I messed up with this one but I”m posting it anyway. It's damn long sportin 20 minutes of footage but it's windy as hell so there are parts that are hard to hear… or actualy. annoying to listen to.
BUT
In this video I demonstrate a full pre-flight walkaround. another beautiful takeoff. a re-fuel & taxi back to the hangar. This video definately covers quite a bit about flying the little Cessna 150M trainer.
I love it.!. Big thanks to Zippy for recording it =)
Here is another flight session. This one is a bit longer at 9.minutes. 33megs. This time I got some ground commentary, a takeoff, more ground commentary, and I cap it off with a shot from the air describing most of the gauges.
This video is .wmv since I had some complaints about the simple mpg1 I was using cuz it doesn't stream well. If my video encoder supported quicktime better I'd do that but quicktime chokes on what it spits out. meh.
Also, if you take the time to watch this then you should go over to Zippy's blog & check out her new vlog 'bout her dog Ruckus!
My last training session was quite interesting. I learned S turns and compensating for wind, *traffic paterns, banked take-off stalls, and was told that I can imitate anything flawlessly.
Leroy - “If I do it wrong, he does it wrong. So I have to be sure to show him right the first time becuase thats exactly how he's going to do it. He's learning how but I can't tell if he understands why.”
Practicing S Turns for Traffic Paterns
This is to learn how to compensate for the wind so your good at traffic patterns and can 'feel' and 'predict' whats going on and where your plane is going. Ever played a first person shooter online? Know what lag is? Same shit here, the wind is the level of lag. If you need to bank 90 degrees to the left to hit the landing strip and the wind is behind you, you will have to bank lightly ahead of time and let the wind (lag) push you. You should be able to set your bank & let the wind push you all the way up to your at your destination which is probably perfectly lined with the landing strip. Open the throttle back up, abort your landing, climb & do it again. Practicing the same thing we fly low over a straight road with a heavy crosswind and try and make S turns and be perfectly perpendicular with the road every time we fly over it. It's a pain in the ass.
Banked Take-Off Stalls
These were interesting and new. At take-off your supposed to get some air then bank out of the way. When you bank & climb to much for the engine to keep pulling you through the air the most interesting thing happens. In a normal banked stall the wing highest in the air (bank left, right wing is highest & vice versa) will fall out of the air without warning. It's realy quick & the plane just snaps over and starts cascading to the ground. It wasn't hard to pickup on recovering from. Whats more so interesting is if your holding the plane in the banked position rather than doing it right and setting the position & letting the plane do it's thing something entirely different happens. When you maintain pulling back and turning the wheel so the flaps are holding your bank when you stall you'll start to spin. It's a trick or stunt. I didn't get to try that myself, the instructor did it though. It was the most exilirating thing we've done so far. The plane is pulling up with a 15' bank and then suddenly instead of falling the other way we violently fell INTO our bank which flipped the plane over n' tried to throw us into a spin. Startled me a little since we were pretty close to the ground but nothin to crazy.
Lastly, I had to perform an emergency landing after the engine stalled out. Of course it was just a training exercise but if I ever have to go down into a field, I'm going to shit myself. I didn't do to bad a job except for getting kinda scared when we were comming down over the trees & power lines. I felt like we were getting close to the ground and my instructor just went on explaining “we want to fall in right over these trees. but don't hit em. We want to hit the far trees at 20knots.. not these close ones at 65knots” Shortly after we aborted the landing and took off again. It's
I want to capture these training sessions so I'm going to see if my instructor will let me clamp a camera in the cockpit somewhere behind us so I can have little clips of things like the Banked take-off stalls or powered stalls, whatever you wanna call em. I got an audio recorder cleared but that doesn't do the visuals very well. lol.
*Traffic patterns are paterns you are supposed to follow when flying over air ports so you can land, wait, & takeoff while not wrecking into others.
I’ll be flying again tonight. I didn’t get any time in since my last post because the instructor and I were hoping for clear skies if we let a couple days go by. My first two sessions have been during light overcast conditions. I have yet to see the actual horizon while flying. There has also been a little wind but nothing serious. We get tossed around a little bit during takeoff. I do have to say though that today will be the murkiest day yet. I called to make sure the lessons were still on. Come to find out that another student is booked right before me which sets my time back so I’ll be flying at dusk in medium overcast weather. Are they skies permanently gray?
It’s a good thing
In my personal opinion (which is generally not 100% informed) I believe that focusing almost strictly on using the instruments to fly is a really good thing. It’s supposed to be a higher achievement to be instrument rated which means you can essentially fly blind until just before touching ground. Right now it seems a little daunting to maintain flight using the instruments while watching all around you since air traffic has no ‘lanes’ to stay in.
At this point we are only flying within a 4 miles radius of the airport, which means we will hear traffic reports from other pilots as they prepare for entry into the airport airspace. This is good because half the time I still don’t look where I’m going. That sounds dumb but as long as I’m 1,700 feet in the air and the radio isn’t blaring I know there is nothing within a 7-mile radius of me. I’m not sure what anyone does when they actually see each other before talking. Most of these planes don’t have radars even though most of them have squeaker things to make themselves look huge on radar if they cross someone watching. Flying with limited visibility just feels weird since anyone can be anywhere without any notice.
Here's Paul (left) and Leroy Cook (right), my flight instructor, destroying some plastic packing on a broom infront of the plane I would be flying.
I took a few pictures from the air. Flying is realy easy. There's a lot to think about but planes realy fly themself. Atleast this little thing did. Theres a few settings here and there to adjust to make sure it's doing what it's supposed to but I had no probs flying & snapping a few pics. lol. (with an instructor.
Everything is sexy from up there. I was awe struck by the view so I was glad I had such an awsome instructor. This guy was one of the coolest people I've ever met.
This is the plane I'll be flying solo & taking wherever I'm curious to fly. Having the wings below should be a crazy seashift. Can't wait.
My last comment: My next flight lesson is tommarow.
Powered by WordPress
