Grounded Pilot

I’m a little slow at writing this update, but two Saturdays ago I was doing the last of my initial introduction to air work. We practiced stalls, spins, as well as flight for range and endurance. We were going to do spiral dives, but after doing three stalls and two spins are started to get pretty sick, and even threw up. I’m not really disappointed at myself for getting sick and having to end the flight early, as I was able to accomplish a lot this lesson, a lot more than I did when we did steep turns. So I’m getting more endurance when it comes to air sickness.

Some thoughts on stalls. One thing I learned was that when your speeds starts to slow down and you approach the stall, you really have to pull back on the controls pretty hard to get the plane to stall. Also, it’s good advice to release the back pressure on the controls very slowly, otherwise you’ll be looking at the ground.

As for spins, they weren’t that bad, and we only did partial spins meaning I wasn’t looking completely at the ground. I believe with partial spins, we recovered earlier during the incipient stage.

My next lesson should be interesting. I’m going to be starting circuits. My instructor says that this is when most students start to really get “into it,” as circuits are what the majority of flying is about.

Last Friday was lesson number three.

It started off alright. We talked about range and endurance during the preparatory ground instruction we talked about range and endurance, slow flight, stalls and steep turns. We tried to check the weather on the school computer, but Firefox was being unresponsive (the computer was running out of virtual memory, and needed a reboot to fix itself, or perhaps more RAM). I did the pre flight inspection, which involved me nervously inspecting the plane while I told my instructor what I was doing.  Ever have that feeling where you’re trying to pretend you know what you’re doing while someone is evaluating you?

So I proceeded to to start the engine, we called the tower for taxi clearance–I recognized the controller’s voice. We taxied to charlie where I did the run-up. There was a higher than normal drop in RPM when we did the magneto test, as well the engine sounded a bit rough, so there was likely some spark plug fouling happening. We fixed this by running the engine at 1700 for a few minutes. Afterwards, when we did the magneto test again the drop in RPM was only 100. Later, we got clearance and took off.

I did the climb, and when instructed proceeded with the crosswind turn. We maintained heading until we crossed the new expressway, at which point we followed it out to the Kakabeka practice area. As we were climbing there were a couple of clouds in our path, so I had to make a few adjustments in heading to avoid them. It never ceases amaze me that I’m up in the air sitting in this vehicle trying to dodge clouds; it really is a special kind of privilege. Once we were at the desired altitude of 4,000 feet, I spotted traffic at twelve o’clock. My instructor didn’t see it at first, as it was flying behind some fog, but she later spotted it and we made a right turn to avoid it.

Now with the traffic out of the way, we started to practice some turns. I did a few 30 degree turns, left and right. The right turn was the most difficult since as the pilot you’re sitting at the high part of the plane. The left turn was much easier–perhaps this is why left circuits are more commonly flown at airports.  Then my instructor proceeded to demonstrate steep turns at 45 degrees of bank, and it was at this point that I started to get very sick. I think it was the added G forces or load factor from the steep turn that was making me very sick. I felt pretty light headed and at a certain part of the turn things were almost starting to appear bright white. I told my instructor I was starting to feel sick and we took a little bit of a break, but I still felt pretty nauseous and had to end the lesson early.

It’s strange that the steep turns bothered me so much. I have no problems at all with turbulence, which there was quite a bit of since it was a warm and sunny day, but for some reason the extra Gs and the centrifugal force of the steep turns seems to make me pretty light headed. It was pretty discouraging that there’s this little obstacle to overcome in my flight training–I almost felt like quitting–but at least I can try again, and try again several times.  I was pretty tired after this lesson and took a three hour nap. I’m not sure if I was tired from waking up early, or if I was tired because of the nausea from the G forces–either way it was a good nap and I felt better afterwards. I booked my next lesson for this Friday, and this time it will be in the afternoon so I’ll be better rested.

We’ll see how it goes the second time around. Perhaps if I expose myself to enough of them my body will get use to it.

Last Friday I was finally able to complete my very first flight. It went very well, and wasn’t that bad. Occasionally, I felt a bit nauseous from the quick altitude changes, but other than that it was good.

Flying behind the controls of a small plane was an entirely new experience; almost like being in a magical Disney movie. It starts off feeling like you’re driving a car to the runway (yes I know ‘taxing’ is the correct term, but I’m using a metaphor here). Then suddenly you start speeding as fast as you can down the runway and seconds later your car begins to fly and everything below you starts getting smaller and smaller.  Then when you are up in the air and you take over the controls, you realize you’re in a whole new world.  I say you’re in a new world because unlike flying commercially you’re able to see the whole horizon, but more importantly, you’re in control.

So I have decided to pursue training. I seem to be able to handle flying without getting too sick. I’m not sure about spin training, but I guess the only way to find out if you can handle it is to do it. Training is pretty costly, but at present time I am probably in the best situation to be able to pay for it.

This early in the training it’s easy to get anxious about everything you need to know and learn. Will I be able to handle the radios while making carb ice isn’t forming, while doing the other what now seems like million other things?  We’ll see how that feeling changes as training progresses.