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…