Stalling
Today was the long awaited Steep Turns lesson. We flew out of San Carlos (SQL) for the first time, which was a little different but not radically. We took off on runway 30 toward the north, which was an interesting pattern because SFO is not that far north of SQL. So, we started north, careful not to break 1500ft, careful not to turn left toward the hills too soon, lest we disturb the fine citizens of San Mateo, or too late, lest we enter SFO airspace and get shot down by military craft so fast we wouldn't even see them leaving as we plummet hundreds of feet to our fiery deaths.
So we turned left and headed for the hills directly over Bay Meadows Raceway, and climbed to 3500ft. The fog was coming over the hills -- I always thought the fog rolling over the hills in the afternoon was such a beautiful site as I drove along 280, but wow, the beauty of the exact same site FROM ABOVE, in a plane that I was flying.
N4849D, the Cessna 172 I was flying today, was a little different than the familiar N6521J at PAO -- not much, but a little. Older instruments, the radio talk button was in a different place, and most importantly, the sun shields were awesome! Big, huge tinted plastic sunshields that covered the entire window. So as I flew westward over the fog level and toward the hills, directly into the sun, naturally I completely forgot about these shields...
...but I digress. Once we got out over the Crystal Springs Reservoir, I demonstrated that I was still proficient with slow flight from last week. Kevin then showed me how to perform a steep turn -- a 360-degree turn at a bank of 45 degrees. 45 degrees is a heck of a lot more steep than it sounds like. It's amazing -- 180 degrees at that angle wouldn't be so hard, but about 240 degrees through it, you feel like you're going to fall right out of the sky.
It was a really cool feeling to do one of these turns myself! Bank to 30, start pulling back, add power as you keep banking on over to 45, and now, you're basically drawing a line along the horizon with the top of your head. Or, that's what it feels like -- if that were really true, it'd be a 90 degree bank and we'd be dead. In any case, I did really well on these turns. It's all about feel -- I didn't pay much attention to the panel at all, and wound up in a nice turn, and exited at almost just the right point! Amazing, the power of looking out the window.
So I did a few of these turns myself, though my right turns were considerably harder than the left (it's that left-turning tendency of the plane; helps you on the left turns, but you've gotta lay on the rudder for the right turns). I even discovered that on a well done 360, you wind up hitting your own turbulence. Kevin was happy enough with my progress that we moved on to the next unit.
Stalls.
Stalls are conceptually one of the scariest parts of learning to fly (beyond radio communications) -- you're in the air, and you have no lift. No lifty, no savy from no crashy. But, as Kevin puts it, it's just another maneuver, another pushing of the limits of the flying machine. So, he demonstrated a power off stall (which is not a stall with the power turned off, it's a stall that is prone to occurring during a landing) and a power on stall (prone to happen during take-off), and of course their respective recoveries.
The recovery is basically the same -- nose down, power full, pull back. On power on stalls, power is already full, so it's pretty much just get the angle of attack under control. Next lesson (Thursday) there will be more stalling, I'm sure.
With any luck, my snazzy new headset will have arrived by then!
So we turned left and headed for the hills directly over Bay Meadows Raceway, and climbed to 3500ft. The fog was coming over the hills -- I always thought the fog rolling over the hills in the afternoon was such a beautiful site as I drove along 280, but wow, the beauty of the exact same site FROM ABOVE, in a plane that I was flying.
N4849D, the Cessna 172 I was flying today, was a little different than the familiar N6521J at PAO -- not much, but a little. Older instruments, the radio talk button was in a different place, and most importantly, the sun shields were awesome! Big, huge tinted plastic sunshields that covered the entire window. So as I flew westward over the fog level and toward the hills, directly into the sun, naturally I completely forgot about these shields...
...but I digress. Once we got out over the Crystal Springs Reservoir, I demonstrated that I was still proficient with slow flight from last week. Kevin then showed me how to perform a steep turn -- a 360-degree turn at a bank of 45 degrees. 45 degrees is a heck of a lot more steep than it sounds like. It's amazing -- 180 degrees at that angle wouldn't be so hard, but about 240 degrees through it, you feel like you're going to fall right out of the sky.
It was a really cool feeling to do one of these turns myself! Bank to 30, start pulling back, add power as you keep banking on over to 45, and now, you're basically drawing a line along the horizon with the top of your head. Or, that's what it feels like -- if that were really true, it'd be a 90 degree bank and we'd be dead. In any case, I did really well on these turns. It's all about feel -- I didn't pay much attention to the panel at all, and wound up in a nice turn, and exited at almost just the right point! Amazing, the power of looking out the window.
So I did a few of these turns myself, though my right turns were considerably harder than the left (it's that left-turning tendency of the plane; helps you on the left turns, but you've gotta lay on the rudder for the right turns). I even discovered that on a well done 360, you wind up hitting your own turbulence. Kevin was happy enough with my progress that we moved on to the next unit.
Stalls.
Stalls are conceptually one of the scariest parts of learning to fly (beyond radio communications) -- you're in the air, and you have no lift. No lifty, no savy from no crashy. But, as Kevin puts it, it's just another maneuver, another pushing of the limits of the flying machine. So, he demonstrated a power off stall (which is not a stall with the power turned off, it's a stall that is prone to occurring during a landing) and a power on stall (prone to happen during take-off), and of course their respective recoveries.
The recovery is basically the same -- nose down, power full, pull back. On power on stalls, power is already full, so it's pretty much just get the angle of attack under control. Next lesson (Thursday) there will be more stalling, I'm sure.
With any luck, my snazzy new headset will have arrived by then!
posted by MKT at 10:09 PM
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