Toby
Cleared for Takeoff
I got to my lesson today expecting to do more spins (we haven't done all the different kinds yet), and instead my instructor started out by telling me that he'd decided to go back to competing. He had competed for several years and gotten up to Advanced, but then he stopped. The whole aerobatics crowd at my airport used to go to competitions together, but they stopped when people's schedules and demands on their time changed.
Anyway, his next sentence to me was that -- if I was interested -- he thought I could be ready to compete in the Basic category by the end of the summer. There's a competition up in Vermont the last week in August, and all the guys were thinking about going. I could fly up with them for 2-3 days, get to practice in the box, and then he'd fly with me as safety pilot for the competition. He then told me to think about it for a few minutes while he went and did something else. I already knew what I wanted to do!
Not a hard decision. In fact, I immediately called my daughter in Montreal and told her I'd have to take her back to college on the Monday after the competition, instead of during that weekend, as we had planned. Hehehe. She was fine with it. She said, go Mom!
There are some other competitions coming up in the next couple months that we might all go to, but I'll just go to watch and see how it's done and meet all the other nutty people who love to do this stuff.
This changed our whole agenda -- for the rest of the spring and summer. It gave me a concrete goal, for a change, instead of just this open-ended syllabus. I like that. Being involved in a kind of aviation for which there are no ratings or endorsements or even standards for basic maneuvers gets frustrating. Getting ready for a competition is different. There are very strict performance standards, specific maneuvers to learn, and a date by which time you have to be ready.
So today we went up and did competition turns. To do this, I have to learn to make clean, crisp entries and exits. Everything has to be on the correct heading, and I can't lose or gain altitude. The mantra I was taught was Bank - Stop - Turn - Stop - Bank. We basically did the first two steps, Bank and Stop, over and over and over again. "Bank" means roll to at least 60 degrees of bank. "Stop" means stick forward, top rudder. I kept doing the stop in a wishy-washy way. I am so used to making gentle, gradual turns that it takes a very conscious effort and a very assertive input on both the stick and rudder to make it happen crisply. I'm not too good at it! I gave myself a C- for today, and that was for persistence.
As usual, I can do it much better to the left than to the right. When I do the stop to the right, I roll lazily out over the ocean....not good. It also seems harder for me to put in the left rudder pedal assertively and to leave it there. For some reason I keep taking it out without meaning to.
Another difficulty is moving the stick exactly to the left or to the right. Because of the way our arm is attached to our body, the tendency is to swing the stick towards the body when moving it to the left, and away from the body when moving it to the right. He tells me to think of it as being on a track, and it can only move in that track.
We did the turning part four or five times, too. It's a LOT of fun, as you're way over on your side just pulling like crazy. I definitely had enough with an hour of this today, as we were constantly pulling between 3 and 4 G's.
On Saturday it's supposed to rain all day, but I'm going out to the hangar to sit in the airplane and go through the moves. That will be good practice, even if I'm on the ground.
On a side note, I started lifting weights a few weeks ago. Will this help me withstand the G forces better? Those Blue Angels guys do it, so I figured it couldn't hurt.
Wish me luck, you guys! Basic, here I come!
Anyway, his next sentence to me was that -- if I was interested -- he thought I could be ready to compete in the Basic category by the end of the summer. There's a competition up in Vermont the last week in August, and all the guys were thinking about going. I could fly up with them for 2-3 days, get to practice in the box, and then he'd fly with me as safety pilot for the competition. He then told me to think about it for a few minutes while he went and did something else. I already knew what I wanted to do!
Not a hard decision. In fact, I immediately called my daughter in Montreal and told her I'd have to take her back to college on the Monday after the competition, instead of during that weekend, as we had planned. Hehehe. She was fine with it. She said, go Mom! There are some other competitions coming up in the next couple months that we might all go to, but I'll just go to watch and see how it's done and meet all the other nutty people who love to do this stuff.
This changed our whole agenda -- for the rest of the spring and summer. It gave me a concrete goal, for a change, instead of just this open-ended syllabus. I like that. Being involved in a kind of aviation for which there are no ratings or endorsements or even standards for basic maneuvers gets frustrating. Getting ready for a competition is different. There are very strict performance standards, specific maneuvers to learn, and a date by which time you have to be ready.
So today we went up and did competition turns. To do this, I have to learn to make clean, crisp entries and exits. Everything has to be on the correct heading, and I can't lose or gain altitude. The mantra I was taught was Bank - Stop - Turn - Stop - Bank. We basically did the first two steps, Bank and Stop, over and over and over again. "Bank" means roll to at least 60 degrees of bank. "Stop" means stick forward, top rudder. I kept doing the stop in a wishy-washy way. I am so used to making gentle, gradual turns that it takes a very conscious effort and a very assertive input on both the stick and rudder to make it happen crisply. I'm not too good at it! I gave myself a C- for today, and that was for persistence.
As usual, I can do it much better to the left than to the right. When I do the stop to the right, I roll lazily out over the ocean....not good. It also seems harder for me to put in the left rudder pedal assertively and to leave it there. For some reason I keep taking it out without meaning to.
Another difficulty is moving the stick exactly to the left or to the right. Because of the way our arm is attached to our body, the tendency is to swing the stick towards the body when moving it to the left, and away from the body when moving it to the right. He tells me to think of it as being on a track, and it can only move in that track.
We did the turning part four or five times, too. It's a LOT of fun, as you're way over on your side just pulling like crazy. I definitely had enough with an hour of this today, as we were constantly pulling between 3 and 4 G's.
On Saturday it's supposed to rain all day, but I'm going out to the hangar to sit in the airplane and go through the moves. That will be good practice, even if I'm on the ground.
On a side note, I started lifting weights a few weeks ago. Will this help me withstand the G forces better? Those Blue Angels guys do it, so I figured it couldn't hurt.
Wish me luck, you guys! Basic, here I come!
