Okay, finally made it up today! The weather smartened up long enough for me to put in two sessions with my instructor Paul. After a short pre-flight lesson it was time to reacquaint myself with the walk-around of the Cherokee 140. Nothing came apart in my hand, so all good.
My first flight up was just the same feeling as last time around. I didn’t feel nervous and I didn’t feel overly excited, I just felt comfortable. We practiced straight and level flight, climbs, descents and turns. I found my way around the controls without too much difficulty and began to learn the quirks of each particular aircraft. Depending on when I am booked and what is available, I could be in G-CQEX, G-CQPN, G-CQPR, or G-CQPV. On one, the airspeed indicator reads 5 knots high. On another, the tachometer reads 100 RPM low. The radios are slightly different in some. Some you are permitted to do spins in, others you can’t.
Each day I have a 1 hour flight at 11 am in the morning and a 1 hour flight at 3:30 pm in the afternoon. With pre-flight and post-flight briefings, each session runs around 1 and 1/2 hours. I fill the time in between with studying and preparing for the next lesson. Once I solo, the mornings will be more dual instruction (with my instructor) and the afternoons will be time to practice on my own. Eventually, I will have to fly a series of cross country flights in and around southern Manitoba for navigation training. I’ll try and take some pictures from the air soon. As you can imagine, flight time is valuable and there isn’t much time for sightseeing.
No comments:
Post a Comment