Lesson 2 - Basic Flight Maneuvers

After a day and a half of recovery from my first flight, I arrive at the airport once again. The first item on the agenda for the day is to preflight the aircraft. Last time my instructor went through the pre-flight and explained what he was doing while I followed along with the checklist and asked questions. This time he watched me as I did the preflight. One mistake I made was that I thought I had turned all the lights on the aircraft. As I walked around, because we were in bright sun, it was hard to tell whether or not the nav lights were on. When I got to the light in the tail, I covered it from the glare of the sun with my hand and saw that it was not lit. I explained this to my instructor and he pointed out that I did not turn the nav lights on. A quick glance in the cockpit confirmed that he was right. Well that was easily fixed and now even in the bright sun, I could tell that the lights were lit.

After some ground discussion about power, airspeed, altitude, and mixture for different phases of flight we climbed into the aircraft. My instructor asked if I wanted to work the radios at all that day and I said that I would prefer to focus on the flying for one more day and start worrying about ATC communication next time. With that I tuned the ATIS and wrote down the pertinent info. I then completed the before start checklist and the start checklist and got her fired up.

Similar to last time, I was in charge of taxiing out to the run-up area. I felt much more comfortable with the steering control this time. I still had a harder time turning to the right than the left which my instructor confirmed was due to some issue with the tailwheel. To compensate I used more toe brake when I needed to turn to that side. Once we got to the run-up area I went through the checklist for that and dialed in the tower frequency. We were cleared for takeoff and I steered us onto the runway where we performed a similar drill as last time on the takeoff. My instructor controlled the rudder and power and I took the stick.

We were a bit sloppy on the takeoff which was my fault, of course. First off, I was well aware that you need to hold the stick full aft on the takeoff until we established full power and the airspeed came alive, then I was to let off the stick which would bring the nose into a level attitude. Now, I always imagined in tailwheel airplanes that this would happen well ahead of rotation speed. However, rotation speed in this bird is around 50 MPH and so it doesn’t take long to get up to rotation speed. By the time the nose dropped down to a level attitude, we were already lifting off. Now, where it got sloppy is I wasn’t expecting it to lift off so quickly so I was holding more down elevator then needed and we skipped along the runway a little before I allowed it to leave the ground. This could have been easily remedied had I anticipated that we would reach rotation speed quickly in this light aircraft.

Second sloppy move on the takeoff was my instructor told me to follow the power lines to the bridge. I was doing that but I guess I didn’t realize that following them meant to be over them. I was to the right of them and we got a warning of other traffic from ATC that was coming down into the pattern from across the bay. Once that was corrected it was smooth sailing all the way up to our maneuvering altitude of 3,500 feet.

We went over the hills to the Half Moon Bay side where there was the typical afternoon fog bank sitting parallel to the coast. This was actually really nice because it served as a reference for our 180 and 360 degree maneuvers. We ran the whole gamut of maneuvers starting with changes in the flight regime. We trimmed for straight and level flight and then did climbs and descents using just the power. We also set up low speed cruise which is what you would do in the landing pattern. This consists of setting the engine to 2000 RPM and trimming for straight and level flight gives you around 80 MPH airspeed.

Next on the agenda was steep turns and these went pretty well. On the first one, I started off good but then you really need to drill in the back pressure on the stick to keep your altitude consistent through the turn. I caught this too late and so started to descend a bit. By the time I finished the turn we had lost 200 feet in altitude. Not good enough to pass the check ride but not too bad for a first try I suppose. We then did another in the other direction and this time I overcompensated on the stick and we gained 150 feet in altitude. The next couple saw me nailing them pretty much right on the head.

After steep turns we did power off and power on stalls. One mistake I made here was we started to fall to one side a little on the stalls and I tried to compensate with the ailerons instead of the rudder. The ailerons do not work well in slow flight so you need to use the rudder to stop the turn. We did it a couple more times and I found myself using both the stick and the rudder this time. My instructor even held the stick tight once and he could feel me fighting it. I guess bad habits from the simulator die hard. I did manage to get a few decent ones in though. We also tried stalls while in a turn in which I demonstrated better use of the rudder but now I was being too tentative in pulling the stick back. Also, I was a little slow on the recovery as I was supposed to increase power to full as soon as I felt the buffet and the nose drop whereas I was letting the nose drop to gain some speed and then applying power.

The last item of the day was slow flight. I reduced power to around 1700 RPM and pitched up until we hit 50 MPH. I then kept it at this speed while doing little turns. For the most part, this went relatively smooth. To get out of this attitude we add power and slowly lower the nose. I was slowly lowering the nose but I guess I was too slow as my instructor kept saying; “lower, lower, lower,” then he yanked it down. That is one thing I am still not quite used to in the Citabria. When you are in straight and level flight, you are actually looking at the ground a bit. That is, the pitch is much lower in the Citabria then any other aircraft I have flown in real life or in my simulator. So, I tend to pitch down to what would be straight and level in an Archer or in one of the planes in my sim and it is not enough in the Citabria. It also doesn’t help that the VSI in this old plane gets stuck around +200FPM. I noticed this on the last flight also. When we are trimmed at straight and level, it will often show we are climbing but the altimeter is not increasing at all.

Last item of every day is always the landing. I did the approach and turned to final and we lined up with the runway. The approach went really well, we came down right at the centerline and I pulled back to flare on the landing and then my instructor put full power and we went around. He said I was gripping the stick really tight and he couldn’t make corrections when I flared a little high so we went around. Next time I gripped it with two fingers only and we came in similar to last time only this time we landed on the ground. I taxied off the runway, did the after landing checklist, called ground and taxied back to the ramp.

After we shut down, I felt really good about the flight. My confidence level had come back up and I was starting to feel comfortable flying again. I did not feel overwhelmed this time and despite a few mistakes which I have highlighted, it was a very positive flight. My instructor congratulated me and said that he did not expect to get through all the maneuvers today but that I was doing really well on them so we breezed through it all.

Next lesson is on Thursday but we will just be doing some ground training so in my next blog, I would like to highlight the differences I have observed between flying in a simulator and flying in real life. That will be followed by my next flight on Saturday where, depending on the weather, we will either be doing turns around a point or emergency procedures. Stay tuned for more…

Lesson 1 - Intro to Flying

So, here I sit behind the stick of an airplane once again. It has been exactly 5 years since I was last in this position. However, this time I sit here with confidence and excitement about what is about to transpire. Perhaps it is because I am a bit older, or perhaps because I ended previously on a good note and I have had 5 years of flying Microsoft Flight Simulator in the comfort of my home to instill confidence in my flying ability.

I remember being nervous for my first flight 5 years ago. I didn’t sleep well the night before and was apprehensive to get in the plane and take off with a guy I had met an hour prior. I remember the first flight being better than I thought but I was intimidated by everything that was going on. I was at an unfamiliar airport, in an unfamiliar plane and heading to an unfamiliar place. After ten hours of behind the stick time, most of that had subsided and I began to feel pretty comfortable flying. I had done several landings and takeoffs by myself while my instructor sat with arms and legs crossed. Then September 11^th happened and by the time I could fly again, the company I worked for went under and I lost my job. I eventually found a new one but then we moved and bought a house and then had a baby so I was unable to resume my flight training until today, August 24, 2006.

As I said, I was sitting in the cockpit feeling confidant that this would go really well. The only non-positive thought that crossed my head was the unfamiliarity with this new beast I was sitting in. Previously, I had done all my flights in a Piper Archer. A plane my instructor likes to call a “sedan”. What I was now sitting in was a miniscule tailwheel plane called a Citabria. I couldn’t help but glance at the torn up seat and the wires and pushrods criss-crossing through the cabin. Not to mention a tiny amount of fuel that dripped onto the floor as you turned the fuel shutoff valve. Don’t get me wrong, this plane was in airworthy shape, I was just used to the “sedan” which hides all this from you.

Now why was I sitting in this little plane if I was not entirely comfortable with it? Well that is a good question. I had not even considered this plane until my new instructor brought it up. During our first meeting, he asked if I had any plane preferences and I answered right away that I wanted to do my training in the Archer. He asked me if I had considered the Citabria, and I hadn’t. His reasoning for choosing the Citabria is that flying a tailwheel is harder than a tricycle gear and that it will teach you to be a better flyer. You have to be especially proficient with using the rudder in a tailwheel plane and if you can master it, when you fly the bigger “sedans,” you will be a better skilled pilot. I saw his point but wasn’t convinced that this was necessarily the best route for everyone. After talking to some of my friends though and a few people who already had their pilot's license, they all agreed with the theory. So, I decided to give it a try.

Because of my prior experience, my instructor let me do things that he probably wouldn’t on someone’s first flight. Taxiing out and controlling the rudder is rather benign but then he had me take the stick for the takeoff. He controlled the steering on the take-off roll but told me when to let up on the back pressure to let the tail come off the ground and then at what speed to pull back. We established our Vy climb speed of 70 knots and a heading of 310 for noise abatement at the Palo Alto airport. Now the wind was about 13 knots which is not that much but in a little tiny plane, we were moving around a bit. Once we hit the Dumbarten bridge we turned left and leveled off at 2000 feet until we reached the Stanford stadium and then we climbed to 3000 ft. At this point he took control of the airplane and demonstrated how the plane can recover itself from disturbances to straight and level flight. He demonstrated by dropping the nose quickly which made my stomach fly out my mouth. Now, this is not something I would recommend doing to anyone who was flying for the first time or is leery about flying. Since I do not fit into any of those categories, I was surprised when I did not feel comfortable after we did that maneuver.

After we dove down a little he let go of the stick and the plane did its up and down oscillation until it became relatively steady in straight and level flight again. He then demonstrated the same thing with yaw and then with the roll axis, which consisted of some steep turns and a couple of hard banks back and forth. The difference in the roll axis is that the plane will not recover by itself, you must recover it. However, the plane will continue as it is in a shallow bank. Where you can get into trouble is if you are in a steep bank and then you have a stroke or something of that nature. If you do not correct the bank then it will precipitate into what is known as the spiral of death where the bank gets steeper and steeper until you do a spinning dive right into the ground.

After I performed a few turns we started heading back and pulled the throttle to 2000 RPM to start the descent. The controllers issued a few warnings about other aircraft which I am glad my instructor caught because I was not even paying attention to air traffic control. I was focusing on steering the plane, watching the instruments, and trying to remember to look outside the cockpit window. Then we started navigating the pattern, adjusting the descent, and watching our heading while talking to air traffic control and it was at that moment I said to myself, “Oh god, how are you ever going to keep track of all this and feel comfortable and safe doing it.” It was that similar feeling I felt on my first flight 5 years ago. My skills where better now than when I started before but I was still a long way from calling myself a pilot.

Anyway, to finish, my instructor told me to control the stick on the approach and landing so I focused on that but then he was telling me to point the nose into the crosswind which required the rudder so I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be controlling the rudder or not. The landing was fine but I instinctively went to the nose up attitude I was used to for a tricycle gear which is not high enough for a three point landing in a tailwheel so he kept telling me “pull back, pull back, pull back.” Taxiing to the ramp I was having a hard time getting the plane to turn to the right; I had to use a lot of brake. I was told it was because the wind was making it hard for us to turn, not to mention the tiny nose wheel doesn’t have as much steering authority as a nice tri gear.

All in all, the first flight was not entirely what I expected but I guess if they all went as expected then it would be boring. My next lesson is in two days and I am looking forward to the point where I feel very comfortable inside this little mosquito. Also, I will be flying a newer Citabria so that may help alleviate some of my apprehensions as well. Stay Tuned For More…