Flight 12
04-10-95

C-150H
TEB
Local

0.9 dual
1 landing

"Norm t/o & ldg, slow flight, power off & on stalls, C.A.P."


The morning bodes ill for today's lesson... I foolishly went out last night, and have a small but biting hangover.
Fortunately, the lesson is scheduled for 1300, so I have time to nurse myself back to a more functional state.
As usual on bad mornings, by the time I'm driving to the airport, I feel much better.

My new instructor is M., who has been with the school for some time, and has a somewhat serious, professional demeanor. I've spoken with him before, and I'm confident we'll get along all right, but... I'm not eager to adjust to yet another instructor, especially after enjoying F.'s fun but very effective teaching technique.

I'm back in good old 86S today, and after performing a decent takeoff with a quartering headwind, it's time to quickly review
everything. M. is somewhat aggressive in style, which annoys me at first- he's constantly correcting, reminding, and demonstrating. But I can see the benefit in this, and he seems to be trying to keep the review brief, so I take it in stride.

It's hard to say which type of teaching style is "better"... with F. I was less, well, inspired to take charge, even though he was more hands-off; with M.'s apparent impatience challenging me, I try harder to jump in and take care of the next task or correct some small error before he does it for me.

The lesson is soon over, and after shooting a normal pattern,I find again (!) that I'm high on final.M. takes over to show how one can sort of dive the 150 with full flaps, at about 60 knots.

My friend Mitch recently bought a PC that came with the Microsoft Flight Simulator program,  which I've been trying to use as a supplement to my lessons... I've noticed that I seem to make the same mistakes in simulation that I make on almost every real flight.
I make a mental note today to work more on normal approaches in the simulator from now on, instead of flying the Lear jet under bridges, inverted.

After the usual briefing, M. makes an interesting suggestion: if I continue my lessons in the 172s I will probably save money in the long run despite the slightly higher rental rate... with its greater power, the 172 will get me to and from the practice area more quickly. This is an excellent point, and he succeeds where E. failed ... E. was just trying to get me jazzed up on the 172 in general, but M. has pointed out the bottom line most effectively.

And I have begun to see the real limitations of the otherwise-delightful 150: once I begin my cross-country training, it will be far more practical to have that extra speed and range.

I feel a bit foolish: it seems I've been spending dollars to save pennies... so I decide to switch.


Next: flight 13

FridayChild wrote on Jan 20^th, 2007 at 6:26am:


I believe so. The computer was some sort of old HP turnkey system... wish I could remember the specs; it was pathetic by today's standards. He used it mostly for word processing.... it came bundled with FS.

The graphics (as rendered on his rig): no color, no textures... but I'll tell you what- it was fun to fly, even with just the keyboard.
I actually found it helped with my training, at least for visualization and getting a feel for the timing of things. The framerates were not too bad...