Johnnie, my instructor, had me perform the pre-flight exterior check on the Cessna 150.
Cessna 150 Aerobat
I slowly did my walk around checking leading edges, screws, lights, the propeller, oil levels and the control surfaces. I assisted a little more with the pre-start checklist this time and after that we taxi'd to the fueling station and filled the tanks.
Probably the biggest difficulties I have had so far is controlling the plane during taxi. I find difficult to brake with both feet at the same time without applying to much on one side or the other. For those that do not know, the steering for the plane (on the ground) is controlled by foot pedals which slide in and out. When you oress the right pedal in the plane steers right and when you press the left it steers left. Seems simple, but the added issue I have is that if you rotate the pedals (press your toes in) that is how you brake and if you press one brake pedal more that the other, the plane turns. It is going to take a bit of practice. Luckily, I avoided trying to steer the plane with the yoke like a steering wheel which is always an instructors favourite rookie mistake I hear. Actually, the yoke does play a part in taxiing, but that is for another day. Johnnie took over the backtrack on the runway due to the amount of traffic for this flight, but I assure you, it wasn't pretty yesterday when I did it.
There was quite a bit more traffic today due to the beautiful weather. A few planes coming and going for lunch, a private jet and another student doing circuits (repeatedly landing and taking off without stopping). It was good practice for spotting traffic. We found a break and took off.
I flew quite a bit more today. After reaching a safe altitude, I had control for most of the flight. I found the workload to be A LOT higher during this lesson. Climbing and descending requires monitoring of several things at once and the instructor tried to get me used to monitoring it all at once (except the mixture control). For some reason, it took me a while to grasp the order and the memory aid he uses: "look down and PAT (Power-Attitude-Trim) the Dog" for descending & "look up at the "APT (Attitude-Power-Trim) building" for climbing. I think it mostly had to do with the drastic increase in workload.
I practice climbs and descending for about 30 minutes and finally nailed my last descent properly with all controls in the right order and within tolerances. It really helped near the end when I started to think of all of the control manipulations as a simultaneous rather than step by step. In a power off descent for example, I had a tough time remembering to: put carburetor heat on, power off, adjust attitude, establish a stabilized descent (airspeed, vertical speed, RPM) when I was trying to do them as individual steps one after the other. It was much easier when I just let it flow and didn't think it through so much. Hard to explain, but when you are up there it can get overwhelming...for my first time.
Johnnie commented that I did a good job, but that he would like to do a few more to make sure it is second nature and I would have to agree. I also think that I will hit my home simulator to go through some practice of the steps until they become a reflex rather than something I need to think about. The weather is forecast to be bad for the next two days, so it gives me some time to work on it on the PC.
I should note that flying a PC simulator (even with all airplane flight controls matching a plane) is not even close to the real thing. The only thing I will "practice" on will be the order of controls and making them reactionary. I think it also has a place for practicing instrument navigation when the time comes, but I could be wrong.
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