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| Flight 2: Straight & Level Flying | |||
| Without boring you with the details, Kate talked me into going ahead with the flight training. So after all the years of building model airplanes I'm ready to take the plunge - well, not literally I hope. Me, a pilot?? How surreal. | |||
| The following weekend after my trial flight I went back to Barton and signed up. Had an hour's ground school, got a log book and a Cessna 150/152 Check List. Tony outlines the syllabus: 5 hours of ground school, a 2 day radio-telephony course, multiple choice exams on Aviation Law, Navigation, Meteorology, Radio-Telephony, Human Performance & Limitations, Aircraft Performance & Aircraft Technical - 7 exams in total, and a minimum of 45 hours flight time. 1 down, 44 more flying hours to go to qualify for the Class 2 Private Pilot's License. Yeehaa! Now the real fun begins.... | |||
| Saturday, February 18th. My first practical lesson is of course the all important pre-flight walkaround. Checklist and key to the aircraft in hand and wearing my shiny new yellow safety vest, an airfield requirement, I grab the ladder and trudge off through the mud feeling at the same time pride at being elevated to the ranks of the elite and unabashedly self-concious at the thought that it must be painfully obvious to all around me that I'm a complete neophyte. Ah well, even Chuck Yeager was a rookie once I tell myself. Nah, who am I kidding? People like Chuck were never rookies. | |||
| The walkaround goes as well as you would expect it to when you're examining an airplane that's probably at least as old as I am. I console myself with the knowledge that it's probably had better maintenance than I've had. Seats back, inspect seat belts. Well they look okay. Switches off, key out, radio & nav aids off. Okee dokee. Turn on master switch. So far so good. Check Hobbs reading. Errr.... no idea. Ignore that. Fuel cock on, check contents. Alrighty. I later learn that Cessna 150 fuel gauges are notoriously unreliable, which is always nice to know. Check rotating beacon & pitot heat. Ahhh... the model building is paying off already. I know what a pitot is and even what it looks like! What's more I even manage to find the switch to turn on the pitot heat. Select flaps fully down. Well, they work. Master switch off, pitot heat off, beacon on. Off, off and on. First aid kit & fire extinguisher in position. Yep. Certificate of Maintenance valid (checked before I left the office), weight & balance checked. Don't know how to check the latter two so I'll just have to take their word for it at this point. | |||
| Port side, check undercarriage. Hmmm, let's see. There's a wheel and it has a tire, that's a good sign. The tire isn't flat - another positive sign. Tire creep? Nope, the red marks on the wheel and tire are still nicely lined up. Hydraulic brake leads & disc brake look okay. On to the wing. Flap hinge points and linkage. Yep, it's got 'em. The flap actuator I note is a disturbingly thin metal rod. Best not to dwell on that thought. Aileron hinge points & mass balances. Yes. Wing surface, upper & lower. Well it's got the usual dents and undulations that pretty much every airplane has and the leading edge has a fine collection of dead bugs so that looks to be in order. Wing tip & navigation light. Yep, there they are. Wing leading edge condition (see "dead bugs" above). Fine. Fuel vent. Yep. Stall warner. Yep. Pitot head. Didn't we do this already? Never mind, it's still there. Strut, condition & security. Hmm, well.... it seems pretty straight and it's connected to the wing on one end and the fuselage on the other. Good enough for me. Up on the ladder, visually check fuel contents. Harken back to my teenage years working at Chilliwack Airport when I used to fuel these things up. By golly, there's fuel in them thar tanks all right. And on it goes: nose wheel, cowling, static vent, windscreen, propellor, oil cooler, oil contents, cowling on the other side, other wing/aileron/flap/strut/landing gear, rear fuselage skin, stabiliser/elevator, fin/rudder, rotating beacon, rear nav light, other side of rear fuselage, antennas and back to the cockpit where we started. Sounds like a lot but doesn't take too long really, though of course an experienced pilot doesn't have to keep looking at his checklist every twenty seconds like I do. | |||
| We climb in, start up and off we go. Tony lets me do the takeoff again which is fine by me, I need all the practice I can get. Today's lesson will be straight and level flight. How hard could that be? Surprisingly it's a bit more difficult than I had thought. Tony gives a quick demonstration. It looks pretty straightforward (no pun intended) but then, he's got 22 years experience - if he can't fly straight and level by now then there's no hope for me. He then demonstrates flying on the edge of the stall. Flying at 40 mph with the nose high in the air and the stall warning buzzing in our ears it's a rather unnnerving experience, like the aircraft is about to drop out from under us at any moment, which is pretty much the case. | |||
| Back to cruise power we head towards the coast and it's my turn to take the controls now. I quickly realise that it's a bit of a balancing act and that every control input has a reaction somewhere else which requires an additional control input to correct. Pulling back on the control column slows the aircraft which requires more power to correct. Conversely, adding power pitches the nose up which needs down elevator to keep the aircraft level and a bit of rudder to counteract the yaw. Trimming to reduce the control forces is nowhere near as easy as it looks. My straight and level flight is about as straight and level as the slalom course at the Winter Olympics. Nonetheless, when the lesson nears the end I'm starting to feel a bit more comfortable with it and though I still find it difficult to stay level and remain on course (I can do one or the other but not both at the same time!) my flying is beginning to look less like a drunken rocking horse than it did in the beginning. Back on the ground I'm wondering if 45 hours flight time will be enough for me to get my license. All I can do is try.... | |||
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