June 28, 2011 - Breakthrough!
Again with Tatiana (although with the extreme winds and gusting, I joked it should have been Anthony; wild winds seem to be his specialty--all we had when we flew together back in April!) Since it was too wild with the weather to attempt circuits and soloing again, we decided to just fly to increase my comfort in turbulent conditions. At one point, it was reportedly 30 kts of wind, and even when the winds were "only"18-15, the gusting was still at 30. I prepared for white knuckles and tense stomach muscles. :-)
As it turned out, this was probably one of my better lessons of late!
We flew out to the practice area, and thanks to the crappy weather, there was very little traffic. As I grew more comfortable with the weather and my "new" instructor (by now I have flown about 5 times with Tatiana), we tried out a few Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} maneuvers:
1. Stalls
As with Korkka, I am still a bit wimpy about putting the plane into a full stall, and prefer to recover almost before the aircraft is fully stalled. Will have to work on that!
2. Spiral Dives
My leveling of the wings needs to be more pronounced (I am a little gentle, ironically!), but other than that, my confidence is WAAAAAY higher than it was even a few days ago.
3. Steep Turns
I remember the first time Lari demo'd a steep turn. Everything just looked so weird!!! And then to try and do one myself... it just felt wrong, so I made a nice gentle turn which basically went nowhere. Ha! But today, TODAY, I made a few very good steep turns, looking outside the whole time, keeping the nose up more or less, and adding power in order to maintain altitude. Next time, will ask for a demo so I can also glance inside at the instruments (look at ball and add rudder as needed, especially when turning to the right, also look at altimeter.)
It was actually a fun lesson, especially when I could sense that my instructor was pleasantly surprised at my confidence and progress. Looking forward to Friday morning's lesson -- a great way to start Canada Day would be to fly solo again... if weather and skill permit!
As it turned out, this was probably one of my better lessons of late!
We flew out to the practice area, and thanks to the crappy weather, there was very little traffic. As I grew more comfortable with the weather and my "new" instructor (by now I have flown about 5 times with Tatiana), we tried out a few Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} maneuvers:
1. Stalls
As with Korkka, I am still a bit wimpy about putting the plane into a full stall, and prefer to recover almost before the aircraft is fully stalled. Will have to work on that!
2. Spiral Dives
My leveling of the wings needs to be more pronounced (I am a little gentle, ironically!), but other than that, my confidence is WAAAAAY higher than it was even a few days ago.
3. Steep Turns
I remember the first time Lari demo'd a steep turn. Everything just looked so weird!!! And then to try and do one myself... it just felt wrong, so I made a nice gentle turn which basically went nowhere. Ha! But today, TODAY, I made a few very good steep turns, looking outside the whole time, keeping the nose up more or less, and adding power in order to maintain altitude. Next time, will ask for a demo so I can also glance inside at the instruments (look at ball and add rudder as needed, especially when turning to the right, also look at altimeter.)
It was actually a fun lesson, especially when I could sense that my instructor was pleasantly surprised at my confidence and progress. Looking forward to Friday morning's lesson -- a great way to start Canada Day would be to fly solo again... if weather and skill permit!
