Toby
Cleared for Takeoff
I just got back from yet another session in spins -- 1.1 hrs. I am just shot. This is probably the most intense training I've had since I did my first cross countries.
We're moving now from my instructor coaching me each step of the way to my telling him out loud what I'm doing while I'm doing it. That's no easy task. It is hard to think, observe, react, and speak all at once. It is the ultimate multitasking, but I would want to be able to do that if I were in an emergency situation. I have a checklist to go through, but there's no actual checklist -- none that I can hold in my hand in that airplane, anyway.
The first 3 or 4 went much better than last time. I can get in, and I can get out. I am losing around 700 feet each time. I don't know what the goal is, but he tells me that's a respectable number.
When I began talking them through, the first one started out fine until I had to kick the rudder in to start the spin, and my leg just froze even though I was telling it what to do. So no spin. The next few times I got mixed up because I had to say "one-half, three-quarters," then start the recovery. Just saying the numbers and being able to grasp how far around the spin I had gotten was a monumental task. It screwed everything else up. I was saying all sorts of numeric gobbledygook -- and I forgot to let go of the stick. Not good.
Then one time I did something really bad. I didn't even realize I was doing it. I was trying so hard to count to three-quarters of a turn, and not succeeding, that I pushed the stick forward and got us into an accelerated spin. We must have gone around a couple times really fast. The bad thing about it was -- actually, two bad things -- was that first of all I didn't realize I pushed the stick forward, and second, I didn't even feel us spinning faster. It looked and felt like a regular spin to me. This is how far I still have to go with my situational awareness. Even though I have the shoreline on one side of me and the Atlantic Ocean on the other, my senses are just not absorbing (yet) where I am in the turning process.
I'm hoping this skill will develop with time. Right now I'm just so glad that I am breathing more or less regularly throughout the process. And talking out loud! I never thought I'd ever be able to do that. Next time we should be able to get to right rudder spins, and maybe inverted.
We're moving now from my instructor coaching me each step of the way to my telling him out loud what I'm doing while I'm doing it. That's no easy task. It is hard to think, observe, react, and speak all at once. It is the ultimate multitasking, but I would want to be able to do that if I were in an emergency situation. I have a checklist to go through, but there's no actual checklist -- none that I can hold in my hand in that airplane, anyway.
The first 3 or 4 went much better than last time. I can get in, and I can get out. I am losing around 700 feet each time. I don't know what the goal is, but he tells me that's a respectable number.
When I began talking them through, the first one started out fine until I had to kick the rudder in to start the spin, and my leg just froze even though I was telling it what to do. So no spin. The next few times I got mixed up because I had to say "one-half, three-quarters," then start the recovery. Just saying the numbers and being able to grasp how far around the spin I had gotten was a monumental task. It screwed everything else up. I was saying all sorts of numeric gobbledygook -- and I forgot to let go of the stick. Not good.
Then one time I did something really bad. I didn't even realize I was doing it. I was trying so hard to count to three-quarters of a turn, and not succeeding, that I pushed the stick forward and got us into an accelerated spin. We must have gone around a couple times really fast. The bad thing about it was -- actually, two bad things -- was that first of all I didn't realize I pushed the stick forward, and second, I didn't even feel us spinning faster. It looked and felt like a regular spin to me. This is how far I still have to go with my situational awareness. Even though I have the shoreline on one side of me and the Atlantic Ocean on the other, my senses are just not absorbing (yet) where I am in the turning process.
I'm hoping this skill will develop with time. Right now I'm just so glad that I am breathing more or less regularly throughout the process. And talking out loud! I never thought I'd ever be able to do that. Next time we should be able to get to right rudder spins, and maybe inverted.