Monday, January 2, 2017

Hammerheads at 20?

I believe I was at Encino airport where we used to land with my father and his friend in his friend's Stinson. I rented a plane and instructor but the flight instructor was a world war II fighter pilot with a lot of attitude. I could tell he wanted to out macho me like he had been out machoed by his instructor during world war II.

There was about a 20 mile per hour cross wind and we were warming up the Cessna 152 I believe it was then. Then he just said "Take off" I looked at the instructor and said, "I have never taken a plane off before" He just said, "Just watch out for the 20 mph cross wind." There was a perverse smile on his face that day so I should have expected some kind of problem. As I took off the cross wind gust hit the plane and I was scared because this caused the plane to wing over to my left. I watched the wing tip come within a foot to two of the ground so I pulled back on the stick a little for takeoff while I righted the plane but it was still bumpy after we left the ground. I still thought this guy might be difficult for me to deal with as an instructor. Then when I got to altitude he wanted to do "hammerheads" which basically means he wanted to pull back on the stick or yoke until the plane falls out of the sky or "STALLS" and falls 500 to 1000 feet.

We did this a few times until I told him I was going to throw up and he said, "We'd better stop because I don't want to have to clean up the plane."

I was kind of grateful to land the plane which I was surprised is much much harder than taking off.

I realized that day that any idiot can take off  plane but you really have to know what you are doing to land one, especially in a cross wind.

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