Flight Journal

Flight June 3, 2005

CFI/DE: Mac Smith

Map	Comments
	Arrrgh. There were things that were OK about my performance on this outing, and there was one thing that especially wasn't. For one thing, I began to feel more frustrated with each shortcoming, even though I was doing generally OK. I'm not completely oblivious to rudder pedals, and I kept letting the airplane slide around. I'm sure Mac noticed and diagnosed it better than I did. I was confused by the rollercoaster feeling in the steep turns, why didn't I start dancing. If anyone had asked me, I could have told them what was wrong. We started out by following a VOR radial up to the North Shore, under the hood. Then we started back, doing power-off stalls and slow flight, all with foggles. Then he asked for the one I was worrying about. The departure stall, the power-on stall. For the record, I hate this maneuver. I think that in addition to the nose-up pitch angle, there is the feeling of all of that energy being held in one place, and it wants to go somewhere. One of its favorite places to go is to roll madly to one side, and cause a spin. I studied the FSH maneuvers manual over and over again, and I knew what to do. Problem is, I memorized instead of feeling it. There is no instruction in the manual apply rudder opposite the torque, followed by the gyro precession. Whack, we rolled left, Mac said "my airplanne" I said "your airplane", and it was failed, just like that. We repeated the maneuver, no hood and with rudder, and then we did ground maneuevers and "satisfactory" landings at Kalaeloa. Of course, I bounced the one back into Honolulu, and since it was Mac's first time with me, he probably made and assumption that this was common. It isn't. The bright side of this (this is being written after the successful practical ride) was that it was what I needed to go through, and that the degradation of performance due to nervousness didn't hurt anybody or any airplanes.

Map

Comments

Arrrgh. There were things that were OK about my performance on this outing, and there was one thing that especially wasn't. For one thing, I began to feel more frustrated with each shortcoming, even though I was doing generally OK. I'm not completely oblivious to rudder pedals, and I kept letting the airplane slide around. I'm sure Mac noticed and diagnosed it better than I did. I was confused by the rollercoaster feeling in the steep turns, why didn't I start dancing. If anyone had asked me, I could have told them what was wrong.

We started out by following a VOR radial up to the North Shore, under the hood. Then we started back, doing power-off stalls and slow flight, all with foggles. Then he asked for the one I was worrying about. The departure stall, the power-on stall. For the record, I hate this maneuver. I think that in addition to the nose-up pitch angle, there is the feeling of all of that energy being held in one place, and it wants to go somewhere. One of its favorite places to go is to roll madly to one side, and cause a spin. I studied the FSH maneuvers manual over and over again, and I knew what to do. Problem is, I memorized instead of feeling it. There is no instruction in the manual apply rudder opposite the torque, followed by the gyro precession. Whack, we rolled left, Mac said "my airplanne" I said "your airplane", and it was failed, just like that. We repeated the maneuver, no hood and with rudder, and then we did ground maneuevers and "satisfactory" landings at Kalaeloa. Of course, I bounced the one back into Honolulu, and since it was Mac's first time with me, he probably made and assumption that this was common. It isn't.

The bright side of this (this is being written after the successful practical ride) was that it was what I needed to go through, and that the degradation of performance due to nervousness didn't hurt anybody or any airplanes.