**I recently logged into my feedburner account and was shocked to see that I had quite a few subscribers. While most of the subscribers are for the podcast, I think there is a fair number reading the blog as well. Since it has been awhile since I've posted, I wanted to get something out to let people know I'm still flying...Sorry, no in-flight audio, but I'll try to get more of that in the future. Also, A big thank you to all that are reading/listening. The feedback I've received has been great and I hope to hear from the rest of you as well.**Lately, it has been rare that I've been able to schedule two lessons on one weekend. This weekend was looking to be no different. I had a lesson scheduled for Saturday, but the weather forecast looked prohibitive of a Sunday lesson. However, I've come to the point where I enjoy flying so much that I realize one day in the air is much, much better than none!Saturday morning came about much too quickly. I rushed out the door shortly after waking up and headed towards San Antonio International. Rodrigo and I arrived at about the same time, so we checked the weather report, grabbed the keys and POH for our airplane, and headed towards his cubicle for a short bit of ground instruction.Rodrigo quickly ran through the procedures for short and soft field takeoffs and landings. In addition to the explanations, he artistically illustrated them on a white board. When he asked if I had any questions, all I could ask was, "You're going to do each one first and let me follow on the controls right?"We headed out to our airplane. Today, we would be in N52261. This airplane is a Cessna 172P lovingly nicknamed, "The Beast!" When I asked Rodrigo how it got it's nickname, he told me, "You'll know as soon as you start to taxi!"I had flown this airplane once or twice before, but this was the first time I had heard the nickname. Thinking back to my previous flights in this craft, I couldn't remember any reason to call it "The beast."As I started to taxi, I was still clueless of the origins of the nickname. However, when I pulled into the run-up area and did my final flight controls check, I suddenly found "The beast" to be a well deserved nickname. The controls were stiff. The elevator, in particular, required much more effort than any of the other 172s I've flown. I looked over at Rodrigo with a confused look and, while moving the elevator, asked, "Is this OK?"Rodrigo moved the elevator up and down and deflected the ailerons in both directions. He said that they are tough to move, but they are in good flight condition.Accepting this explanation, I was ready to take off. Rodrigo decided that we would make our first departure a soft-field takeoff. He would handle the controls and I would follow him. With the flaps set to 10 and the elevator fully deflected in the nose up position, we rolled onto the runway and Rodrigo hit the throttle. The nose wheel jumped off the ground and was held in the air by Rodrigo. The airplane left the ground around 50 knots, but Rodrigo prevented it from climbing out of ground effect. We flew low over the runway until our speed reached 70 knots. At 70, Rodrigo put the airplane into a normal takeoff climb and handed the controls off to me.San Antonio ATC kept me under their control for the duration of the short flight to Stinson Field (KSSF). A short ten minutes after takeoff, I was handed off to the Stinson tower and preparing to enter their pattern. Once I was given my landing clearance, Rodrigo again took the controls to demonstrate a soft-field landing. Nothing difficult here...just keep the nose wheel up and try not to use the breaks when on the ground. However, Rodrigo slammed the airplane down hard and couldn't keep the nose wheel off the ground. We both started to laugh when Rodrigo commented that mine would probably be much better than his demonstration.We taxied back to the runway so that Rodrigo could demonstrate a short-field departure. Again, this seemed fairly simple...10 degrees of flaps, stand on the brakes, gun the throttle, release the brakes, rotate at 50 knots, climb out at 60 knots until any obstacles are cleared, then resume a normal climb. While at Wright Flyers, Rodrigo warned me that as soon as you release the brakes, the airplane will jump and having some right rudder would be important. He joked that it would feel like we were in a turbine craft. However, when Rodrigo released the brakes on the actual takeoff, there was no jump. I wasn't pushed into the back of my seat. As soon as Rodrigo had us in the air, I said, "Not quite like a turbine craft!"The next landing would be the last thing Rodrigo needed to demonstrate. The short-field landing, we agreed, was right up my alley. The approach needed to be slow and the wheels needed to be planted firmly on the runway. Slow and hard is a good description for the majority of my landings! Of course, in addition to slow and hard, I would have to try to touch the wheels down within 200 feet of the start of the runway. This could be a bit more challenging for me.Once we were on the ground, the controls were mine for the rest of the day. We proceeded to do six more takeoffs and landings at Stinson. Each time, Rodrigo would tell me which type he wanted it to be. For the most part, everything went very well. I had some difficulty maintaining the slower speed needed for a short field landing. The increased speed would cause me to fly past my designated touch down point. Anytime this happened, Rodrigo would have me go-around. Go-arounds, I'm finding, are just as important to practice as normal patterns.As the day progressed, the wind started to pick up and become quite gusty. Now, I was not only practicing new landing techniques, but I was learning them in a stiff crosswind.My final landing at Stinson was a short-field. With the slow speed and crosswind, the stall horn occasionally sounded during final and I had to point the nose of the airplane far to the right to keep a straight line to the runway. As soon as the wheels touched down (on what was a pretty good short-field, crosswind landing if I don't say so myself), the Stinson tower announced that they were changing runways due to the wind and all aircraft would need to obtain new taxi or pattern instructions. "They could have made the change before I landed," I said to Rodrigo!We taxied to the new runway and made a final takeoff before heading back to SAT. As soon as we were in the air, we tuned in the SAT ATIS in order to see what the wind was doing there. It was strong. After checking the crosswind component, Rodrigo warned me that the crosswind was flirting with the airplanes maximums. It was now at 14 knots. I asked him to make sure he stays very close on the controls for this landing!While trying to correct for the strong wind, I flared to late and bounced off the nose wheel. We started to porpoise, and Rodrigo helped me settle the airplane down. Once I cleared the runway, I said to Rodrigo, "If you were not in the airplane with me, I would have gone back to Stinson and waited out the wind."Rodrigo's response was simple. "Good...That's exactly what you are supposed to do. Find an airport with a runway better aligned with the wind and go to it."After securing the airplane, we went inside for a quick review of the day. We also discussed the possibility of flying on Sunday. The weather did not look promising, so we decided to just play it by ear. However, shortly after leaving the airport, I received a call from Rodrigo. He wanted to know if I wanted to do the next lesson in the simulator. Since it was an intro to radio navigation, the simulator would be ideal and I was all for it.Sunday morning, I headed back to Wright Flyers. As soon as I arrived, Rodrigo ushered me into his cubicle for a quick discussion about what VORs are and how they work. Immediately after this, we headed for the room that housed the Precision Flight Controls simulator. I've written about this simulator in a previous post, so I won't go into much detail about it here. Basically, it looks like a cut-off airplane hull with monitors situated outside all of the cockpit windows. Very cool!!!After my simulated takeoff, Rodrigo promptly put me in the clouds and I was flying by instruments. After giving me a bit of time to get used to the handling quirks of the simulator, Rodrigo started instructing me as to which VORs to tune and which radials to intercept. The hardest part of tuning a VOR was keeping the airplane straight and level while I searched my chart for the correct frequency, tuned the nav radio, and identified the VOR. Once I knew that I had the correct VOR tuned, intercepting and flying a radial was fairly simple.For the next fifteen minutes, I tuned VORs and flew radials as instructed by Rodrigo. Next, we started working on lost procedures. Basically, Rodrigo would "move" me to an unknown location and I would figure out where I was by tuning in two VORs and then using their signals to figure out where I was on the map. Again, this was fairly simple except for keeping the plane straight and level while fidgeting with the radios and chart.Finally, Rodrigo had me practice some stalls under instrument conditions. This was a bit different than what I was used to. Stalling and recovering the airplane by instruments was a little bit more complicated than while under visual flight conditions. With no horizon to use as a reference, I can understand how many pilots get confused in the clouds. All the more reason to get that instrument rating!As with my previous simulator lesson, Rodrigo ended the session with some emergency procedures (at least he gave me good weather for this). First, my engine failed. As soon as I decided where I was going to land, I started my emergency checks. Next thing I knew, the airplane was nose high and I was having trouble bringing it back down. Rodrigo laughed as he told me that I just had "engine separation."Great, I literally had no engine and the simulated ground was rapidly approaching. I managed to get the airplane back to a level attitude. Rodrigo then decided to throw some more structural failure at me. One wing was gone, then the other. Somehow, I kept my wingless, engineless airplane level and softly touched down for a great off-field landing. Rodrigo was laughing and reminded me that the simulator really didn't handle structural failures properly. I simply told him that maybe I'm just that good of a pilot! Of course, I couldn't even keep a straight face as the words left my mouth.
**I recently logged into my feedburner account and was shocked to see that I had quite a few subscribers. While most of the subscribers are for the podcast, I think there is a fair number reading the blog as well. Since it has been awhile since I've posted, I wanted to get something out to let people know I'm still flying...Sorry, no in-flight audio, but I'll try to get more of that in the future. Also, A big thank you to all that are reading/listening. The feedback I've received has been great and I hope to hear from the rest of you as well.** Lately, it has been rare that I've been able to schedule two lessons on one weekend. This weekend was looking to be no different. I had a lesson scheduled for Saturday, but the weather forecast looked prohibitive of a Sunday lesson. However, I've come to the point where I enjoy flying so much that I realize one day in the air is much, much better than none! Saturday morning came about much too quickly. I rushed out the door shortly after waking up and headed towards San Antonio International. Rodrigo and I arrived at about the same time, so we checked the weather report, grabbed the keys and POH for our airplane, and headed towards his cubicle for a short bit of ground instruction. Rodrigo quickly ran through the procedures for short and soft field takeoffs and landings. In addition to the explanations, he artistically illustrated them on a white board. When he asked if I had any questions, all I could ask was, "You're going to do each one first and let me follow on the controls right?" We headed out to our airplane. Today, we would be in N52261. This airplane is a Cessna 172P lovingly nicknamed, "The Beast!" When I asked Rodrigo how it got it's nickname, he told me, "You'll know as soon as you start to taxi!" I had flown this airplane once or twice before, but this was the first time I had heard the nickname. Thinking back to my previous flights in this craft, I couldn't remember any reason to call it "The beast." As I started to taxi, I was still clueless of the origins of the nickname. However, when I pulled into the run-up area and did my final flight controls check, I suddenly found "The beast" to be a well deserved nickname. The controls were stiff. The elevator, in particular, required much more effort than any of the other 172s I've flown. I looked over at Rodrigo with a confused look and, while moving the elevator, asked, "Is this OK?" Rodrigo moved the elevator up and down and deflected the ailerons in both directions. He said that they are tough to move, but they are in good flight condition. Accepting this explanation, I was ready to take off. Rodrigo decided that we would make our first departure a soft-field takeoff. He would handle the controls and I would follow him. With the flaps set to 10 and the elevator fully deflected in the nose up position, we rolled onto the runway and Rodrigo hit the throttle. The nose wheel jumped off the ground and was held in the air by Rodrigo. The airplane left the ground around 50 knots, but Rodrigo prevented it from climbing out of ground effect. We flew low over the runway until our speed reached 70 knots. At 70, Rodrigo put the airplane into a normal takeoff climb and handed the controls off to me. San Antonio ATC kept me under their control for the duration of the short flight to Stinson Field (KSSF). A short ten minutes after takeoff, I was handed off to the Stinson tower and preparing to enter their pattern. Once I was given my landing clearance, Rodrigo again took the controls to demonstrate a soft-field landing. Nothing difficult here...just keep the nose wheel up and try not to use the breaks when on the ground. However, Rodrigo slammed the airplane down hard and couldn't keep the nose wheel off the ground. We both started to laugh when Rodrigo commented that mine would probably be much better than his demonstration. We taxied back to the runway so that Rodrigo could demonstrate a short-field departure. Again, this seemed fairly