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Normally, I have a lesson on Friday. This Friday's lesson didn't happen; my CFI called me on Wednesday: "The C120 is stuck in Truckee"(that's in the Sierra Nevadas). He'd flown up there to ferry another airplane for somebody, and coming back, it started to snow. They climbed the Cessna to 15,000 feet, still couldn't get above the weather. So they landed it in Truckee, and borrowed another airplane, this one turbocharged and pressurized, and flew home. On the way home, the loaner aircraft's radios all died. So he was going to have to get the loaner fixed, fly it back up to Truckee, and fly the Cessna back down. So this morning's lesson took place after a five-day hiatus.When I got to PAO this morning, he was there fueling up the plane. "So did you get the loaner fixed?" "Nope, it's still getting worked on. A friend of mine flew up to Truckee and got it back down for me" Truly, a pilot's life is different from us groundlings'. WX was overcast, ceiling 5000', wet and drippy. Plan today was more stalls, and also steep turns. Ceiling was alas too low to do spins. This time, I did all the radio work. He coached me: "OK, we want to go west. What kind of departure do we ask for? Me: "Well, if we were using runway three-zero, we'd ask for a left Dumbarton departure". Him: "Well, that won't work for one-two, so we'll ask for a left 270 departure" ( Or something to that effect. I'll have to listen to my tape again ) We took off, I weaved all over the runway, he took the plane :-(. Once we were well under way, we started practicing power-off stalls. He had me recite the procedure first:
Then we did a couple of power-on stalls. Of course, they're a bit more dramatic than the power-off ones, but there's less to do, so I guess it evens out. Then we did some more steep turns, standard rate turns, climbs, descents, etc. He asked me to attain a standard cruise: "Give me 2000 feet, 2300RPM, 100MPH". Dammit, no matter what I did, something wasn't right. That needs more work. We did steep turns. They came out so-so. I was loosing a hundred feet on each one. He told me: "When you take your checkride, you'll be expected to hold altitude to within 100 feet, and heading to within 10 degrees." We came back to PAO. He took the airplane when we got into the pattern. Somebody else called the tower, "Inbound, crossing 101". Wait a second, _we_ just crossed 101! He did five or six dutch rolls, trying to make sure we got noticed. Well, my stomach sure noticed them! :-) Tower: "I've got both of you in sight, you're both OK" We came in for a landing, he gave me the plane to taxi back to parking. He told me I did good, I was almost ready to start learning to land. Maybe one more spin session and some high-speed taxi practice. He told me why he does spins presolo: "You have to get really comfortable with the airplane, get some experience doing large control inputs. Otherwise, if you're real timid with the controls, the airplane will boss you around, especially during cross-wind landings. You can't afford that with a taildragger - you've got to be flying the plane, not have the plane flying you. That's why I teach spins pre-solo." He asked me to do a write-up of the procedures for all the airwork we've done up to this point: ascents, descents, turns, stalls, spins, engine-outs, MCA, normal cruise, etc. Due next lesson... Myself, I noticed I was looking mostly outside the cockpit this time, rather than fixating on the instruments. And it might be just a coincidence, but I didn't get airsick! Well, maybe a little teeny bit while he was waggling the wings.
- Jerry "13.3 hours" Kaidor |