Flight Log 02-07

Flights on back-to-back days, what a treat! A post-church, pre-work hop today, lesson three will cover maintaining constant speed during climbs and descents, and combining turns as well. Back with Dave again; I checked out my plane, computed the weight and balance, and filled out the dispatch sheet. Ran through the start-up procedures and we were ready to go.

Another aspect of today's briefing was collision avoidance - what to do if you're flying at another plane. It was supposed to be just a ground lesson, but as we were flying along I made a concerned announcement: "Uh, Dave we got traffic at 12 o-clock..." Dave is suddenly very alert. Just about a mile ahead and maybe 300 feet above us was a massive flock of birds cutting to the left across our plane's path. A bird is not a pilot's friend, and a flock of birds is a nightmare. "Go right, get on their tail end..." I bank to the right. "More traffic, 1 o-clock high!" Another flock was now in front, heading to the right of us. After we cleared the first group, I banked back to the left. I looked over a Dave and grinned, "looks like we had some practical application of collision avoidance today, huh?"

After practicing the manuevers for a while, Dave told me to descend to 1500' so we could head back to the airport. As we're descending through 2000' he decides that he wants me to make a 90 degree turn to the left. As I'm in the middle of my left turn, the altimeter approaches 1500' so I start to push the throttle in and level off while maintaining a solid turn. I roll out right on heading and altitiude. Dave was upset - he was hoping I would make the student mistake of concentrating on my new instructions and shoot down right through my assigned altitude. Didn't fool me today, Dave.

We finished up early, so Dave took the controls and demonstrated some manuevers for the next flight: power-off stalls. What to do when you're flying so slow that the plane, well, literally falls out of the sky. A power off stall is done to simulate conditions that are experienced during the landing phase. Flaps down, engine at 1500 rpm, pitch up. After Dave's demonstration it was my turn. I watched the airspeed drop through 55 knots, which is a proper landing speed, and pretty slow. The controls got real mushy. Then the stall warning horn started buzzing at about 40 kts, the plane started to buffet, the voom! You could literally feel all the lift that was holding the plane up in the air just go away, like somebody flipped a switch. Throttle all the way in, ease off the elevator, and we recovered. Pretty simple, yet horribly uncomfortable to intentionally make the plane fly like that.

Flight #3: 0.9 hrs
Total Log Time: 3.4 hrs