steamee
Pre-takeoff checklist
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- Jun 1, 2009
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Steamee
Yesterday I flew a Super Decathalon with the intent on doing a variety of stalls and ultimately spin recovery. I had been meaning to do this for a while just as a emergency preparation thing. I figured it would be the difference between reading about changing the tire on your car if you had a flat and actually having practiced it.
This was the first time I'd ever flown anything besides a C172 since primary training. The 8KCAB was unbelievably responsive comparably and I really enjoyed the stick and throttle arrangement. It has been my only tail wheel experience as well. Taking off by pulling back first and then letting go and then pulling back again was another strange sensation. I kept thinking how easy we have it now with the tricycle gear during training.
I spent a good 5 minutes or so enroute to the practice area totally over controlling including a rather jittery take off. A little bit of stick and rudder goes a long way in this thing. Speaking of which, flying the Decathalon was a revealing lesson on just how good my basic coordinated flying skills were. They weren't. BUT, it was very easy for me to feel unlike in the C172. It was just as well since there's no skid/slip indicator (or HSI or attitude indicator)! I really wish I had did time in this during primary flight training to practice coordinated turns as I had always had a hard time feeling the skid/slip sensation unless it was very obvious in the 172. With the feedback the Decathalon gave I was really able to get the yaw adjustments made going straight by feel.
We went into power off/on stalls, steep turns, and accelerated stall turns. I only made it through 2 of the latter though before the heat and motion got the better of me. My instructor wisely called it after about 45 minutes and we headed back to land. I actually got queasier enroute home having nothing to do but cruise and having the cabin heat build up from all the sun. I missed my chance to get a tailwheel landing in since I had my instructor take over on final. Just as well since I think I would have only been able to do that landing in an emergency by the time the wheels touched down.
Things got a bit better taxiing back to the hangar and although we didn't end up doing half the stuff we set out to do it was still an awesome experience. Unfortunately, it'll be harder to do more lessons in that since our primary aerobatic instructor's last day was today. Hopefully, someone else will fill the slot soon and I'll get another shot at it.
But if nothing else, I learned that I still need to keep practicing more on my basic stalls and airmanship skills. Jumping in a different type plane really helped. My biggest lesson seemed to be that I'm over controlling the plane in the stall. I can really trust it to want to fly in most cases. Suffering a bit of discomfort to really spend some time at a dusty corner of the flight envelope I think was worth it. Now my only problem is that I want to fly that Decathalon more!
This was the first time I'd ever flown anything besides a C172 since primary training. The 8KCAB was unbelievably responsive comparably and I really enjoyed the stick and throttle arrangement. It has been my only tail wheel experience as well. Taking off by pulling back first and then letting go and then pulling back again was another strange sensation. I kept thinking how easy we have it now with the tricycle gear during training.
I spent a good 5 minutes or so enroute to the practice area totally over controlling including a rather jittery take off. A little bit of stick and rudder goes a long way in this thing. Speaking of which, flying the Decathalon was a revealing lesson on just how good my basic coordinated flying skills were. They weren't. BUT, it was very easy for me to feel unlike in the C172. It was just as well since there's no skid/slip indicator (or HSI or attitude indicator)! I really wish I had did time in this during primary flight training to practice coordinated turns as I had always had a hard time feeling the skid/slip sensation unless it was very obvious in the 172. With the feedback the Decathalon gave I was really able to get the yaw adjustments made going straight by feel.
We went into power off/on stalls, steep turns, and accelerated stall turns. I only made it through 2 of the latter though before the heat and motion got the better of me. My instructor wisely called it after about 45 minutes and we headed back to land. I actually got queasier enroute home having nothing to do but cruise and having the cabin heat build up from all the sun. I missed my chance to get a tailwheel landing in since I had my instructor take over on final. Just as well since I think I would have only been able to do that landing in an emergency by the time the wheels touched down.
Things got a bit better taxiing back to the hangar and although we didn't end up doing half the stuff we set out to do it was still an awesome experience. Unfortunately, it'll be harder to do more lessons in that since our primary aerobatic instructor's last day was today. Hopefully, someone else will fill the slot soon and I'll get another shot at it.
But if nothing else, I learned that I still need to keep practicing more on my basic stalls and airmanship skills. Jumping in a different type plane really helped. My biggest lesson seemed to be that I'm over controlling the plane in the stall. I can really trust it to want to fly in most cases. Suffering a bit of discomfort to really spend some time at a dusty corner of the flight envelope I think was worth it. Now my only problem is that I want to fly that Decathalon more!
