First Two Lessons

[Theotokos]

My first two lessons have gone good. I think I have started to get the hang of taxing at a very slow speed and will work my way up a little bit. Also he let me call in on the radio before takeoff and has been allowing me to takeoff. We have been flying between 1500 ft and 3000 practicing turns and climbs and descents. He also had me do climbing while turning which is somthing I need to work on. He said I do very well at correcting myself if I begin losing altitude or go off heading but then let the altitude drop off again, so as we were heading back to the airport at about 1700 ft, I tried using the trim and keeping a closer eye which helped, and next time I am going to work on maintaing altituide. He also had me idle the plane and asked, "So what happens if you pitch up?" I anwsered, "You stall." He said correct and began explaining about angle of attack and stalls although he did not get into speed not causing a stall. He then said, "Maybe I'll show you a few stalls today. Now keep this airspeed and pitch." Our airspeed was about 40 kias, give or take, I believe. Then he took control of the airplane and showed me a stall. I must say that nothing else really scared me till we did that...I was not even nervous the first day. Just the feeling and the eerie sound of that stall warning horn I guess. After he recovered he said, "Now how was that?" I told him a bit scary and he joked, "Oh it is like a roller coaster!" He always tries to throw a little humor in there. LIke there is this large cell phone radio tower that goes up like 2500 feet and he said to make sure you watch for it, saying, "Don't want to hit that do we?" I guess I will get more used to stalls and not be as frightened. I think my main problems are this: always maintaing altitude, climbing and turning (I think I can master this in the next few lessons). Also I tend to keep myself looking at the instruments indead of using the horizon, which I suppose is a thing I got from playing Flight Simulator. I need to make myself be aware of what is around me. Well that is about all for now, and next time I will try to remember to bring a camera--I keep forgetting :-b

[DE727UPS]

"Also I tend to keep myself looking at the instruments indead of using the horizon"

Yeah. If a guy won't look outside put a dollar bill over every flight instrument except for the airspeed. That's if I have enough dollar bills...