Hi All, just wanted to share my nice experience with you all. Some of you may know that I was working toward my PPL for a while. Well, I haven't had the time or money to fly since I started A&P school last December. As luck would have it, I had a little free time on Friday so I decided spur of the moment to go see my old instructor and just hang around the airport for a while. When I arrived, Joe (my instructor) was out doing a BFR with a lady in her Aeronca Champ. I watched them do a few touch and goes in that pretty little airplane and finally they landed and parked. Joe introduced me to the pilot of the Champ, Melinda. She and I shook hands and got to talking as I admired her airplane. To my surprise, she offered me a ride! A few minutes later we were rolling down the runway, the tail came up, which is an odd feeling when you are used to having a nose wheel, and the little bird lifted off of the runway so gently. Melinda took us up to about 2500' MSL and pointed the nose towards a nearby lake. At this point she turned over the controls to me. Now if you have never flown an airplane with a stick rather than a yoke, I highly recommend that you try it. The stick provided such a natural feeling, I didn't think about anything I just flew. At one point I looked out the window and noticed that one aileron was down a little and the other was up, but I was flying straight and level. I had been correcting for a crosswind without even knowing it! After about 20 minutes, I figured I had used enough of her gas and set us up to enter the pattern. Melinda took over and brought us back down for a perfect landing. That was probably the most fun I have ever had with an airplane aside from my first solo, and I'm not sure I'll ever be truly happy with a Cessna again. Speaking of Cessnas, Later that day I payed Joe for a flight around the pattern in his old 172 just to see if I could still land a plane like I used to and let me tell you, I greased that landing. I get a lot of satisfaction from a good landing. That's not the end of the story either, the icing on the cake came when I mentioned to Joe that I was thinking of getting an old propeller to hang on my wall. He took me into the hanger and handed me an old McCaully Met-L-Prop that was just a little too beat up to ever be used again. It barely fit in my car, but it will look good on the wall. Well, I know it was a long post, but thanks for reading. And seriously, you have to try flying a plane with a stick, you'll never go back.

Excellent... another one seduced by the little 7AC. 

That was also my first taildragger, and it definitely made a lasting impression. It's hard to say why, exactly- Champs are slow, don't climb worth a damn, have almost-useless brakes, tons of adverse yaw, love to weathervane in cross-winds, can't carry much, and can't go very far, even slowly sipping those 13 gallons.

But they're just wonderfully predictable once you get a feel for them, and are simple and sturdy.  Just a good airplane. 

Sounds like a neat and fun experience... 

Humor me though...

Quote:


...elaborate on straight and level crosswind correction that was anything other than a crab angle. If you were holding aileron deflection and not rolling, you had to be slipping ? 

I only bring it up, because flying techniques discussed in forums are there in black and white for many to read.. I'd be remiss to not question  it.

Boss_BlueAngels wrote on Nov 5^th, 2008 at 2:56am:


Now that you and Brett mention it, I probably was holding a slip. My immediate thought was crosswind because (as I failed to mention) I think I was also giving some left pedal, but it was the aileron deflection (to the right) that I really noticed.

You know what, having described it like that it sounds exactly like a slip... Oops. Either way it was fun.