06/18/08 18:00

Stats: 1.6 Dual Hours, 5 Day landings, ground reference maneuvers, slow flight, power on stalls, power off stalls. Total Hours to date: 6.2

Here we are with lesson 4. At this point, Ron is letting me do the pre-flight by myself and I am now handling all the taxiing, take offs, and radio communications as well as all the flying unless he is demonstrating something new. I guess I’m a little surprised at how fast I am moving, but the best way to learn is to actually do it, so that’s what I’m doing.

Today we head to the practice area to learn a new ground reference maneuver… S turns along a road. Basically you fly toward a road as to intersect it at a 90 degree angle and as soon as you are over it, you start a 180 degree turn when you get to the road again, you roll out and start a turn the other direction and do it over and over. I like this maneuver. It really helps build turn coordination as well as wind awareness and keeps your head out of the cockpit so you can keep an eye on where you are and how your turn is progressing. Now, just because I like it does not mean that I have mastered it yet, but I’m better at this one than turns around a point… so far.

Next we head over to the Shelbyville airport to practice some touch and go landings there. All is going well until the 3rd one where out of no where, he pulls the engine to idle and says, “You just had an engine failure, put it on the ground at the airport.” Wow, I was not expecting this. It turns out I would have made it across Interstate 70 (which is good) but not quite to the runway as I didn’t immediately start my turn toward the runway, and I added flaps a bit too early. He was kind enough to let me have power back so I didn’t have to put it down in the grass. I guess the good news was I made a pretty decent landing (after getting the power back).

We head back to Mount Comfort and he shows me the Shelbyville VOR station (which at 3500′ ASL is a medium sized white dot on the ground with a fence around it). An o.k. landing back home and we call it quits for the day.