4.5 hours in one day

[Ted]

Well, today was a gorgeous day for flying so I decided to take advantage of it. My instructor had a friend who needed a ride from IPT to ERI to pick up his Piper that had just been repaired from a prop strike. Seemed like a good reason to me to burn AvGas, so up we went in the 172. For the trip there we more just wanted to get there, so we used the GPS and just followed it at 4500, since there was the least headwind. On the way back we flew at 5500, and got a nice tailwind following the VORs the way home. While up there, we went around for a few touch-and-gos in the Piper, so I got to ride back seat in another plane.

The trip was uneventful overall. The ceilings were getting a little low and there was a question of whether or not we'd have to turn around, but about halfway home it cleared up completely.

That was 3.1 hours of flying time. My flight planning for 10 gallons per hour worked out well, seeing as we consumed 28 gallons of fuel total, including our taxiing and takeoffs.

After we landed, my instructor had to go to another lesson, so I decided to take advantage of the good weather and fly around. I did an hour and a half of flying around. Turns about a point, 45 degree turns, stalls, and slow flight to start the practice time. I'm comfortable practicing approach to landing stalls with and without flaps, but not power on stalls so I didn't attempt any of those. I need to do some more with my instructor and build up confidence on them. After that, a bunch of touch-and-gos.

The total time in the log book is 4.5 hours for today, bringing the total time in my log book to 20.4 hours. Tomorrow should be more of the same, but I intend on looking through and figuring out a more structured use of my practice time. I want to work on getting various maneuvers more refined, but I hit saturation if I do the same maneuvers for too long. That said, just flying around in circles is still fun.

 

[rottydaddy]

Good show, and by all means get some power-on stall practice in the Skyhawk. Slow down a bit first, then cob it and try to put your feet on the horizon. There's nothing to the recovery, if your feet are awake.

 

[Ted]

Good show, and by all means get some power-on stall practice in the Skyhawk. Slow down a bit first, then cob it and try to put your feet on the horizon. There's nothing to the recovery, if your feet are awake.

I've probably done a dozen or so power on stalls with my instructor, but it's been a few weeks since we last did them, and I need to build up more confidence with them. On probably my 4th one I managed to put the plane into a spin. I also managed to get it OUT of that spin (I haven't had any of those "MY PLANE!" moments yet ), but that situation scared me a bit.

I know in my head that I could do them and I would be fine, because other than putting the plane into a spin they've had successful recoveries. But that is also one of the things I pay my instructor for - to help me build confidence in areas in which I need it. I can comfortably fly the 172 at 40-45 kts with flaps up, though, without losing my heading or altitude. Slow flight is fun!

For me I prefer to build up (yes, this still goes in-hand with my desire for a twin ). My first unsupervised solo I just stayed in the pattern and did touch-and-gos. This was my second unsupervised solo, so I went out and did some more maneuvers, but only those with which I was very comfortable and it was more of a refresher. Tomorrow morning I should have time for some more before we do our cross country, and I've written out a plan of what I want to do during that practice time. What I did today (and I think will work for me in the future) was went out, practiced my maneuvers around the practice area, and then came in for a bunch of touch-and-gos until I got sick of them, then landed. If I do the same thing too much I just get saturated, so by varying things a bit I think I make best use of my AvGas burning.

 

[Ghery]

Make sure your instructor has you do power on stalls in a turn, as well. Mine didn't and the first time I did one was when the DPE asked for one. She didn't specify a direction of turn and I knew the 172 tended to drop the left wing if you weren't careful, so I turned right, let the wing drop to level in the stall and caught it with the rudder as I recovered. For a first experience with the event it went well (I passed).

 

[Ted]

Thanks for the advice, Ghery. I will make sure he does those with me. We've only down power on and power off stalls (power off being with and without flaps). Although my slow flight is very good (according to him). I suppose I believe it is at least acceptable seeing as I can maintain heading while flying the plane with the stall warning buzzing like crazy.

I think we probably aren't going to visit maneuvers like that again until it gets closer to the time for me to take my check ride. For the moment, I think he wants to get my cross countries done. Then it will be heavy into doing stalls, turns, emergency landings, etc. We practiced all of them before I soloed and got me comfortable with them, and he was satisfied with my ability to perform them safely, if not perfectly. At that point I think he viewed it as more important to work further on other refinement issues, and then revisit those after I had some more hours of experience. Plus now I can go and practice what I'm comfortable with solo, which helps.

Sunday was another 3.8 hours, so 8.3 hours between the two days. The hours sure build up when you start cross countries. Maybe with practice I'll be able to see the airports when I'm more closer than right on top of them...