Lesson 4 - What. Are. You. DOING???

Feeling pretty good about the previous lesson, and having a better (albeit not “firm”) grasp of checklists, etc., I was looking forward to this lesson. More slow flight operations, which I enjoyed the last time up and hoped to be able to hone my skills. That struck me as something that if I could master, I’d feel better about my ability to confidently control the airplane. And that’s the goal, right?



Clear prop! Throttle open just a little bit—about ¼”. Turn the key to start. Once it catches, let go of the key and advance the mixture to keep the engine running. Throttle to 1000 rpm. Avionics on. Lights on. Set radios. Check brakes. We’re ready to get going to run-up.

I’ll start off by saying that for the first time, I felt good about my taxiing skills. I could make the airplane go where I wanted it to, even if I’m still not 100% sure if I’m right over the yellow line or not. Having said that, my take-off wasn’t near as nice as I had hoped. Perhaps it was because I felt a bit rushed because I had to get onto the runway and up in the air fairly quickly due to traffic. I think I probably wasn’t 100% lined up with the center of the runway, and not sure of my foot placement to control the rudder pedals. My instructor and I seemed to be in a bit of a battle over rudder control for a bit before we got things straightened out and got airborne. But that was just the start of things. Remember earlier when I wrote about bad habits being hard to break? Well, yeah. About those, specifically flying by instruments instead of what’s outside the window. More specifically, trying to maintain a constant rate of climb by watching the Vertical Speed Indicator, which is arguably the most lagging instrument on the panel. Another spoiler alert – that doesn’t work for beans.

To be honest, I’m not exactly sure how far I was pitching up, nor do I know what my airspeed was because I was clearly not watching that gauge. Apparently it wasn’t very fast. About the same time I realized I probably was doing something wrong, my instructor rather firmly asked “What are you doing???” The accurate response was “f***ing up,” but that was a foregone conclusion that didn’t need to be verbalized. I pitched the nose down, gained some airspeed, humbly transferred the controls over to him to get us back on a reasonable climb attitude, and regrouped my thoughts.

Change of plans. Let’s go back a bit to more of the basics this lesson, okay? Turns, climbs, descents, straight-and-level… Listen to the airplane and let it tell you what it’s doing. I’d fly a little, then he’d fly a little while having me tell him what is going on and how to correct it. Sometimes you have to hit pause and reset. Give things a little thought, a little bit more time. There’s no schedule that says “by X number of hours you will have this mastered.” Everyone’s different. And if it takes me longer than others to master the skills, I’m still flying towards my goal. I’m paying by the hour for the plane whether I have my license or need an instructor with me. Better in my opinion to master and build than to hope all gels down the road and never feel confident until if or when it does.