More Flying
August 17th, 2009
Since my last post I’ve flown a few more times. I’ve been using the radio to talk to ground control to get our taxi clearance and on the last flight I talked to tower for our initial approach clearance. For whatever reason this is a bit of a nerve racking experience; I think it’s mostly because I’m spending so much time trying to memorize exactly what to say rather than just being able to know what needs to be said. Practice makes perfect.
During my last flight we spent a bit of time reviewing climbs, descents and turns and then went “under the hood” for 30 minutes. The hood is like a gigantic visor that you wear so that you can’t see outside the window. It simulates what’s known as instrument flight where you’re unable to see the ground. Since you can’t see the ground you have to fly solely be reference to instruments. This is definitely tough and it’s pretty easy to get disoriented. While under the hood we did climbs, descents and turns and we even did some climbing turns and descending turns.
At the end of that lesson we spent a few minutes introducing what we’re going to be doing in today’s lesson: slow flight. This is where you slow the plane down to about the same airspeed you’d use for landing and then fly around. You practice getting into and out of slow flight and maintaining a heading and altitude, of course. I think we’re also going to start practicing stalls today. Weee.
Entry Filed under: California
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