#74 - FLIGHT 3: The Checklist (September 29 2020)

 

"We must leave our mark on life while we have it in our power."  Karen Blixen

 "Flying demanded more courage and faith than I actually possessed, and it wanted my best, my whole self.  I would have to work very hard to be any good at it at all..."                    Beryl Markham

 

Sporty's Flight School - Learn to Fly is an online Ground School course.  It is divided into six sections:  1) Your First Few Hours; 2) Practice Landings; 3) Your First Solo; 4) Your Dual Cross Countries; 5) Your Solo Cross Countries; 6) Your Private Pilot Test.  Topics include Introduction to the Airplane, Cockpit, Engines, Instruments (26 sessions in 1); Aerodynamics, Stalls, Normal Landings, Takeoff & Landing Variations (15 sessions in 2) and so forth throughout the course.  The goal is the learn about flying and, eventually, pass the written private pilot test and after that, the flying test.

I thought about quitting during the lesson on Stalls.  Part of the lesson includes the following:

  1. Practicing stalls will also help you learn the low airspeed flight characteristics of the airplane, and how to control it at low air speeds.

  2. Part of your practice will include recognizing the first indications of a stall – these are called imminent stalls.

  3. When practicing imminent stalls, the recovery is made at the first indication of a stall. The airplane is not allowed to become fully stalled. The object of this maneuver is to avoid a full stall.

  4. When doing full stalls, the stall is allowed to progress until full up elevator, buffeting, and nose down pitching are reached.

  5. During recovery from a fully stalled condition, you need to recover with a minimum loss of altitude and without entering a secondary stall.

  6. A secondary stall occurs when the pitch attitude is raised too soon or too high during the first stall recovery. Recover in the normal way.

  7. Stalls are especially dangerous when they occur close to the ground or if the pilot tries to recover in the wrong way.


Imminent Stalls - "Stalls are especially dangerous ...if the pilot tries to recover the wrong way." I am sure there must be an airline joke about the pilot pulling off to the side and getting out when a situation appears dangerous.  The apparent lack of humor comes when looking down to the ground at 6000 feet.  Actually, even 500 feet... or less.  I was in a mental stall and needed to recover the "right way."
 
"The parameter you are asking about is called glide ratio and it is directly related to another parameter called lift-to drag ratio or L/D Ratio.  This is a fundamental characteristic of the aerodynamics of a particular aircraft.  L/D ratio various with airspeed, for determining best engine-out glide performance, the L/D ratio at "best glide airspeed" is used.  "Best glide airspeed" is the speed that maximizes the L/D ratio, and this maximum value is knows as L/Dmax.
 
The maximum L/D ratio (L/Dmax) of a Cessna 172 is about 9, so its glide ratio is about 9:1 --for every 9 units traveled forward it will lose 1 unit of altitude.  So, it will glide about 9,000 feet for every 1000 feet of altitude available."   Aviation Stack Exchange

I feel much better with this new knowledge about "engine-out glide performance." Actually.......not really.
 
My flight school airplane is a Cessna 172.
 
When approaching the airplane on the ground as well as during and after the flight, I have a Checklist in-hand.  In order for you to gain an appreciate of the Checklist, I will conclude with photos of each list.









That's right....you need to know what each item on the list is talking about.  It doesn't help that they have several Cessna 172 and the instrument panel is arranged differently in each.  I hope to get the same airplane on the next flight.

 

Cessna 172 Instrument Panel


I was very busy last flight and didn't have time to take any photos, except this one before starting.  I will try to get some on the next flight.

Perhaps, during one of those practice stalls.