After the rusty return to flight last time, the instructor gave me several things to work on, and today's flight was to focus on steep turns and stalls since those needed the most work. Though last time was a bit frustrating, it's good to know that with practice and good instruction, it doesn't take long to become, if not smooth, at least safe.
To prepare, I did a bit of "chair flying" to practice the flows for the two main stalls (power-on and power-off), plus used X-Plane to approximate the sight picture for steep turns. A PC simulator isn't great for most real-world flying, but does have a few positives when it comes to this application or things like the "mental" aspects of flow and power-pitch-performance combinations.
The weather today was cooler, with lower clouds we had to maneuver around a bit, but made for a bit smoother day aloft. We tracked the VOR out to the practice area, and then got right into the steep turns. Right turns always seem to be a bit harder (from the left seat) due to the different sight picture, but I decided to just go for it straight away. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. It takes some practice to combine looking outside at the horizon, watching the airspeed and altitude inside, and keeping the bank angle at 45 degrees.
After a couple tries, the instructor took the controls to demonstrate one, and let me get a better look at the sight picture. After a couple more of mine which were much better, we had an "engine failure" and had to locate a suitable site and go through the flows for restart. But since we couldn't "restart" we had to go ahead and drop flaps in preparation for an emergency landing in a field. As we were a bit high, the instructor had me enter a slip to lose altitude. This had the exact effect of highlighting yet another skill I need to work on...
Now it was time to head back, so we tracked the VOR again and contacted approach to get back into the pattern. It was a busy traffic day, so as we slotted in, there was a Piper Archer in front which we somehow were overtaking. We could tell it was a short spacing, and finally the controller clued in as well to have us make a 360 to give everyone a bit more room.
As we turned onto final, the instructor had be try another slip. Again, not great. Too much rudder and aileron compared to what I would have been used to from the low-wing Diamond DA-20.
On the plus side, I handled all the radio calls, which can get a bit overwhelming on a busy day, but went well. The instructor also gave me a few more tips and a guide to some of the basic maneuvers to read up on before tomorrow. The main points were the V-speeds and flows for stalls to practice before the next flight.
The takeaway from today was that while it doesn't take long for skills to atrophy, it also doesn't take long to get back into the zone.
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