Look out guys, I'm back!

[SkyHog]

After trying for weeks to do it, I finally got my BFR done today. Went pretty smoothly (aside from forgetting what the altimeter is called), although it had a rough start.

I got to the airport about 1100, which was the time agreed upon. I walked into the flight school and met my instructor, and realized immediately that I forgot my logbook. No problem, we'll just have him sign it next time I'm there. I reach for my wallet to show my driver's license, and find out that I left my wallet at home (including my medical, Pilot Cert, and driver's license). Ugh.

Drive back 30 minutes to the house, and another 30 back to the airport, and we're ready to go. We start off with a little conversation about what stuff I know, and what I've done in the last couple of years I've been flying. We go over basic stuff ("Tell me what makes an airplane fly..." "Tell me about this airport") and all went well. Until:

CFI: Tell me what instruments are typically found in the 172 we'll be flying today
Me: Attitude Indicator, Airspeed Indicator, Directional Gyro, Vertical Speed Indicator, Turn Coordinator....ummm...ummm, I know there's another....
CFI: Its probably one of the most important ones...
Me: Yeah....ummm....there's 6, I know it....
CFI (Pointing to poster on wall): Which did you miss?
Me (slapping forehead): Altimeter....dammit.

I also pulled a dummy by reversing the definitions of P-Factor and Torque Effect (I made a video on it, I can't believe I mixed it up).

After 1.2 of ground, we went flying. Today, I flew a G1000 C172 because it was the only plane available. Pretty fancy stuff. We decided to not focus on the glass and focus on flying instead, and he just showed me the basic stuff to read from the panel.

It was OVC at 1700 over KAEG, but we figured we'd poke our heads up and see if we could find blue sky, and we sure did, about 28 miles west of Albuquerque. I nailed a steep turn (my most dreaded maneuver), and did a pretty smooth power off stall. Power on, I didn't really BREAK the stall as much as just kind of dropped the nose about 2 degrees and recovered, which he said he would have liked to have seen more abrupt.

We tried to go into KABQ so he could hear my radio work, but they turned us down. He was satisfied with my inital callups though, so we moved onto landings at KAEG. Normal landing went well, soft field went okay. My first short field I came in way too shallow, and while I hit the mark, I would have hit the imaginary 50 ft trees off the threshold for sure. I tried again, and combined with an aggressive slip (with full flaps, mind you, finally an instructor that isn't a total moron), and I nailed the short field.

One last pattern, and sure enough, he pulled power about 3/4s of the way downwind and made me do an emergency landing. I kind of blew it, thinking "Gotta turn now!" and turned way too early. Thankfully, the runway is super, super long, so we had enough, but had it been a 3000 or 4000ft runway, we'd have landed long.

Good stuff, though, 1.3 flight time logged, the first of 2008, and the first since 06/2007. I'm back!!

 

[markb5900]

But for the IMPORTANT stuff Nick.
Does that cute girl still work the counter???

Great job, glad you were able to get back in the air!

 

[tonycondon]

Power on, I didn't really BREAK the stall as much as just kind of dropped the nose about 2 degrees and recovered, which he said he would have liked to have seen more abrupt.

Id be interested to see which way resulted in the minimum loss of altitude. My bet is your way is better than his. I've found that most people "fear" of stalls is due to the way they are recovering. If you do a negative G pushover to "break" the stall you end up have a faceful of Dirt in the windscreen and lose a whole bunch of altitude. I am definitely a proponent of lower the nose a few degrees once you have detected the stall. enough to get the AoA back into the flying range, and climb away. For a power on stall in a 172 there should essentially be no altitude loss if you do it right.

Sounds like you had a good flight though Nick, welcome back!

 

[SkyHog]

But for the IMPORTANT stuff Nick.
Does that cute girl still work the counter???

Great job, glad you were able to get back in the air!

Nope She wasn't there today at least. There were two other girls there, but neither were much to look at.

 

[SkyHog]

Oh, and I took a picture today too. From my phone. It takes pretty good pictures!

 

[markb5900]

Nope She wasn't there today at least. There were two other girls there, but neither were much to look at.

OK,
I am not coming back to AEG then!!! That settles it. ROTFL

 

[KennyFlys]

Nick, Welcome back to the groove!

Id be interested to see which way resulted in the minimum loss of altitude. My bet is your way is better than his. I've found that most people "fear" of stalls is due to the way they are recovering. If you do a negative G pushover to "break" the stall you end up have a faceful of Dirt in the windscreen and lose a whole bunch of altitude. I am definitely a proponent of lower the nose a few degrees once you have detected the stall. enough to get the AoA back into the flying range, and climb away. For a power on stall in a 172 there should essentially be no altitude loss if you do it right.

I'm sure all instructors see it and some even teach it.

I don't know where it got started you need to "push the nose over" in order to recover. As you said, it just results in a view of the ground in your windscreen then you have to recover from that with another potential stall (secondary). The phrase I've tried to stick with is, "Reduce the angle of attack." which does not sound as significant as "push the nose over." and certainly represents the desired effect.

As a side-note, my CFI DPE was telling me when he still instructed, he had a student who was a bit anxious to the word 'stall', so he'd tell them... "Let's go perform a 'loss of lift' maneuver."

 

[RossFischer]

Looks like an iPhone picture? The reason I notice is the funny looking prop. My friend has one and it did the same thing.

Welcome back! Isn't it fun!?

 

[KennyFlys]

Looks like an iPhone picture? The reason I notice is the funny looking prop. My friend has one and it did the same thing.

The same thing happens when I use my Treo for forward views through the prop.

 

[t0r0nad0]

good for you, Nick. Great write-up!

 

[HPNFlyGirl]

Nice.

 

[tonycondon]

I don't know where it got started you need to "push the nose over" in order to recover. As you said, it just results in a view of the ground in your windscreen then you have to recover from that with another potential stall (secondary). The phrase I've tried to stick with is, "Reduce the angle of attack." which does not sound as significant as "push the nose over." and certainly represents the desired effect.

exactly. I've found that most students who say they are afraid or anxious about stalls are in fact afraid of stall recoveries because of the way they were taught.