My CFI took me up for 1.3 hours of instruction. He allowed me to fly the Cessna after we reached altitude. We flew a square pattern and came back to our home airport. I flew the entire thing under his direction. The second half of the flight had a fair amount of turbulence. He told me to fight through it so I did. I maintained altitude within 100 foot except for 2 times where I went 150 ft above altitude. Keeping it on heading was fairly easy. My instructor talked to ATC for me and trimmed the aircraft and managed the rudder. I did everything else. The instructor landed the plane of course.
My arms and shoulders feel like I’ve worked out in a gym. I had no idea flying GA was so much work! But I love it. I’m hooked.
Welcome to the addiction. Throughout your training you’ll find that there are days when flying headings and altitudes seems easy and then there are days when it is more difficult. The hardest part for me learing to fly was learning to land. Happy flying.
Try to make small corrections when you see your nose moving up or down and, feel free to use the trim wheel to help with the elevator pressure!
Congrats, wscreate! Now, imagine flying the plane, keeping it trimmed, working the rudder, talking on the radio to ATC, navigating and then landing the plane… all by yourself. Yeah, it’s a lot of work, but it gets easier as you do it more. By your 20th hour, you’ll be doing it all in your sleep.
Thanks. At this point, I can’t imagine me landing an airplane. But then, before I flew yesterday, I couldn’t imagine that I had it in me to make 20 degree turns and roll out on heading within a degree or two. But, somehow I did it after a couple of tries. That Cessna 172 is quite a bird and my instructor is awesome.
Try to make small corrections when you see your nose moving up or down and, feel free to use the trim wheel to help with the elevator pressure!
You sound exactly like my CFI.
Congrats, wscreate! Now, imagine flying the plane, keeping it trimmed, working the rudder, talking on the radio to ATC, navigating and then landing the plane… all by yourself.
I broke out in a sweat just reading your description.
Congrats Wscreate! Welcome to the sweet addiction. There are a number of other students here, so us old folks hope you will all continue to keep us up to date on your progress and enable us to remember our first flights by sharing your new found joy with us.
Non VFR weather all this week so I scheduled my 3rd class medical for tomorrow. I hope all goes well. I am in my early 40’s with no major health problems that I know of. Figured I’d get this out of the way earlier rather than later in the program.
Looking forward to my next lesson. 30-45 degree turns are on the menu.
Only problem with a 1st class over 40 is that you have to do an EKG every time. Any tiny blip on that EKG will make them hold up your medical. If you’re not flying for a living, I’d do a 2nd class and then just let it slide to a 3rd.
The first lesson is the make-it-or-break-it as far as the addiction, glad it sounds like you enjoyed it! Don’t sweat the landings, one way or another you are guaranteed that the aircraft will return to the earth (lol).
Every landing is just a controlled crash, the key is how well you can control that crash.
A good landing is one you can walk away from. A great landing is one that you can use the aircraft again.
And to add to the further information about what to expect throughout your training, being IFR rated, you’ll do most, if not all of it, using just your instruments. You’ll lose points for looking out of the windows. Up to and including landings. But good news about that, the FAA allows up to 20 hours IFR training on a simulator, in a nice safe computer chair.
