Lesson 1 - Effects of controls.

22 May 2011 

One word - Fantastic!!
Woke up and jumped out of bed and had a quick look out the window to check the weather.  All was looking good for my first flying lesson.  I'd decided early Sunday mornings were the best time for me, so showered, dressed, grabbed breakfast and was out the door before anyone else was up. 

Photo MFS

It's only a 15 minute drive to the airport, so I was soon parked at Moorabbin Flying Services and meeting my new instructor, Jason.  After a bit of paper work we sat down for a quick briefing about the plane I'd be flying and an outline of the "effects of controls" lesson.

My first flight was to be in VH-TAE a 2004 Piper Warrior III with an analog cockpit. Jason takes me out to the aircraft and walks me through the Pre-flight checks - can see I'm going to need to study up on this over the next week.

Then it was time to hop into the aircraft.  At this point I'm still half thinking "Ok, sat back while he runs through all the checks, taxis, takes off and flies as out to the training area for my lesson" - WRONG! He hands me the checklist and gets me to start running through them,  pointing out the various instruments, switches, etc I need to be looking at. 

Time to start the plane and to taxi out to the run-up bay.  OK, who's idea was it to use your feet to steer a plane on the ground?  I'm sure the controllers sitting in the tower can easily spot the brand new pilots by the amount the planes snakes along the taxiways.  Lets just say there was plenty of room for improvement.

Run-up checks then off to holding point Alpha 35R for the Pre-takeoff checks.  All I can say is thank god for checklists.  In Paragliding there was only a few basic checks (Check your lines, glider, and harness and undamaged, your helmet, chest strap, leg straps, glider correctly attached to harness, speedbar, reserve, altimeter, and as you start to launch check the glider has come up clean and looks right), there seems to be 10 times as may for a plane.

Jason gets clearance from the tower for takeoff and we are ready to go.  I "snake" the plane out on to runway and turn for takeoff.  Full power and we start charging down the runway.  60kts Jason tells me to pull back and we are airborne.  By now my brain is going at a million miles an hour, heading, nose on the horizon, airspeed, keep the wings level...How am I suppose to do all this and all the things I can see Jason doing for me!

We turn crosswind, then on to downwind and off to the training area.  Once we are there Jason runs me through the primary and secondary effects of all the control inputs; turn the yoke left - bank left & yaw left; Left rudder - yaw left & roll left: Pull pack on the yoke - pitch up: Power on - pitch up and yaw to the left.

 After what seemed like a very few minutes we started heading back to Moorabbin to land.  Once on the ground I did some more snaking back to the school and ran through the shut down checklist.

What a day!!!  I'm buzzing with excitement and already can't wait until next week.  However there plenty for to think about before then - Pre-flight inspections, Relaxing while I'm taxiing and smoother inputs, The effects of all the controls and pre-reading for my next lesson - "Straight and Level".





Piper Warrior III VH-TAE,  Flight Time 1.0hr (Total 1.0hrs)