After my first flight listed in "I owe it all to my wife...", I slowly started looking for a training school in the hopes that I would someday start lessons. I didn't have any plan to get started at that point, but I wanted to scope out what the costs would be. After some searching, I found that I had a former co-worker that had learned from an older gentleman in Taylor, TX (T74). His name is Bruce Lynn, he is 84 years old, has nearly 9,000 hrs of flight, most of it training. He has certified near 400 pilots, some military, most civilian. What a great instructor with a ton of experience to teach me safe flying.
I gave Bruce a call and asked a bunch of questions. He let me know that his rate was $25/hr for training. To my amazement, that fee was Hobbs hours, so only when the plane was in operation. This is by far the lowest price flight instruction in Central Texas or anywhere, for that matter. My guess was that Bruce enjoys flying and enjoys teaching and doesn't charge much for it. Other CFI's that I found were around $35-50/hr and that was total time spent with them i.e. pre-flight, talking, walking, post-flight, etc. I was in. I found a great instructor at a great price. The only problem is that Taylor is about a 45 minute drive from my workplace, and because I would be flying some after work, it was a factor.
Bruce said that he was starting a ground school and I should consider starting there to make sure I learn the basics. I showed up for class out at Taylor and began ground school. I learned a ton of information during the class, but was dissatisfied with the pace of the class. I wanted to learn more, faster, but Bruce has a slow and methodical style. We also tended to drift into "hangar talk" with the other students which took away from the learning experience. In my view, ground school should prepare me for the written exam, and I should be able to walk out of the class and pass the test. At this point, I don't feel like I could do that, even though I have been diligent about my studies.
My first (and only) flight with Bruce was in a 1971 Cessna 150 with about 9,000 hrs on the airframe. This was a huge downer for me. I will not discount the usefulness of the 150/152 series as a trainer, but this particular plane was VERY ragged. In my opinion, it was an old bucket of bolts, and I did not have a good feeling flying it. The labels on the panel were barely readable and fully not readable in some areas. During the flight, Bruce taught me the basics of flying - straight and level flight, climbs, and descents. We also go into slow flight and emergency procedures a little. As a person on his second flight, I found that I had the famed "death grip" on the yoke. I gripped it and worked it so hard, I was in a full sweat. I was all other the place and Bruce was forceful in his attempts to correct those tendencies. He said "You are over-steering!" and "Let it go!". See, planes are designed to fly themselves. My thought was that I was driving a car, and I needed to man-handle the plane. I've found since that day that you can't be expected to fly a plane with the skills of driving a car. Yes, the plane needs to be controlled and told what to do (aka Fly the Plane), but it is simply done in a different way.
Flying with Bruce was an ok experience, but I had a couple of concerns. First, he is not one to be verbose in explaining how things work, just that they do and here is how you do things. That may be fine for some, but I want to understand everything about flying, not just do this, do that. We had a disconnect in that area. A second thing is that during this, our first flight together, Bruce did something that he later described as "wanting to get my reaction." While we were in slow flight, which is flying at a very slow speed with a high pitch attitude, Bruce was teaching me how to use the rudder, and after I did that for awhile, he stomped on the right ruder, putting us into the start of a spin! I would suggest to Bruce and all instructors to *not* do that on a first flight. We had about 500ft of altitude loss in a moment and I went weightless into my seat harness. For about a second, I was terrified, then I realized that Bruce would not put us in harm's way and he was under control. I knew that the C150 is rated for acrobatics, so there was no danger. As I mentioned, he said he wanted to gauge my reaction and that I did well.
What Bruce didn't know is that that stunt would contribute to my finding another CFI.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
I owe it all to my wife...
Up until recently, I had a casual interest in flying. Yes, I have always been interested in flying somewhat, but never really to the point where I considered getting my license. I just chalked it up to one of those unattainable goals in life. The bucket list item that doesn't get crossed out. That all changed in the summer of 2008. I was in my second of two years on the way to getting my Executive MBA from Baylor University, so I was quite busy. My birthday came along and I had been talking about flying occasionally, and my wife picked up on that. For my 37th birthday, she got me a 1 hour intro flight at Step Up Aviation out of Austin Bergstrom International (KAUS). I was shocked and excited to go on this discovery flight, but having a busy schedule at that point, I was not able to go up until the fall.
The day finally came and I drove down to KAUS for the flight. I walked out to the hangar and was shocked to see the "airplane" that we would be flying that day. It was a light sport aircraft (LSA) Tecnam Bravo that had an empty weight of 750 lbs. This thing was tiny and without saying it, I was thinking "We're going to go up in THAT?". Needless to say, I was already conscientious of the "danger" that lay ahead of me. On that note, I think practically every person, brave or not, will have some negative thoughts about going up in a small airplane for the first time. So, I didn't feel bad about being a little worried about our flight that day.
So, we had a tiny airplane. I asked to see the engine, thinking it would be a massive powerplant and give me some confidence. What I saw was little more than a lawnmower engine, I thought, but nevertheless, I convinced myself that the engineers and designers knew what they were doing and it had to be airworthy. The other item to mention that day is that it was extremely windy. I think the winds were 19 gusting to 27 or so. We were sitting in the plane doing a pre-flight check and the wind was buffeting us around so badly I was wondering if the thing would tip over. I've since found out that Step Up has implemented a new policy where they will not fly an intro flight if the wind is over a certain speed. Good idea...
After we started the plane, the instructor contacted ATC and the next thing I knew we were taxiing to our runway. I travel for business several times a year and I fly out of KAUS. It is a mid-sized airport that can handle big planes. It was surreal being in the left seat and taxiing to a gigantic runway that I'd only seen from the air while in a MD80. I had a real problem, as many beginning pilots do, of "steering" the plane on the taxiway with my feet only. I kept wanting to steer with the stick but that didn't work. With me steering, we weaved our way to the runway, did our run up, and contacted tower for clearance. I noticed that ATC kept referring to us as "experimental N141 Alpha Golf". I asked the Instructor why experimental and he told me about the airplane was in a new class of aircraft knows as LSA, and that ATC only called them experimental because there was no official classification yet. Great. I'm in a tiny experimental airplane. My confidence was not high.
ATC had us hold short for "landing aircraft" so I looked to the left ant there is a 737 on final approach and it landed right in front of us. Again - surreal. We taxied out to the giant runway. Knowing nothing about how to fly, I was both thrilled and nervous when I set full throttle, pulled back on the stick and we were airborne. The instructor worked the rudder pedals the whole time.
The wind was terrible that day and we were being tossed around like crazy, which did not sit with me as a first-timer. I was becoming very anxious; something that I normally do not do. I am usually a very calm and even-keel person, but this day would get the best of me. Our plan for the day was to climb to 2500 feet and fly to San Marcos, look around and fly back to Austin. During our climb out, ATC came on and diverted us mid-field to clear for more landing aircraft coming in behind us. Seems the little plane was too slow to get out of the way for the big boys. We made a 30 degree bank to the right and a little more anxiety set in. As we got higher, the turbulence got worse and so did my anxiety. The small aircraft was an over-wing design and with it being so small, I felt like I could simply fall out. More anxiety.
After about 10 minutes of climbing and being tossed around like a ragdoll, I decided that I had had enough. I asked the instructor to cut it short and return to KAUS. He was surprised but later told me that he understood because it was way too windy for us to go up and that we shouldn't have done so that day. Thanks. After he reconfirmed that I wanted to end the flight, he said "I have the plane" which I gladly let him take. At this point, I realized that I had had a deathgrip on the stick and I was in a full sweat. He made a sharp left turn and we headed in a downwind right pattern to make a landing on 17L. During that decent, the bumpiness subsided, as you can imagine on a downwind, and I relaxed a bit. I felt like I had let myself down by not staying up but I knew there would be another day. I still wanted to be back on terra firma. We landed and I got the heck out of there.
Needless to say, my first flight experience could have been better. The good part was when I got in my truck after the flight, I already wanted to go back up. I now know that at that point, I was hooked.
The day finally came and I drove down to KAUS for the flight. I walked out to the hangar and was shocked to see the "airplane" that we would be flying that day. It was a light sport aircraft (LSA) Tecnam Bravo that had an empty weight of 750 lbs. This thing was tiny and without saying it, I was thinking "We're going to go up in THAT?". Needless to say, I was already conscientious of the "danger" that lay ahead of me. On that note, I think practically every person, brave or not, will have some negative thoughts about going up in a small airplane for the first time. So, I didn't feel bad about being a little worried about our flight that day.
So, we had a tiny airplane. I asked to see the engine, thinking it would be a massive powerplant and give me some confidence. What I saw was little more than a lawnmower engine, I thought, but nevertheless, I convinced myself that the engineers and designers knew what they were doing and it had to be airworthy. The other item to mention that day is that it was extremely windy. I think the winds were 19 gusting to 27 or so. We were sitting in the plane doing a pre-flight check and the wind was buffeting us around so badly I was wondering if the thing would tip over. I've since found out that Step Up has implemented a new policy where they will not fly an intro flight if the wind is over a certain speed. Good idea...
After we started the plane, the instructor contacted ATC and the next thing I knew we were taxiing to our runway. I travel for business several times a year and I fly out of KAUS. It is a mid-sized airport that can handle big planes. It was surreal being in the left seat and taxiing to a gigantic runway that I'd only seen from the air while in a MD80. I had a real problem, as many beginning pilots do, of "steering" the plane on the taxiway with my feet only. I kept wanting to steer with the stick but that didn't work. With me steering, we weaved our way to the runway, did our run up, and contacted tower for clearance. I noticed that ATC kept referring to us as "experimental N141 Alpha Golf". I asked the Instructor why experimental and he told me about the airplane was in a new class of aircraft knows as LSA, and that ATC only called them experimental because there was no official classification yet. Great. I'm in a tiny experimental airplane. My confidence was not high.
ATC had us hold short for "landing aircraft" so I looked to the left ant there is a 737 on final approach and it landed right in front of us. Again - surreal. We taxied out to the giant runway. Knowing nothing about how to fly, I was both thrilled and nervous when I set full throttle, pulled back on the stick and we were airborne. The instructor worked the rudder pedals the whole time.
The wind was terrible that day and we were being tossed around like crazy, which did not sit with me as a first-timer. I was becoming very anxious; something that I normally do not do. I am usually a very calm and even-keel person, but this day would get the best of me. Our plan for the day was to climb to 2500 feet and fly to San Marcos, look around and fly back to Austin. During our climb out, ATC came on and diverted us mid-field to clear for more landing aircraft coming in behind us. Seems the little plane was too slow to get out of the way for the big boys. We made a 30 degree bank to the right and a little more anxiety set in. As we got higher, the turbulence got worse and so did my anxiety. The small aircraft was an over-wing design and with it being so small, I felt like I could simply fall out. More anxiety.
After about 10 minutes of climbing and being tossed around like a ragdoll, I decided that I had had enough. I asked the instructor to cut it short and return to KAUS. He was surprised but later told me that he understood because it was way too windy for us to go up and that we shouldn't have done so that day. Thanks. After he reconfirmed that I wanted to end the flight, he said "I have the plane" which I gladly let him take. At this point, I realized that I had had a deathgrip on the stick and I was in a full sweat. He made a sharp left turn and we headed in a downwind right pattern to make a landing on 17L. During that decent, the bumpiness subsided, as you can imagine on a downwind, and I relaxed a bit. I felt like I had let myself down by not staying up but I knew there would be another day. I still wanted to be back on terra firma. We landed and I got the heck out of there.
Needless to say, my first flight experience could have been better. The good part was when I got in my truck after the flight, I already wanted to go back up. I now know that at that point, I was hooked.
Welcome and Intro
Hi Everyone.
Although I consider myself knowledgeable about internet and related things, I've never started a blog. So when I decided that I finally would start my flight training to become a pilot, I thought that I would capture my thoughts throughout my training and share it with anyone that was interested.
So here goes... my first attempt at a blog. I hope you find it useful and I encourage you to keep up and ask questions about flying or flight training. I would be glad to answer anything if I can.
Everyone's experience is different, but I am a student of everything and like to learn from others and make decisions based on what I learn from those experiences. My path to flying is no doubt different than the next person's. I hope you will find some useful stuff in this blog.
By the way, I want to thank Bill Williams of the Student Pilot Cast (www.studentpilotcast.com) and Greg Summers of the Student Pilot Journal (http://blog.studentpilotjournal.com/). Please check out their blogs and Greg's nicely done video podcast. I'm considering doing one just like that..
Ready... Set...
Although I consider myself knowledgeable about internet and related things, I've never started a blog. So when I decided that I finally would start my flight training to become a pilot, I thought that I would capture my thoughts throughout my training and share it with anyone that was interested.
So here goes... my first attempt at a blog. I hope you find it useful and I encourage you to keep up and ask questions about flying or flight training. I would be glad to answer anything if I can.
Everyone's experience is different, but I am a student of everything and like to learn from others and make decisions based on what I learn from those experiences. My path to flying is no doubt different than the next person's. I hope you will find some useful stuff in this blog.
By the way, I want to thank Bill Williams of the Student Pilot Cast (www.studentpilotcast.com) and Greg Summers of the Student Pilot Journal (http://blog.studentpilotjournal.com/). Please check out their blogs and Greg's nicely done video podcast. I'm considering doing one just like that..
Ready... Set...
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