Lesson #26 Instrument flying

This morning was beautiful and sunny with a light wind, a great day for flying. It kinda sucked that I wouldn't see much of it.

I arrived at the airport and Dave was nowhere to be found, so I started preflighting Fern in the hanger. She needed oil and fuel. I added the oil and then I had to haul another 172 outside in order to get Fern out of the hanger. The fuel pumps are about 100 meters away so I just hauled her over there without firing her up, (a 172 is quite easy to move around by hand). I then returned to the hanger and put the other 172 back inside and shut the door. Back out to the pumps I top up both tanks and by now my hands are frozen, as it's only 4 degrees out. I roll up the fuel hose and static line and head back inside to wash the oil off my hands under some warm water, halfway back to the building Dave comes strolling out of the door.

Takeoff was soft field which went well. It's amazing how rolling down the runway with the nosewheel in the air can become common place. I didn't remember to put the flaps back up until 600 feet. Ten degrees of flaps really keeps the nose down during climbout, and they don't seem to add much drag at all. I put the flaps up and retrimmed.

A few minutes later and I was flying using only the instruments, Dave commented that he might need some sunscreen. We started off with a straight climb to 3,500 feet, then some straight and level flight to take us to the west . Next Dave had me do a couple of standard rate turns in both directions. Then straight and level at 80 mph, I trimmed for the requested speed and used the throttle to maintain correct altitude. Next we did some climbing and decending turns both left and right at 90 mph.

The key to staying on your numbers (altitude and heading, and at times speed) is to always be scanning, never fixate on one instrument for too long. It's a simple concept but one that must be learned, as a student pilot it's easy to watch one or two instruments for too long, to the determent of something else.

With some of the basics out of the way we moved on to unusual attitudes. During my last lesson there was a couple of times that I felt like we were in a slight decending left turn and I had to keep myself from correcting us because all my instruments were telling me that my inner ear was wrong.

To recover from unusual attitudes a pilot needs to ignore most of the instruments because they are unreliable or lag too much during recovery. I remember back to an earlier lesson when we were doing spin recovery, the attitude indicator got tumbled and it took forever to come back online. The two main instruments that Dave taught me to use during recovery was the airspeed indicator and the turn and bank coordinator.

I put my head down and basically looked at the floor while "madman" Dave started tossing the aircraft all over the place, after about 30 seconds he asked me to recover. When I lifted my head I felt like we were in a very steep spiraling dive to the left. I looked at the ASI and it was climbing fast, so I pulled the power off while I looked down at the turn and bank indicator, it said that we were wings level. I still felt that we were in a very steep left turn. I maintained level flight and pulled the nose back up until the airspeed stopped increasing then I brought the power back up. All this took maybe four seconds. I was now flying straight and level but it still felt like we were in a steep left turn.

We did this exercise a few more times and each time my senses told me one thing and the instruments told me something else, most time I was off by a little, but a couple of times I was off by alot, usually when I closed my eyes. Dave said that I did a good job of recovering. I have to tell you that it was a strange feeling, your instruments telling you one thing and your inner ear telling you something else. I didn't find it hard to ignore my senses and believe the instruments. Dave asked how I was doing and I replied that I was starting to feel a little light headed and dizzy, I reassured him that there was zero chance of me tossing my cookies though. He then hauled the map off the windshield so I could get everything "coordinated" again by flying for a couple of minutes VFR.

It was still a nice day.

Next we discussed how we could use the VOR reciever to return to the airport. I turned the dial until the needle centered, then I looked at the To and From indicator and from that I could tell what radial that we were on. Using the VOR I could determine the heading that I needed to fly in order to return to the airport. A quick turn and a minute later we were inbound for the airport on the radial I tuned, then Dave turned the dial a bit and had me practise intercepting a radial. Simple stuff.

It's important to remember that the To and From indicator has nothing to do with the heading of the aircraft, but rather the location of the aircraft in relation to the VOR station and the radial you've dialed in.

I flew us the rest of the way back to the airport using instruments with Dave calling out headings, I went back to looking out the window during final. There was a 7 kt crosswind so I put Fern into a slip and did firm but decent landing. Much better than last week, but it still needs work.

A beautiful day for flying, and other than a couple of minutes I didn't get to see any of it. However, instrument flying is getting easier and I am getting better at it. We're going to do one more lesson on instruments and then it's on to our first cross country.

Another 1.2 hours in the old logbook.