something fun in first lesson back

[slipstreamsurfr]

Who am I kidding! The entire lesson was fun! Takeoff, climb out, turns, stalls, a handful of landings. We did it all! A GREAT refresher and way for my instructor to get a feel of my abilities, to see what, if anything I remembered from all those years ago.

But!

My instructor showed me a stall form that I'd never seen or experienced before. He demonstrated a Falling Leaf stall. From what I remember of the processes, perform a power off stall, but instead of breaking it, keep the elevator full back, while keeping yourself level with your ailerons (they are mushy, but still working). The plane will stall, pitch down, then the wing will start flying again because the angle of attack is better, then pitch up, stall again, pitch down, start flying again.. repeat as long as you have altitude and want to have fun!

The challenge is keeping the wings level because, like a falling leaf, the plane will want to fall off one way or the other first when it stalls because the of the previous oscillations tending to tilt you about a bit.

We did the first stall, then he held it back and I watched and felt the 172 fall out from it, then started flying, then stall again, and down and up and down she went. Talk about a grin. It reminded me of the time I was taught to do spins in a 152.

Steep turns, lots of fun, I'm a bit timid though in them. I KNOW the plane will fly in a steep turn, but doing them to the left is most disconcerting to me. Looking out my side window that straight down to the ground gives me a pause.

Things that surprised me, the amount of room in the cockpit of a 172. I still remember the 152's from my first time around... The controls seemed a lot heaver in the 172 than the 152's had been. But again, it's been a lot of years and my memory has faded.... Really like the trim wheel in the 172

Can't wait until saturday morning for my next lesson. I may have to schedule another one sometime during the week next week... This is addicting!

--1.4 dual
--3 landings