The Road to First Solo

Well I've now done 2 weeks of flight training having completed a total of 11.5 hours of flying so far and it's been rather busy so I'm currently enjoying a couple of days downtime on what's classed as my weekend out here. The training is moving along at a fair pace and in the last week starting the week with what's known as advanced stall training, this is basically teaching us to recognise stalling characteristics in a approach and landing configuration, mainly because in either of these 2 configs we'll be very close to the ground (less than 1,000ft) so it's critical we can recognise a stall early to recover from it as there isn't a lot of height to recover in. We also were demonstrated secondary stalling. Usually if you stall then you lower the nose a bit and add power, as the angle of attack decreases you can then climb away. Secondary stalling is where on lowering the nose you then pull back on the controls again and the aircraft enters a deeper more violent stall. That demonstration really proved to me that secondary stalling is something you really don't want to do, we went from about 15 degrees nose up to 15 degrees nose down and got a pretty decent drop of the right wing in the order of about 30 degrees. It was violent enough that although I was strapped in it still lifted me out of the seat (imagine a roller coaster but more sudden and you don't know which way it's going to go since there's no rails)! That's why we carry out these demos at least 3,000ft above the ground to give us plenty of time to recover, if you did something similar coming in to land at 300ft on finals it would be a different story though.

The next lesson was spent doing ground reference manoeuvres, this is basically flying around a point, flying S bends across a line and flying around a rectangle which is not quite as easy as it sounds. The main reason for that is wind, to fly a circle around a point on the ground you need to constantly adjust your bank. This is because although your airspeed remains constant your ground speed varies depending on where the wind is relative to the flight path of the aircraft. This means that when flying with the wind you need to bank more as your ground speed is faster and when flying into the wind you need to shallow out the bank to maintain a constant circle relative to the ground. This is also training for flying circuits (which are called patterns in America so forgive me if I use both terms) as it makes you account for the wind drift that is trying to blow you off your required track.

We then moved on to instrument flying on the next lesson, at this level since you are flying under visual flight rules instrument flying is simulated. This means you wear a hood (think of it like a long peaked cap) which means you can still clearly see your own instruments but can't see outside. The instructor can still see outside however for traffic and terrain avoidance and since we usually have our flight partner in the back seat they act as an extra lookout as well. This first lesson was just looking at the basics of keeping straight and level and doing climbs, descents and turns with sole reference to instruments. This requires more concentration than doing the same tasks visually. When you can see outside you pick up on your datum attitude moving relative to the horizon and correcting it without really thinking. When instrument flying you have to scan your instruments almost constantly to ensure your attitude is correct and you're on altitude, airspeed and heading. You also have to deal with your own body trying to trick you as well as the fluid in your inner ear will sometimes make you think you're turning when you're flying straight and level. This can be a weird feeling and very difficult to override. Our route took us south of Falcon Field before turning north and transiting through Sky Harbor's overhead at 5,500ft (this would be like flying over the top of Heathrow which you would never be allowed to do in the UK) before heading around and going back into Falcon Field. I was assured the views were spectacular when I was flying so when I got to backseat the second flight I wasn't disappointed. It's probably the best view of Phoenix you can get.

Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport

The week concluded with circuits which is basically flying around in circles to practice landings and accurate pattern flying. The landings are starting to come together, I was having a bit of a frustrating day on Sunday when it felt like I just couldn't get the final approach right. We work to a stabilised approach criteria which basically means at 300ft before landing we need to be in landing configuration, on glide path and runway centreline and between 66-71 knots airspeed. On reflection I was probably being a little too harsh on myself, I was letting my airspeed drop to 64-65 knots on final, I know how to correct it so I just need to work on it next time I'm flying. Pattern work it exhausting, you're constantly doing something which means there never any time to relax so after an hour of flying circuits you really feel it. I did get one of the most spectacular sights I've seen whilst doing circuits on Saturday though, we ended up on a parallel approach with a B17 bomber that was coming in on the other runway, it's certainly not something you see everyday.

B17 Bomber

So next week consists of a little bit of consolidation work, some emergency drills training and then all things going well and the weather playing ball I should go solo next Saturday! After that I'll then be flying 6 days a week and also doing double sorties on some days as well so I'll really start racking up the hours.