Learning to fly all over again
I knew I was in for a tough day before I even got in the airplane. I'd plugged my headset into the left side out of habit. Kevin shot me a quizzical glance and said “Uh, I thought you were flying from the right side?”
Crap. I moved the headset over to the right seat, we pulled the airplane out of the hangar and I promptly walked over to the left side to get in, which didn't work because Kevin was already there.
As we taxied out I tried to get used to the sight picture and eventually managed to get the airplane more or less on the center line. From my seat it looked like we were a few feet left of center but after a bit everything started making sense.
The takeoff wasn't horrible, although we rotated about 10 knots faster than normal because I can't see the airspeed needle from the right seat until it hits about 75 knots. I managed to set up a nice climb, figured out how to raise the gear with my left hand and we were on our way.
Out in the practice area, steep turns to the left went almost perfectly. Steep turns to the right were bizarre and I couldn't believe how different everything looked.
I wound up having to lower my seat more than I liked because the sun visor on the right side kept flopping down and hitting my head, which was driving me nuts. I'm 6'2" and was having a hard time seeing over the panel, so that's a detail I need to get fixed.
Slow flight presented it's own set of challenges. Turns out for some reason I was having trouble hearing the stall horn from the right side. In fairness, Kevin was having trouble hearing it from the left so maybe we're both going deaf in what is normally our outside ear.
It didn't help that Kevin had me explain the maneuver as I was doing it. There I was, unable to hear the damn stall horn, having a hard time seeing over the panel, getting whacked in the head by the sun visor, flying with my right hand on the yoke and trying to explain what was happening.
It was a really interesting experience. Basically, I'm not at the point where I can fly the airplane from the right side without having to think about it, so there wasn't much mental bandwidth left over to actually talk coherently about what was going on.
It's a good illustration of what a new student is going through, when just flying the airplane is taking up most of their brain power.
I flew a crappy Chandelle, using too much bank initially so I finished up too quickly and too fast. The second one went better when I just ignored the instruments and concentrated on looking outside.
Stalls were more of the same, pretty simple and worked well when I just looked outside and flew the airplane by feel. As it turned out, I was able to explain stalls as I was doing them just fine.
I think just looking outside and flying the damn airplane simplified things enough that I could both talk and fly, which will come in handy when I become an CFI.
I put on the Foggles while Kevin played with the airplane and tried to get me disoriented. Once on instruments I was back in my happy place. I just love flying the gauges. Right seat or left, they've become some of my closest friends.
We loaded the GPS-14 approach back into Crystal and I managed to keep everything more or less right down the center. I did have the airplane flying just a little bit banked for a while until I got used to the parallax error looking at the attitude indicator but eventually got the picture and figured out how to keep everything nice and level.
We circled to land on 32R, which was interesting from the right side. We flew a lot of circling approaches during my instrument training so I had the drill down. (Basically, you enter a circling approach at the altitude you're normally at when you make the base to final turn, so you just stay at that altitude until you make the turn and you should be right on the glide path.)
Still, maneuvering in a right-hand pattern was really difficult. We were close in to the runway on downwind, the wing blocked my view of the airport and I felt really low in the right seat as we banked right. Luckily, my training took over and I concentrated on holding altitude and sure enough we turned final right on the glide path.
The wind had picked up so we had a pretty strong right crosswind. I knew I was lined up right of the center line and tried to let the airplane drift a bit, which didn't quite work out. The landing turned out better than I had any right to expect, nice and smooth but about three feet right of center.
We taxied back in, shut down and I climbed out shaking my head.
Key learnings from the flight: Look outside. It's just easier to fly the airplane by sight and feel. And get the damn sun visor fixed so I can see outside.
Crap. I moved the headset over to the right seat, we pulled the airplane out of the hangar and I promptly walked over to the left side to get in, which didn't work because Kevin was already there.
As we taxied out I tried to get used to the sight picture and eventually managed to get the airplane more or less on the center line. From my seat it looked like we were a few feet left of center but after a bit everything started making sense.
The takeoff wasn't horrible, although we rotated about 10 knots faster than normal because I can't see the airspeed needle from the right seat until it hits about 75 knots. I managed to set up a nice climb, figured out how to raise the gear with my left hand and we were on our way.
Out in the practice area, steep turns to the left went almost perfectly. Steep turns to the right were bizarre and I couldn't believe how different everything looked.
I wound up having to lower my seat more than I liked because the sun visor on the right side kept flopping down and hitting my head, which was driving me nuts. I'm 6'2" and was having a hard time seeing over the panel, so that's a detail I need to get fixed.
Slow flight presented it's own set of challenges. Turns out for some reason I was having trouble hearing the stall horn from the right side. In fairness, Kevin was having trouble hearing it from the left so maybe we're both going deaf in what is normally our outside ear.
It didn't help that Kevin had me explain the maneuver as I was doing it. There I was, unable to hear the damn stall horn, having a hard time seeing over the panel, getting whacked in the head by the sun visor, flying with my right hand on the yoke and trying to explain what was happening.
It was a really interesting experience. Basically, I'm not at the point where I can fly the airplane from the right side without having to think about it, so there wasn't much mental bandwidth left over to actually talk coherently about what was going on.
It's a good illustration of what a new student is going through, when just flying the airplane is taking up most of their brain power.
I flew a crappy Chandelle, using too much bank initially so I finished up too quickly and too fast. The second one went better when I just ignored the instruments and concentrated on looking outside.
Stalls were more of the same, pretty simple and worked well when I just looked outside and flew the airplane by feel. As it turned out, I was able to explain stalls as I was doing them just fine.
I think just looking outside and flying the damn airplane simplified things enough that I could both talk and fly, which will come in handy when I become an CFI.
I put on the Foggles while Kevin played with the airplane and tried to get me disoriented. Once on instruments I was back in my happy place. I just love flying the gauges. Right seat or left, they've become some of my closest friends.
We loaded the GPS-14 approach back into Crystal and I managed to keep everything more or less right down the center. I did have the airplane flying just a little bit banked for a while until I got used to the parallax error looking at the attitude indicator but eventually got the picture and figured out how to keep everything nice and level.
We circled to land on 32R, which was interesting from the right side. We flew a lot of circling approaches during my instrument training so I had the drill down. (Basically, you enter a circling approach at the altitude you're normally at when you make the base to final turn, so you just stay at that altitude until you make the turn and you should be right on the glide path.)
Still, maneuvering in a right-hand pattern was really difficult. We were close in to the runway on downwind, the wing blocked my view of the airport and I felt really low in the right seat as we banked right. Luckily, my training took over and I concentrated on holding altitude and sure enough we turned final right on the glide path.
The wind had picked up so we had a pretty strong right crosswind. I knew I was lined up right of the center line and tried to let the airplane drift a bit, which didn't quite work out. The landing turned out better than I had any right to expect, nice and smooth but about three feet right of center.
We taxied back in, shut down and I climbed out shaking my head.
Key learnings from the flight: Look outside. It's just easier to fly the airplane by sight and feel. And get the damn sun visor fixed so I can see outside.
posted by Will at 9:31 AM
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