First REAL Lesson

I meet my new instructor at the airport Saturday at 8:00a.m. A large man with a very friendly attitude named Lance. I get to be lucky enough to fly a Cessna 172N. OK, minor refresher course over P-factor, and engine torque, and how they effect turning tendencies of the aircraft in flight at high angles of attack. Preflight, let's go. I'm still not running the radios as this is a freaky kind of dialect I just haven't learned about yet. We head out to the South East practice area. Mind you ,I haven't yet learned that aircraft will not fall out of the sky if you chop the throttle. Lance looks at me and says, "Gimmie 25 degrees of flaps and fly at 60 knots." OK second notch of flaps, and 60 knots. My controls are getting mushy and I'm really having to use a lot of rudder input. "Now, gimme full flaps and 50 knots." Hell, He's a CFI, he knows a lot more about this than I do. Full flaps, 50 knots. "Turn to this heading, turn to that heading." OK so far, so good. "Now, I want you to pull the throttle to idle, and maintain your altitude". Excuse me? Did he just say idle? "We are going to do a power off stall." I just met this guy and he hates me so much, he's trying to kill me on our first lesson? "Wait for the break, Wait for the break. Full Throttle! Flaps 25" I just did my first stall! It turns out to be rather anti-climatic. OK, so we work on a little more slow flight and call it a day. While flying back to the airport, we talk a little about the lesson and how I had seen first hand about the aerodynamic factors that keep an airplane in the air. I got to fly the pattern all the way to final, learning my power settings and flap extensions. on final, Lance tells me to draw an imaginary cross on the windscreen and aim it for the numbers on the runway. Lance takes over to land about two hundred feet out. Good gosh, this guy can land smooth. We had a quick debrief. Next lesson would be starting maneuvers. Whoo Hoo! Steep turns, this is how I'm gonna make a living!

First Flight

Fast Forward, next Saturday. First Saturday in April. I get my intro flight. I was pretty damned excited and showed up an hour early. The CFI I was going with today shows up, and him and I go into his office. He asks how far into my training I was, and I told him I had done ground and passed my written. He asked if I had my medical. "I got my second class before I ever started anything, just to make sure I wasn't going to throw money away" He replies "Smart choice, Lets go fly" We walk out onto the flight line. "There's our plane" came from Josh. I walk up to this little Piper Cherokee 180 that is bright yellow. (this will work) He hands me the checklist and we go over it piecemeal. I start with the preflight, do the walk around inspection, and check off all the items on the list. Josh adds a few things for me to look for that aren't on the checklist, but will give you a good piece of mind. We climb in the plane and run down the engine start checks. "Clear Prop!" The little Lycoming rattles itself to life. (I just started my first airplane). Proceed to the checks after the engine start. Josh handles all the radio calls as I know nothing at this point. We get our taxi clearance and go out to the run up area. I go through the run up and pretakeoff check list. Everything is in the green. Josh then calls the tower for takeoff. "Cherokee niner four Juliette, cleared for takeoff, runway three fife left, turn left on course." "Lets go!" Josh is getting exited, he says he loves intro flights as he gets to go have fun for a while. "You have the plane" I pull out onto the runway, line up on center line, and nail it! Things are happening way fast at this point. All the sudden, The road noise from the gear is gone. I'm flying a fucking airplane!!!! We get 1,000 feet above the ground and do our climb checklist. Josh shows me how to trim the airplane and starts explaining the systems, and basically how to fly the damn thing. We just flew around the city for a while and did some sight seeing. It was a truly euphoric experience, to say the least. There was a few clouds, nothing too bad, the approach comes on the radio to advise us of an Airbus that was practicing instrument approaches was close to us. We adjust our course, and I get to watch the Airbus come out of the clouds. (wow, that thing is big). After flying around for a little over an hour, Josh calls approach so we can come home. Josh took care of the landing, and we go back to the hanger. After my drive home that evening, I felt that there was no one that could stop me, I'm bulletproof, I fear no evil, for I am the baddest mother fucker to walk the face of the earth. I have 1.7 hours in my logbook, and the world is mine. Little did I know...

Wow

A lot has happened since I last wrote. After finishing ground school in March and making a 90 on my written, I was ready to start flying. So I thought. My flight instructor and I scheduled for Saturday morning. Well, He calls at 9 o'clock Friday saying the plane was in for maintenance, and we would go up next Saturday. OK sounds like a plan. Well next Friday evening, he calls again, and proceeds to tell me of a buddy of his that died in Louisiana, and he was flying out Saturday for the funeral. OK, things are not going as they should here, folks. I get up Saturday and decide to drive by his house. He is outside, working in the yard!!! Rather than stop and kill him, right then and there, I go ahead and go to another (the only other flight school) and talk to the head CFI. He tells me to be out next Saturday morning for my intro flight and hands me a school application. In the meantime, I decide to do some digging on my old CFI. It turns out, he isn't even a CFI!!! He is only a ground instructor!!! I was told, during this time of his senior CFI, who turned out to be a completely fictitious person(I'm getting madder, the farther I read)