I’ve gotten a few more flights in and with passengers! There’s this book, Stick and Rudder, that I’ve been reading and taking notes from that has really helped me understand some basics of flying. The gyroscopic effect came up in ground school vaguely, but no instructor ever demonstrated it. Little subtle things like that have made a huge difference in how I feel the plane.
So I had a couple of willing passengers come up with me over the past couple weeks just to fly maneuvers with me.
Maneuvers after training
I swore to myself I’d start current on all of my maneuvers, so that I could pass another checkride anytime. That’s been… mostly true. After doing a few checkout flights and no instructor grabbing the controls, I feel confident that I know what I’m doing and can fly safely.
But how often do we really practice special takeoffs and landings? Or steep turns and stalls when no one’s looking? Still being nervous doing stalls is what pushed me to keep practicing them. Plus with some extra learnings from books, AOPA articles, and stuff from Sporty’s, I feel like I understand the theory behind the maneuvers more.
Like when you’re climbing the nose has a tendency to yaw to the right because of those gyroscopic effects from the propeller. The nose tends to go left when you descend due to the same effect. Or the fact that your throttle is your only altitude control, not the elevator. Once I read that, things made so much more sense.
A license to learn
My DPE told me after I passed that he’d just given me my license to learn. I knew what he meant, but starting to really feel the plane and understand why things are happening and what effects to expect from my inputs has been so much fun.
The struggled explanations some of my instructors gave have start to become a little clearer. Even the weather theory has become more integrated in my life. I catch myself saying, “There’s weather in those clouds” more than I like. You never stop learning how to be a better pilot and that’s part of the joy of flying.
(side note)
Remember when you learned to drive for the first time and it didn’t matter what you were doing? You were just happy to be able to drive by yourself. Remember when you started needing more of a reason to go somewhere other than cruising around? That’s where I’m at with flight training.
I see it’s time to start adding more challenges and going new places. It’s definitely starting to look like instrument training should happen soon and a few other things.
Having passengers is rewarding
When my friends and family ask to come up with me, there’s nothing more exciting. A lot of people haven’t been around planes this small before or to a GA airport so being able to show them a part of that world is another joy. Everybody loves taking pictures with the plane and watching the preflight and run-up checks.
They’re always a little apprehensive the first few times and it makes me respect flying even more. There are actually people who trust us with their lives, their kids’ lives. It’s given me a deeper confidence in my skills and the need to always stay on top of them. Taking people up is one of the best parts about flying.
Especially when they go through some of these basic maneuvers for the first time and enjoy it. The smiles after we land are worth it every time.
Aviation can be restorative
I’ve been reading a lot of books around aviation this year: Fate is the Hunter, Stick and Rudder, Skunkworks, Pilots Weather. There’s always so much passion in them. The autobiographical ones will make you wonder how we got here from how the original pilots had to fly. They were truly pioneers in every aspect of the word.
You can feel it come through their lives and the way they describe their experiences. Aviation is a world for the adventurous and restless. I haven’t met a pilot that’s lukewarm about aviation. We love this stuff. We’ll do what it takes just to go up for an hour. We spend a good amount of time with our minds in the clouds, waiting for the next time we can go back up.
This wasn’t a post flight at all. The maneuvers and special takeoffs and landings were great. My passenger wasn’t scared in the least by my power-on stalls and we actually got burgers afterwards. There were no real notes, unless I get nitpicky.