I let my worries go so I can be here for the beauty that surrounds me now. – Unknown
This afternoon the weather was PERFECT! After taking off, looking at the crystal blue sky was like looking into eternity – it was really that beautiful, the landscape below was serene. I always ask myself why can’t I see and appreciate all this beauty when I’m on the ground. When I’m in the air, the world and all that it has to offer just seems to come together. Life becomes blissfully peaceful.
We climb to 4500 feet, then I practiced power-off stalls and turn stalls. The first time Roger teaches me something, my whole body seems too excited to completely comprehend what I’m doing on that day. I go home and dream about it. This second time, though, I trusted the plane and felt more confident about its amazing abilities.
For the power-off stalls, I felt more relaxed when the stalls broke. You just gently push in on the yoke. (I.e., you don’t fight the controls.) The plane does the rest. (Amazing Cessna 152!)
For the turn stalls, you do a shallow bank as you’re gently pulling back on the yoke and firmly pressing your foot on the right rudder. The turn stalls feel differently than power-off stalls because you break at an angle, but the recovery is somewhat similar. I practiced both left and right turn stalls.
For anyone scared to be in the air, I sure wish you could have been with us for the next thing Roger taught me. He showed me uncoordinated and coordinated spins. Stalls can become dangerous if you’re not trained properly because the loss of lift exceeding the critical angle of attack becomes inadequate to control the flight, and if you don’t quickly recover, the plane can quickly lose lift, thus the accidents you may read about. If uncoordinated, a stall can develop into a spin. Uncoordinated to me means that you have not coordinated/planned your landings. Every time I’m in a plane now, I stop and think, I’ve got to leave everything down below and really concentrate on what Roger is teaching me and what I’m supposed to be doing.
But, here is the cool part: coordinated spins. This is where you really need to know the aerodynamics of a plane. Oh, my goodness, this was so enormously awesome! He neutralized the plane and the plane would only go down so far. It literally felt like I was on the back of a bird. It flew itself and it would continue doing that. I know, I know, after every flight I tell you how amazingly awesome Roger is. And, he does walk on water/air in my book. BUT, now I’m including the Cessna 152 in that.
Then I practiced landings. There was a crosswind, so it gave me the opportunity to apply the lessons learned – and continue to learn. As you are reading my blog entries, I think you understand that everything takes practice. I want to enjoy flying for a very long time. I want to keep any passengers that I may have as safe as I possibly can. I truly thank my lucky stars during and after each flight that I have Roger as my instructor. He’s solid platinum. (His value level keeps going up. Platinum is more expensive because it is rarer and mined less than gold.)
Now, for some fun additional information/trivia for you: Did you know that Chuck “Heater” Heatley, an F-14 pilot and a former Topgun instructor, was the inspiration for the movie, “Top Gun”? In addition to being a pilot and instructor, he was an enormously talented photographer. Check out his amazing book, The Cutting Edge. After the movie, Top Gun, came out there was a 500 percent increase in applicants to its Naval Aviation program.
“Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” Don McCullin
