Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Heavier than Air

Lesson #2 at Odessa Schlemeyer Field.  The Diamond 20 is a joy.  Went through the checklists, taxied, took off.  Climbed to 5000' ASL (so about 1800' above the ground); practiced 45-degree banked turns without losing altitude; practiced slow flying (60 knots); also did low-power, low-speed stalls.  None of it seemed very difficult.  I really felt like I was flying the plane, and in some level of control over it.  On approach for landing I operated the radio and did most of the flying until about 10' of the ground.  Actually, I'm never sure how much flying the instructor is doing during landing and takeoff...  I need to ask him, because if I don't know, I don't know how much control input I need to give.  We were in the air for a little until an hour.  I accidentally did one fun maneuver, where I climbed rapidly and again too quickly tried to level off, which gave us a zero-g, floating-stomach feeling, like at the top of a roller coaster.  Next time we practice takeoff and landing.  I think landing and navigation are going to be the biggest challenges -- and mainly landing.

1 comment:

Plants Amaze Me said...

You look comfortable in that plane! This is probably safer than dirt biking, right.