Flight Lesson #3

I arrived this morning at the FBO about 20 minutes early as usual hoping to jump right into doing some basic maneuvers flying but my CFI was no where to be found. So after about 15 mins of waiting I was assign another CFI named Mike. I have dealt with Mike with administration stuff for the flight school but nothing with ground schooling or flight training so I didn't know how his teaching was. When we did the preflight discussion Mike was following the fight syllabus and said I was supposed to do some under the hood flying today. I was really nervous about this because a)I didn't think I was ready and b)I would of like to do more flying before I moved on to the hood.

Mike saw the nervousness on my face and told me that I will be alright. We went over flying by instruments and how to go from the Inverted V which includes attitude indicator on top, turn coordinator bottom left, and vertical speed indicator bottom right; then switching to the "T" which is the airspeed indicator, attitude indicator and altimeter on the top and heading indicator below the attitude indicator, then once in awhile doing a full clockwise circle starting with the attitude indicator and ending back at the attitude indicator. You might notice that the attitude indicator is your main instrument when you are flying IFR. After about 30 minutes we headed out to the plane and Mike stepped back and let me go through the checklist on my own to see where I am at with that. He was pleased and had me taxi to the end of the runway.

This is where it gets interesting. I was told to take off and headed to 2000 feet and start turning west at about 900 feet. I throttle all the way up and I started to turn left, because I forgot to hold right rudder but for some reason I pressed on the right brake and we sharply turned right and Mike told me to let off the right brake and just push right rudder. Mike help me get back into the middle of the runway and help me keep the plane straight. At about 65 knots I pitched slightly back and we started to get airborne at about 65 knots flaps go up and we slowly gained altitude. I started to turn left about 850 feet and ascended to little over 2000 feet. Mike had me fly straight and level keeping attitude until we were about 3-4 miles from the airport then asked me to do some left turns and right turns and ascend and descend to certain altitudes making sure I can handle the plane. Once he was satisfied, he had me put the hood which was very uncomfortable especially having a headset on and glasses.

Mike told me to keep the orange plane on the center line as best as possible but for some reason I couldn't do it. It might of been the lack of vision or trying something new. I was loosing and gaining altitude on a frequent basis and was heading of course. It took me awhile but I started to gain confidence in myself and Mike and it was getting easier to do. Mike then had me turn to certain headings and descending to certain altitudes. I expected during this we were heading somewhere because once Mike told me to take off the hood I saw that he had me lined up with the runway and from there he took over and made the landing. I was under for about .3 hours and was told that I will be doing more of this down the road. All and all it was a good flight session.

Flight Time
Dual: 0.8
PIC: 0.0
Total: 0.8

Flight lesson canceled today

This week hasn't been going well at all. From Sunday's flight lesson turning into a ground lesson to today's flight lesson being canceled altogether because of a weather system that has been moving through the country. So that is about 2 hours of flying that I could of had in my log book. I am schedule to fly tomorrow and so far is looks promising. No holding my breath though.

Ground school today

I was hoping today that I will get some flight time in even though it has been raining the last few days. The forecast called for rain all day but thankfully when I woke up this morning it was nice outside for the most part. When I got to the airport I took a look at the AWOS and found out that the ceiling around the airport for the most part was around 600 feet. Well there goes flying for the day. Jim took this opportunity to do some chair flying with me and we went over the basic 4 maneuvers just so they become second nature to me. We did this for about 1 hour and called it a day

Flight Time
Dual: 0.0
PIC: 0.0
Total: 0.0

Flight Lesson #2

I got into the FBO about one hour before my flight to watch some flight videos and to watch some planes take off. I did see an interesting thing happen during this. There was one plane coming in for a landing and at the same time a small BJ taxied and took off. At that time I didn't think nothing of it but come to find out the pilot of the BJ didn't say anything on the radio and cut off the small plane coming in for a landing. When the pilot of the small plane came into the FBO he was pissed off and was raising some hell. I really don't blame. This come to show you how it is important to use your radio all the time especially at a non-towered airport.

Back to the flight lesson of the day. Today involved a quick ground lesson just talking more about attitude and understand the diamonds. We headed out and went of the checklists in detailed again just so I can get use to doing them and make it more natural to do. After we did the checklist we went over the GPS unit in the plane and Jim explain that when ever you fly you need to fly somewhere and not get up in the sky and fly around. So we set in coords to go to an airstrip near by. I taxied some more again and still was all over the place. I guess practice makes perfect. Jim had me taxi to the end of the runway and I added full power and we zipped down the runway. With a lot of help from Jim we got airborne and we followed the flight path we had setup. Jim had me work on more of the 4 basic maneuvers and more trimming. He pushed the envelope a little and had me work on ascending/descending while turning which were fun and challenging. He said that I show the working of a great pilot which made me feel good.

We headed back to the airport and Jim took over the controls and did another beautiful landing. I can't wait to do those myself. I did some more taxing and we ended the day with a short postflight discussing and was told that we will be doing slow flight and dutch rolls for the next lesson. Sounds like fun, can't wait.

I need to work on paying to attitude more outside of the plane then inside and work on taxing.

Flight Time
Dual: 0.9
PIC: 0.0
Total: 0.9

Flight Lesson #1

Today I finally met my flight instructor Jim. We went over all the first day boring paper work stuff and talked a little bit about aerodynamics and the four forces that act upon a plane. You know lift, weight, drag, and thrust. We also talked about attitude and how you use that to fly the plane. We went over the instruments and all the nobs and doodads. We finally brought out the checklist and talked about the flow we do when we use it and how to properly use it.We then headed out and I was greeted to the Diamond DA-20, 484MA, one of the two diamonds that I will be doing my flight training in.

We did our pre-flight inspection of the plane which took some time because Jim was pointing out a lot of things to look for during the inspection. Once we got into the plane Jim showed me how he does the check-list and how he flows around the instrument panel. Then he handed me the check-list and told me to call off each step and to point to it in the cockpit. This was a good learning experience because it shows me how to go through the check-list quickly but safely. He then had me do some taxing which I have to tell you is very hard if you never done it before. I was all over the place riding the brakes and had to keep revving up the engine to get moving again. We finally made it to the end of the taxiway where we went over more of the checklist. There is a lot of checklist to do but let me tell you how safe it makes flying.

Jim took over the controls and did a nice take off and headed to an alt of about 3,000 feet. I was handed the controls to work the 4 basic maneuvers. I was lucky enough during my Discovery flight to have worked on them so for the most part this part of the flight was easy. It was when we added trim into the picture that caused me to get full of myself and was messing up to the point Jim was yelling at me to watch my attitude. Part of this was because I was looking at the trim indicator to see if it was moving instead of outside the windows. All and all it was a great flight lesson and after about 1 hour we headed back and Jim took over and told me to watch how he does the traffic pattern and to see when he makes the radio calls.

We come in for the approach and make a nice landing and we go over the post-flight checklist and talk about what we will go over during the next flight lesson which is in 2 weeks which gives me long enough time do some reading. Some of the things I need to work on is looking more outside and paying attention to my attitude and also need to work on taxing.

Flight Time
Dual: 0.7
PIC: 0.0
Total: 0.7

Application and second flight schedule.

Quick post today. I sent in my finance application so I can pay for this adventure of mine. I been told they have a quick turn around so I should hear from them on Monday, Tuesday the latest. I also signed up for my second flying lesson which is going to be on Friday the 13th. I was told that it will be mostly ground school with maybe some flying time. It all depends on the weather. I was assign a CFI name Jim who is retired from the Airline industry with 25k+ hours under his built with about 400 hours of dual time. I am anxious to meet him and see what he can teach me. My next post should be that Friday night. See everybody then.

An interesting meeting!

I meet with the Chief Flight Instructor of DAS, dominion Aviation Services, and we went into detail about what is expected of me during my flight training and what to expect of my instructor. I am hoping to start flying lessons soon so I can be done before I leave. I have changed from once a week to twice a week so I don't forget things and also to get more flying in. After looking over the cost of doing this I am going to stick to the diamonds because first they have a great safety record and second they are cheaper to fly.