxi with the centerline of the runway between my legs, rather than trying to center the airplane like a car. Such precision was alas not quite yet attainable :-). He warned me not to use the brakes and throttle at the same time, and demonstrated, standing on the brakes. The tail came up off the ground. There were only two planes before us waiting for takeoff. Must be the weather, PAO is normally a very busy airport. We did the runup and checked the mags and carb heat, he did the radio calls and we took off. Well, *he* took off; that windsock was standing at attention. He gave me the controls after we cleared the runway. Showed me the proper sight pictures for ascent and straight&level; told me not to fixate on instruments but rather to look mostly out the cockpit. I did my best, and had better success holding attitude than before. In fact, the sick feeling didn't manifest itself until the end of the flight. One thing I think helped was that I was careful when starting a descent, decreasing engine power really gradually so as not to get that roller-coaster feeling. We had a little conversation on the ground, he entered the .6-hour flight in my logbook, and I made an appointment for a first real lesson on Monday. The slight sick feeling went away in about a half hour. - Jerry "O-ficial 1.9-Hour Student Pilot" Kaidor p.s. I hope I'm not boring everybody with my rather ordinary adventures; it's your fault, you know... I was just browsing Usenet one day, looking for mindless amusement, and came upon the rec.aviation hierarchy. Started reading rec.aviation.student, and began getting these ideas... |