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Old 16th Feb 2014, 05:56
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Aphrican
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: British Columbia / California
Age: 63
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If we are honest with ourselves, I think that we have all had moments in our training / early experience where we have been a bit afraid even if we are not scared of flying.

I have had five so far in my 2 and a bit years of flying : my first solo flight into controlled airspace, my first full spin in a Citabria (with an instructor), chopping power from 100% to 50% while turning from crosswind to base in a Cirrus to maintain a reasonable speed in the pattern full of 172s etc (with an instructor but it just feels unnatural), testing eTAWS by aiming at a mountain (with an instructor) and the appropriately named Rocks2 VFR departure out of KVGT.

I found that 3 hours of "gentleman's aero" work in a Citabria (very steep turns, quick stall recovery, spins, loops and rolls while learning what the rudder is actually there for) helped me a lot with fast but smooth manipulation of the controls to the "stops".

I would highly recommend some "gentleman's aero" in an aerobatic taildragger in the first 100 hours or so for everyone.
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