Introduction
Thread Starter
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 66
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From: Kent UK
Introduction
Howdy folks.
I have been lurking around this forum for a month or so, and thought I would take the plunge and introduce myself. I am a PPL student taking my lessons from Headcorn airfield. I fly a 172 because I am pushing 6'7" and it was the only available aircraft that seemed to work for me when I went for my initial 'fitting' . I completed my 7th hour this afternoon, with some climbing and descending turns. I am really enjoying the experience so far, and I think my lessons are going pretty well, I do seem suffer from a condition which causes me to neglect rudder control though. It feels like there are so many things to concentrate on that the rudder gets a little neglected. After every lesson I spend the next few days hearing my instructor's voice... "More right rudder, MORE RIGHT RUDDER!" . I wonder if this is a common problem for students at my level. I assume it all becomes second nature at some point (much like learning to drive a car, where learning starts with a complicated array of different actions, and reaches a point where you just hop in and 'go somewhere').
I also passed my second exam today. Human performance. I passed Airlaw a few weeks ago. With scores of 93% and 95% I am pretty happy with my results, although I do wish I hadn't missed that single question on my exam today, for some reason when calculating time to a collision at specific distances and speeds I decimalized our time system and somehow concluded that there were 100 seconds in a minute
. Exam pressure I guess. I can't imagine I will spend a great deal of time in the cockpit calculating the exact time before I hit the oncoming aircraft though. I would think getting the out of the way would be my first priority. If I feel like calculating what my life expectancy was to the nearest second, I will do it from the safety of the bar thank you very much 
.
Tomorrow I am off to Biggin for the airshow, but soon I will begin studying for my next exam (met) and preparing myself for my next lesson.... the dreaded stalls! My instructor tells me that technically slow flight is next in the syllabus but he said that most of his students spend most of their slow flight lesson worrying about stalling, so he prefers to cover stalling first to remove the anxiety and concentrate on the details of slow flight. This seems very wise. I feel that I am lucky to have such an experienced instructor. He even demonstrated a stall to me today so that I would have some idea of what to expect on our next lesson. It didn't seem anywhere near as dramatic as I had feared, but he did say that his example was a 'gentle one'! Actually, now that I think about it, this statement may have diminished the effect of his demonstration somewhat. I guess I just have to wait and see. I am sure I will cope.
So thats my story. Please allow me to apologise in advance for all the silly questions I am bound to ask .
I have been lurking around this forum for a month or so, and thought I would take the plunge and introduce myself. I am a PPL student taking my lessons from Headcorn airfield. I fly a 172 because I am pushing 6'7" and it was the only available aircraft that seemed to work for me when I went for my initial 'fitting' . I completed my 7th hour this afternoon, with some climbing and descending turns. I am really enjoying the experience so far, and I think my lessons are going pretty well, I do seem suffer from a condition which causes me to neglect rudder control though. It feels like there are so many things to concentrate on that the rudder gets a little neglected. After every lesson I spend the next few days hearing my instructor's voice... "More right rudder, MORE RIGHT RUDDER!" . I wonder if this is a common problem for students at my level. I assume it all becomes second nature at some point (much like learning to drive a car, where learning starts with a complicated array of different actions, and reaches a point where you just hop in and 'go somewhere').
I also passed my second exam today. Human performance. I passed Airlaw a few weeks ago. With scores of 93% and 95% I am pretty happy with my results, although I do wish I hadn't missed that single question on my exam today, for some reason when calculating time to a collision at specific distances and speeds I decimalized our time system and somehow concluded that there were 100 seconds in a minute
. Exam pressure I guess. I can't imagine I will spend a great deal of time in the cockpit calculating the exact time before I hit the oncoming aircraft though. I would think getting the out of the way would be my first priority. If I feel like calculating what my life expectancy was to the nearest second, I will do it from the safety of the bar thank you very much .Tomorrow I am off to Biggin for the airshow, but soon I will begin studying for my next exam (met) and preparing myself for my next lesson.... the dreaded stalls! My instructor tells me that technically slow flight is next in the syllabus but he said that most of his students spend most of their slow flight lesson worrying about stalling, so he prefers to cover stalling first to remove the anxiety and concentrate on the details of slow flight. This seems very wise. I feel that I am lucky to have such an experienced instructor. He even demonstrated a stall to me today so that I would have some idea of what to expect on our next lesson. It didn't seem anywhere near as dramatic as I had feared, but he did say that his example was a 'gentle one'! Actually, now that I think about it, this statement may have diminished the effect of his demonstration somewhat. I guess I just have to wait and see. I am sure I will cope.
So thats my story. Please allow me to apologise in advance for all the silly questions I am bound to ask .
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 235
Likes: 3
From: Down South, preferably inverted
After every lesson I spend the next few days hearing my instructor's voice... "More right rudder, MORE RIGHT RUDDER!" .
Missed a bit of flying lately......
Lesson yesterday...... and my instructor saying "Imagine your right foot is attached to the throttle by a string...You push it forward...your right foot goes with it....."
I assume it all becomes second nature at some point
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 4,598
Likes: 0
From: Amsterdam
Well, I just had my first serious aerobatics lesson yesterday and I can tell you - right rudder still require concious thought.
Don't dread stalls. For your PPL you only need to be able to recognise them in a few likely scenarios, and show the correct recovery when a straight and level stall happens. When an instructor wants me to demo a full stall, I know he mostly wants to see that I detected the stall and corrected accordingly. So I conciously say outloud the stall signs as I recognise them:
- Stall warner
- Yoke in my stomach (against the chest in a Cessna)
- Buffet
- Aircraft "seeking" its direction, correcting with rudder
- Stall, possibly with wingdrop
- Correct by unloading the elevator, add power
If you know what's coming, it's indeed a non-event.
Also, you need to remember that at the end of the day, a stall is not something you need to *do*, but need to *avoid*. In a normal flight from A to B, the only time you may expect the stall warner to go off is right at the end of the holdoff, just before your wheels kiss the tarmac.
Don't dread stalls. For your PPL you only need to be able to recognise them in a few likely scenarios, and show the correct recovery when a straight and level stall happens. When an instructor wants me to demo a full stall, I know he mostly wants to see that I detected the stall and corrected accordingly. So I conciously say outloud the stall signs as I recognise them:
- Stall warner
- Yoke in my stomach (against the chest in a Cessna)
- Buffet
- Aircraft "seeking" its direction, correcting with rudder
- Stall, possibly with wingdrop
- Correct by unloading the elevator, add power
If you know what's coming, it's indeed a non-event.
Also, you need to remember that at the end of the day, a stall is not something you need to *do*, but need to *avoid*. In a normal flight from A to B, the only time you may expect the stall warner to go off is right at the end of the holdoff, just before your wheels kiss the tarmac.
