Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Flying

If they still teach flying like I was taught in the 1960s and after, you are taught to familiarize yourself with the controls. It really isn't anything like driving a car. Even taxiing on the runway you  steer with your feet not your hands. You put your feet one each on one of the pedals and if you want to brake you sort of push both pedals at the same time and at the same time you lessen the motor speed with your hand throttle to your right of the yoke(steering wheel). For every plane there is a stall speed which when flying you cannot go below without losing lift and if this happens to close to the ground you will crash. However, it is also good to know that if you got a sudden gust of wind coming from behind you might lose lift too if it was high enough in velocity. So, you don't want any tailwinds until you are at least 500 to 1000 feet into the air when you might be better able to survive them. This is why you always want to take off into the wind so you can survive your takeoff. (into the wind means the wind is blowing towards your face as you sit in the pilot's seat.

Also, the only thing that makes a small plane (like a Cessna 152) move even on the ground is the propeller and engine. So, when you first start the plane you open a window and yell "Clear" very loudly so someone doesn't accidentally walk into the propeller when you first start up while innocently walking by parked planes.

An instructor will after you get used to the feel of the controls on the ground insist that you never touch the yoke (steering wheel) with your right hand. This feels very counterintuitive for someone who drives a car or truck but after a while you understand why. It is more efficient to only use your left hand on the yoke(steering wheel) (except in a real emergency to pull out of a dive or something like that, because your right hand is going to be busy doing all sorts of other things to get the plane ready for takeoff or landing or trimming the plane while in flight. So, getting used to only touching the yoke with your left hand is something the instructor will insist on for safety. When you become a pilot you might rest your right hand on the controls for a long flight or to alternate hands in case you are getting buffeted from winds or something like that. But, for takeoff and landing you only should have your left hand on the yoke for safety.

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