First Two Lessons

My first two flying lessons were incredible enough that I decided I really needed to write about them -- not so much to share my experiences, though that would be great, but more to solidify in my mind what is happening, because it's all so incredible and bizarre, and yet it feels so right.

I have wanted to fly for a long time, ever since I was 11 and my sister Shilpa was 14, and she decided she was into flying. I was at that age, that everything she thought was cool was definitely cool. So much of who I am is, I guess, about who she used to be. Funny, that. That probably had something to do with my choice to get a degree in aerospace engineering, too. Anyway, onward and upward..

You should know that I am changing the names of instructors, because at some point I may have to say something less than glowing about them, and since I'm still in the process, I don't want my fear of making a political mistake interrupt my ability to express myself.

So, about five years ago, I was at the website for the West Valley Flying Club here in the bay area, and as I browsed through the instructors, I found a familiar name, someone I knew from another part of my life. I was in a phase of life where I believed that coincidences were somehow meaningful, and since I'd been thinking about flying for such a long time, I called him up. We rented a plane, I don't remember what kind but probably the exact same thing I'm flying now (heck, it might be the exact same plane!).

We flew out of Palo Alto, did some simple turns, learned to locate other traffic, landed in Livermore and had lunch before flying back. Bill let me handle the takeoff (under heavy instruction, obviously) on the way back. It was a lot of fun, but...I just wasn't ready, and something about it just didn't feel right. I hadn't done a lot of research, I didn't know much about what I was getting into, it seemed like a huge commitment. So I let it go.

A few months ago, the bug came back, and bit me hard. I decided I was ready, and that there was no reason to not do it right now. I'm impulsive that way, I guess. But this time I did my research. I found an instructor who it looked like had a background I could relate to, someone with plenty of experience who expressed things in a way that was easy for me to hear and understand. I met with Kevin two weeks ago, and he went over the whole program with me. He encouraged me to talk to other instructors, so that I could make sure I got the right fit. Of course, that statement right there told me that he was probably the right fit. I did talk to a few more people, and tried to find another instructor profile on the website that looked interesting, but I couldn't. So, there it was.

The first lesson was like candy. We took off in a Cessna 172 (and as far as I know, we're going to stay with 172s since it's good to get used to one kind of aircraft when learning) with tail numbers 6521J, up from Palo Alto (PAO), made a left at the Dumbarton Bridge, and hung out between highways 280 and 35 and learned how to climb, descend, turn, and combine those maneuvers. Also, how to maintain an altitude and heading, and the most scary thing, how to talk to the tower. Communications seems like one of the hardest parts of this whole thing -- it's the least physical, and if you do it wrong, it can kill you. So, we started with Kevin telling me exactly what to say, and me repeating it to him and then saying it to the tower. I couldn't understand what the tower was saying back to me at all; I had to look at Kevin to repeat it to me before I could even understand the words, and even then, I had no idea what those words meant! All part of the process.

My second lesson was yesterday. I learned how to bring the plane into slow flight, perform maneuvers in slow flight without falling out of the sky, and bring the plane back into normal flight. We're basically learning about the limits of flying right now; this was all about how to handle the plane when you're about to stall. With flying, "stall" doesn't mean that you forget to press the clutch and the engine stops running. The engine is still running, the prop still turning, but because of the angle between the wing and the oncoming air ("angle of attack"), you have no lift. As far as I can tell, the point is to learn how to react when you're close to stall (which can happen at any speed), and the point of going slow is it's the most controllable and recoverable way to be in those conditions.

It was really interesting. The controls that ordinarily reacted very tautly were mushy. It felt like (and this is probably true) the gusts of wind had far more control over the attitude of the aircraft than I did with my puny controls. The stall warning went off many times -- aircraft are built with a slight twist in the wing, so that the part of the wing nearest the fuselage stalls first and the tips are still generating lift. Stall is detectable as there is a significant pressure drop at the front ("leading edge") of the wing when stall occurs ("the flow separates"). When the stall warning went off, my instinct was to push the nose of the plane down -- this makes sense, really, because stall (at least in this case) is a byproduct of an angle of attack that is too great. Lowering the nose means reducing this angle.

Part of what I'm learning now is the relationship between pitch (the front-to-back angle of the plane relative to the ground, which is intimately tied with lots of metal to the angle of attack) and airspeed (point the nose down, you go faster), and power ("thrust") and altitude. Car drivers are accustomed to thrust (gas) being related to velocity, but that's only because your altitude is held constant. In a plane, more thrust does generate more velocity, but lift (the upward force generated by the wings) increases as the SQUARE of velocity! So really, the dominating result of thrust is lift, which leads rather directly to more altitude.

Way too long. Next one will be shorter!