Lesson #3: Slow flight and fun

A hot spring day saw me outside the Old T's for my third lesson, a good 30 minutes before it began. With nothing else to do, I stood around and kicked the dirt (because dirt sucks and deserves to be kicked). It didn't help when I learned Stephen would be 15 minutes late.

So after waiting near an hour total, he finally arrives, and we head into the building only to learn my airplane is seriously ill. Avgas spirting from fuel controls, engine not starting, power fluctuations ... not a safe bird. The only other aircraft we could take, N854AC, is in the sky for another two hours.

So ... a three hour wait total. After a lunch and some more doing nothing, it was finally time to preflight. 4AC wasn't too different from my usual plane 9UL, just had a few switches in different places and some older radio equipment. This time I preflighted without talking my way through it, and we were in the plane with the engine puttering inside of 20 minutes.

I chatted with ground and with tower, and I did 1/2 of the takeoff (yoke and throttle, with Stephen on the rudders). We headed north to San Pablo Bay again. Unlike last time, I maintained altitude and heading with dead on precision. I never strayed more than 30 feet from my assigned altitude. I claimed it was 4AC, but Stephen said I was getting better. I still think the plane had something to do with it.

Upon arriving at the bay I learned (or reviewed, depending on how you look at it) the fundamentals of slow flight -- or as professionals call it, the "back of the power curve" or the "area of reversed command."

We brought the airplane back to 60 knots -- right above stalling speed -- and practiced slow flight turns. At 60 knots, the airplane feels like it's turning about its own wingtip, and the controls respond a little bit like a whale flopping about in the mud. We tried it again with full flaps, and this time the slow flight maneuvers were performed at 40 knots, the minimum speed the aircraft will fly.

Next came stalls. I've practiced stalls before in two very maneuverable aircraft: a SIAI Marchetti SF.260 and a Grumman aircraft whose model I've forgotten. These aircraft can run circles around a Skyhawk, but they also stall like an airborne freight train. I was prepared for a stall like I had experienced in the Grumman: an end-over-end earthward spiral. Honestly, I was excited to tumble through the sky like that.

Unfortunately, the 172 stalls like Queen Elizabeth coughs. The right wing stalled first, and the aircraft hiccuped a bit in the sky and then returned to normal slow flight. I was underwhelmed. No death defying spin. I practiced the recovery procedure for stalling, and then it was time to head back to Oakland. As before, I was given the option of talking to NorCal approach. Ready to face my fears, I swallowed my pride and aired my voice.

"NorCal approach, Skyhawk 854AC, request."
"4AC, go ahead."
"854AC is over Richmond, three thousand four hundred feet, landing at Oakland, with golf."

Hooray, I did it. Approach responded. "4AC, cleared to enter the pattern, make right traffic for two seven left, track a Citation a your 10 o'clock, 3 miles, crossing your beam and climbing to three thousand; yield to him then enter the pattern, report over the Mormon temple."

This was a mouthful, so Stephen keyed his mic and read back the lengthy instructions. It took two updates from NorCal to finally locate that Citation; he crossed our path as we flew to the Mormon temple.

The Mormon temple is one of many reference points used by pilots to state their position. There's some CalTech building in the South Bay, the Alameda Hill, and various other tiny landmarks, in addition to the big one's you'd expect (Golden Gate bridge, etc.). With each flight, I'm becoming more familiar with the locations of these conspicuous buildings.

Anyway, as we crossed over the temple Stephen radioed in, and we were cleared to land on 27L. Stephen had me do the landing (and his hands were well clear of the controls; I checked), and as before I was all over the glideslope. The turbulence around 400 feet didn't help. At the last minute Stephen needed to punch in rudder to correct for a crosswind I was ignoring, and at that point I think our landing was a tandem one.

As before we fueled at Kaiser (where I wanged my face on a wingtip; bound to happen eventually) and then taxied back to the Old T's. My next lesson is Wednesday at 5 pm. I'm looking forward to it.

Cost so far: $1,325.35
Time so far: 7 days
Hours so far: 3.4