EdFred
Taxi to Parking
Finally got a semi-decent day here. No rain, not a lot of wind, at least not like the last two days where the wind was a-screamin'. Dad and I were both in the office, and so I got what I needed to be done early and we headed out to Hastings to give him his first lesson.
Not a whole heck of a lot to cover in the ground. Just covered AROW, IMSAFE, and checklist usage. Finally, I don't have to do a preflight!!!! I just got to watch, and pointed out what to look for on the plane. Pulled the plane out of the hangar, and we climbed in. Went through the whole startup checklist routine, and then fired it up. There's only about 40 hours on the engine, and it cranked up real easy. Then the fun stuff began.
You know how you tell someone that you need to do something a certain way, but it never takes the first time? Taxiing. He's been reading up for months on systems and everything, so I just reminded him that the rudders turn the plane, and we even talked about the inteerconnect on the Pipers that tie the nosegear and rudder together. We start drifting left and I see the yoke turn right. Doh! That's not the rudder. We got the rudder pedals working for a bit, and we started going left again, and the yoke now looks like Mark Martin's steering wheel at Bristol. Ok, I will hold the yoke, you only worry about the rudders. We got it straighted out (no pun intended) by the time we reached the compass rose where we did the run up. And then I reminded him that he will need MORE right rudder than that on take off.
No PTT on my side, so he got to jump right into radio work, even though there was a hand mic I could have used. Take off went well, even with the 13kt crosswind, and we climbed up to 2500ft from 12 and headed straight out. After we leveled off and I got him using the trim correctly, we did some turns. Somewhere around standard rate, and altitude was held to commercial standards most of the time. Up to 3000 feet, and some more turns, a bit steeper now, both to the left and right, 90, 180, and 360 degree turns at altitudes of 025 030 and 035.
"Uh, where's the airport?"
I think we've all had that when up for the first time. Not to worry, its about 12 west of where we are. So point us west, and lets go back. I picked up the hand mic and made the calls for Hastings while he flew the plane in a series of stepdowns that I gave him back to the airport. I had him fly downwind, base, and the turn to final which he rolled out really well on. But at 1/2 mile out I took the controls because I don't think anyone should be landing in a 13kt crosswind on lesson #1. Taxiing back to the hangar was much better and we went through the post flight check list.
We did a wrap up, talked about the flight for a couple minutes, and I made my first logbook entry in someone else's book.
Not a whole heck of a lot to cover in the ground. Just covered AROW, IMSAFE, and checklist usage. Finally, I don't have to do a preflight!!!! I just got to watch, and pointed out what to look for on the plane. Pulled the plane out of the hangar, and we climbed in. Went through the whole startup checklist routine, and then fired it up. There's only about 40 hours on the engine, and it cranked up real easy. Then the fun stuff began.
You know how you tell someone that you need to do something a certain way, but it never takes the first time? Taxiing. He's been reading up for months on systems and everything, so I just reminded him that the rudders turn the plane, and we even talked about the inteerconnect on the Pipers that tie the nosegear and rudder together. We start drifting left and I see the yoke turn right. Doh! That's not the rudder. We got the rudder pedals working for a bit, and we started going left again, and the yoke now looks like Mark Martin's steering wheel at Bristol. Ok, I will hold the yoke, you only worry about the rudders. We got it straighted out (no pun intended) by the time we reached the compass rose where we did the run up. And then I reminded him that he will need MORE right rudder than that on take off.
No PTT on my side, so he got to jump right into radio work, even though there was a hand mic I could have used. Take off went well, even with the 13kt crosswind, and we climbed up to 2500ft from 12 and headed straight out. After we leveled off and I got him using the trim correctly, we did some turns. Somewhere around standard rate, and altitude was held to commercial standards most of the time. Up to 3000 feet, and some more turns, a bit steeper now, both to the left and right, 90, 180, and 360 degree turns at altitudes of 025 030 and 035.
"Uh, where's the airport?"
I think we've all had that when up for the first time. Not to worry, its about 12 west of where we are. So point us west, and lets go back. I picked up the hand mic and made the calls for Hastings while he flew the plane in a series of stepdowns that I gave him back to the airport. I had him fly downwind, base, and the turn to final which he rolled out really well on. But at 1/2 mile out I took the controls because I don't think anyone should be landing in a 13kt crosswind on lesson #1. Taxiing back to the hangar was much better and we went through the post flight check list.
We did a wrap up, talked about the flight for a couple minutes, and I made my first logbook entry in someone else's book.
