Starting PPL Training

[tangopapa]

Don't wait until you have your certificate. Later in your training you'll want to get some crosswind landing training and practice. The funny thing it, once you get halfway good at it, it becomes fun. Maybe not for my passengers (wife), but it is for me. And it has been handy, too.

I agree 100%. I've been itching to get out in some crosswinds since my solo. Hoping to get out with my CFI this weekend...

 

[jpower]

Providence (or Steve's equisite flight planning, I don't know which) had us directly over a nice straight road and some silos, so I'm sure you can guess what was next. Steve demonstrated an S-turn around the road, which I then managed to do a reasonable job at through the first half of the S and the early part of the second half. I ended up over-banking the latter part of the second half of the S, so I straightened out a little before the road.

A dirty rotten trick that my instructor showed me for S-turns is to put the wingtip on the road. If you keep it on the road, you'll have perfect S-turns. It still takes some finesse, but it works like a charm once you get the hang of it.

 

[livitup]

A few tips for this:
If there is a heading bug on the DG, set this to the runway heading before you take the runway. Keep the bug centered as you climb out.

I'm sure I'm being dense, but isn't this the root of my problem? I don't have a bug, but I tried to maintain runway heading on the DG, and I think I kept pretty close. The problem was the crosswind pushing us sideways.

If no heading bug, select something far in the distance that is inline with the runway heading. A hill, tree, cloud, something. Fly toward that.

This, I think will work.

Look for features alongside the runway (hangars, taxiways, roads, etc). As you climbout, don't cross over those where they disappear underneath you, nor let them 'get too far away from you'.

This sounds really plausible, especially since I can't see a whole lot out the font anyway during the first bit of the takeoff climb... Looking out the side will give me something to do.

Interested on your thoughts on the first one.

 

[livitup]

An easy tip is to put the line under your right foot. And don't watch the line, be looking up ahead where you want to be and "drive" to there. If you look too close, you'll wander a bit too much.

The rest of the lesson sounds like it went well. It's normal for you to be approaching an information saturation point at this stage. With more repetitions and practice, the nearly overwhelmed feeling dissappates pretty quickly.

Awesome tip, thanks!

A dirty rotten trick that my instructor showed me for S-turns is to put the wingtip on the road. If you keep it on the road, you'll have perfect S-turns. It still takes some finesse, but it works like a charm once you get the hang of it.

I got that tip, and it was working well until the turn got away from me at the end. But how do you know when to start the turn after crossing the road?

 

[Ateaist]

Wow - that was quite a "real" first lesson for you - makes me feel nostalgic for the one I had a long three months ago...

You don't need to correct for every little bump and attitude change. Correct the big ones, but the little ones will even themselves out. You need to make small, incremental adujstments. You're pulling the yoke all the way back to correct a five foot drop from turbulence. You're constantly chasing an altitude or heading, and you're never landing on it.

Yup, pretty much what my CFI said to me. This goes away really quick as your CFI gets you busy with the GPS, maps, radio and finding emergency landing spots...there is just not enough time to play with the controls anymore.

On our downwind I was supposed to cut power to 1500 and add a notch of flaps when we were abeam the numbers, but I screwed that up too... I pushed the throttle in, instead of pulling out, and then when I pulled out the throttle, I did so rather meekly, and I didn't hold the flaps button long enough (the 1965 172 has a flaps in/out toggle, not the stepper switch with detents in later planes).

Been there and done that. If your CFI is a touch 'n go kind of guy, you'll have the pattern work squared down in no time. Make sure you get some runs at a towered airport as well - there's nothing like trying to do the pattern and playing with the controls while talking to the tower and trying to establish visual contact with the three guys ahead of you...

I still have to work on the landing sight picture. I always feel like we are dangerously low during the last 100 feet or so. If it were up to me, I'd land half way down the 5000 foot runway... I'm just so afraid of putting it in the grass. But I guess it's not up to me.

Look down the runway, not straight down the cowling, and let your peripheral vision gague the altitude...it took me 25 bordeline suicidal landings to get to that aha! moment...

 

[jpower]

I got that tip, and it was working well until the turn got away from me at the end. But how do you know when to start the turn after crossing the road?

In theory, you should be continuously turning so that when you cross the road, your wings are instantaneously level, but you're already rolling into your next turn.

My problem was always that I'd start my turns too aggressively and end up getting way too close to the road. This went away with practice, of course, but it's something to be aware of.

 

[livitup]

It's been a while since I updated this thread - I've just been too busy to get on the computer much, but I have taken a couple flight lessons since the last update. Here's a brief write up of the next one.

2/11/2013
We went up for an hour today, intending to practice most of the same stuff, trying to get better at it. I took off, and managed to track the centerline fairly well before I exited the pattern. There was quite a bit of turbulence between the surface and 1500, so we climbed up to 4500 and did some slow flight and stalls. I'm getting more used to stalls. My brain knows the physics of a stall, and I know how to recover from one, but the physical sensation of the G-force during the stall break, and the fear of a spin are still preventing me from really feeling comfortable with stalls. I guess I'm afraid that I'm going to (accidentally) do something that kills us. After flight, Steve briefed me on spins and told me that the only way to get into a spin is if the airplane stalls while uncoordinated. Keep one eye on the ball during the stall entry and break, use the rudders as needed, and you'll never stall. That helped.

After about 45 minutes of slow flight and stall practice, we swung back towards the airport and set up for a touch-and-go. I still don't feel like I'm comfortable enough to control the plane during landing. The sight picture scares me. We look way too low during the descent. I realize this is something I just have to get over, through practice. We did one touch-and-go, and then looped through the pattern and did a full stop, then taxied back to the hangar and put the plane away.

Things I'm really good at: preflight, taxi, take off, radio work, level flight (once established)
Things I think I'm decent at: turns, power and flap adjustments, sight picture
Things I really need to work on: stalls, pattern work (turns, speed, altitude, descent rate, etc.), landing
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Today's Hours: 0.9
Total Hours: 3.1

 

[livitup]

2/13/2013
The weather was not looking good today; about 30 minutes before the lesson I shot a text message over to Steve and asked if we could still go. Ceiling was about 4000 and drizzle was coming and going. Visibility was decent (around 5SM), but it just didn't seem like much of a day worth flying. After the last lesson, we had talked about taking a short trip to the next airport over (about 20NM away), just to get out of the pattern, on our next flight. We wouldn't be able to do that today, so I was a little blah about the whole idea. But Steve was already at the airport and he said to come on down, so I did.

Rather than going to the other airport, we did an hour of touch and goes. But before we left, I asked Steve to go through the whole pattern on the white board, so I could write down the power settings and flap settings at each point in the pattern. Previously, Steve had been teaching me this while we were actually in the pattern, and that's not the best learning environnment for me to commit numbers to memory. So we "flew"
the whole pattern on the ground, and I thought I had it.

Preflight, taxi, and runup were uneventful as usual. I took off and did a good job tracking the runway centerline to the first turn. I made the turn, and continued down to mid-field, and from there things just clicked. I can't even begin to explain the aircraft zen state that I was in. The 20 minutes of reviewing it on the ground made all the difference. I had the power and flap settings down cold, I was making the turns at the right points, and by the end of the day I was even able to judge if we were too high or low and fix the power settings appropriatley.

I still haven't done a full landing by myself; Steve has been keeping his hands on the yoke through our landings, but I think I'm close. One thing that I have to fix is that I've got the idea in my head that I need to bang the rudder around a lot on landing. I have the muscle memory of lots of right rudder when we are on the runway, in order to counter the turning tendancy of full power during takeoff. My foot instinctivley jams the right rudder when we land, and I need to knock that off. But I'm making progress, for sure!
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Today's Hours: 0.9
Total Hours: 4.0
Today's Landings: 8

 

[livitup]

I had lessons scheduled for 2/18 and 2/20, but I had to cancel them both as I was sick. We scheduled a make-up session for Friday the 22nd, but the weather was crap and we called it off. Today is CAVU, 3 knot winds, and just the most perfect day for flying, so I'm really looking forward to today's lesson!

 

[Corpsmaide]

Awesome awesome...keep it up!

 

[saracelica]

Sounds like your doing good. Not sure about Steve but my CFI always had his hands "available" to save every landing I was doing...just in case. I guess he likes the plane and didn't want us to crash into the ground Eventually he crossed his arms on base but said "he'd save it if he has too"

 

[AggieMike88]

The 20 minutes of reviewing it on the ground made all the difference.

Good job!

Different folks learn in different ways. Often being shown a visual representation of what to do where/when is a great foundation to actually doing it. Good on you to ask for it and good on CFI Steve to draw it out for you.

Keep at it. And be sure to take advantage of crosswind conditions where possible. Today's action is a great foundation, but you need to be ready for when the wind is gonna mess with both your latter downwind and base legs and what is needed to manage that.

Keep up the good work!

 

[livitup]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Here's today's entry, and Saracelia, it speaks somewhat to your point...

2/25/2013
After being grounded for 1 week due to the flu, and another day due to weather, I finally got back in the air today. We did an hour of touch and goes, 7 touch and goes and 2 full stop landings. I'm getting better, but I'm still way overcontrolling during the takeoff roll. I don't have this problem when I'm taking off from a full stop, it's only on touch and goes. I swerve around until Steve puts an end to it and gets us centered about 2 seconds before takeoff. I did manage about 6 of the takeoffs as nice coordinated climbs straight down the extended center line. Steve says I have a good eye for the right amount of power to add or remove during final, it's just keeping the plane on the centerline and correcting for wind gusts that I need to work on. And we will. At the end of the lesson I said, "I guess we just keep doing this until you do less and less of it, and I do more and more of it." "Pretty much," Steve replied, "But I don't think you realize how much of it you were doing today." Interesting...
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Today's Hours 1.0
Total Hours: 5.0

 

[jpower]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Here's today's entry, and Saracelia, it speaks somewhat to your point...

2/25/2013
After being grounded for 1 week due to the flu, and another day due to weather, I finally got back in the air today. We did an hour of touch and goes, 7 touch and goes and 2 full stop landings. I'm getting better, but I'm still way overcontrolling during the takeoff roll. I don't have this problem when I'm taking off from a full stop, it's only on touch and goes. I swerve around until Steve puts an end to it and gets us centered about 2 seconds before takeoff. I did manage about 6 of the takeoffs as nice coordinated climbs straight down the extended center line. Steve says I have a good eye for the right amount of power to add or remove during final, it's just keeping the plane on the centerline and correcting for wind gusts that I need to work on. And we will. At the end of the lesson I said, "I guess we just keep doing this until you do less and less of it, and I do more and more of it." "Pretty much," Steve replied, "But I don't think you realize how much of it you were doing today." Interesting...
---
Today's Hours 1.0
Total Hours: 5.0

One thing that you should make sure is that you don't take off until you're ready and you feel you have everything under control. I don't know how long your runway is, but I think you should keep it rolling until you feel comfortable with the situation. Don't try to land and take off all in one maneuver. Land the plane, get it rolling down the runway, reconfigure, then go for takeoff.

Granted, I'm not a CFI, so feel free to wait until someone says I'm not stupid.