Discovery Flight (Real Life)!!

[unlikely_spider]

I do have some updates, in case this is of interest to people here. In a subsequent flight I did execute more steep turns without issue (yay!), and also ground reference maneuvers (circles and s-turns). The ground reference maneuvers I think I did pretty well - obviously we do a lot of that in our sims and I was able to maintain the assigned altitude while doing them, as I think that my hours of [virtual] experience doing similar work really hammers home how you would otherwise lose altitude pretty quickly if not correcting for it while you are banking. I think that I was sub-consciously expecting that to happen and added power and trimmed up a little while entering the turns. It's quite satisfying to be banking at 30 or 40 degrees and looking down at your altimeter and VSI at exactly where you want them. Accounting for wind is something that I can definitely improve on though. That is also illustrated here during the next (and most exciting!) item - landings and pattern practice.

 

The last couple of flights had either too low a ceiling to practice maneuvers or had rain over our practice area. (KGAI unfortunately is just within the SFRA, which to the unacquainted is the area around DC that has very restrictive rules, so we often depart to the north to get out of the SFRA to practice without having to explain our intentions to the Feds).

 

The image shows my first time practicing the pattern on top, on Saturday morning, then the second time this morning, on the bottom. My patterns have very satisfactorily tightened, save for the turns to base. Note that one of them was intentionally long as we extended the downwind in order to follow someone else that was on final before us. You can also see that extended downwind and how I (unintentionally) veered a bit to the right before turning base - that is due to a light 170 degree wind. We did note the wind direction before we took off while listening to the AWOS, and despite the slight embarrassment from the deviations I made in the pattern upon post review, it is neat to see how I was very obviously affected by that exact wind direction.

 

So... there's always the common query among simmers. Can a simmer land a plane? I'm not sure that I count as simply a simmer anymore as I now have a full page in my logbook from actual flight time. I will strongly reiterate though - the sight picture, turning while looking at the runway to line yourself up, and the general feel is something that is strangely very familiar to me. I do believe that anyone who's spent hours in VR while earnestly attempting to replicate good practices will do very well. Not to mention that in GB and other sims we do often operate much less forgiving aircraft and worse runways than the very student-friendly Cessnas and jetway that I am learning on. On that note - the 172 (150hp) does require quite a bit of right rudder when applying full power on the runway, which is something that we're all used to doing (in one direction or another). But I just can't imagine how different something like a FW190 with 1900 hp (and a taildragger to boot) would actually feel like in real life. That must have been terrifying for first-timers.

 

But back to actual landing - I do know that sometimes I started a little high or low when leveling off from the base turn, but having good reflexes with the pitch for airspeed and throttle for altitude mantra nailed into me due to countless hours of sim time, not once did I have a situation where I wasn't stable or ready to adjust and make good corrections. I do think my approaches were quite good. Down near the ground, however, is a bit different. I did try to keep telling myself to look down the end of the runway after we passed the threshold, which helped. But there's a gradual losing of altitude and airspeed when pulling to idle that needs to be accompanied by increasing back pressure on the stick, and aligning those behaviors for a soft landing is something that certainly takes real-world practice. My first landing especially surprised me with the shear amount of back pressure that was needed before touching down, and the wheels touched a little hard (accompanied by the signature chirp). I did get better and better throughout, and this morning did receive one "niiiiccce" from the instructor, which felt really good. But the aforementioned back force needed on the yoke is not something that I have at home, nor anyone without good force feedback (which I've never used). I do forget that there are actual physical forces that I'm fighting against and not just software, and attempting to grease a landing is a great reminder of that.

 

So in summation, the last couple of days have been a big confidence booster. The instructor did handle most of the radio calls, so that's another addition to my cognitive bandwidth that I'll need to contend with soon. I have been studying those though, and am getting better at listening to what others are saying on the CTAF. GAI is an uncontrolled airport so it's incumbent on us, collectively, to manage the pattern, which is a bit scary to me. I do have to say that after five landings this morning (one full stop and four touch-and-go's) I did tell the instructor that the next one should be full stop and taxi to parking, as I was starting to feel the exhaustion. Going through the various checklist items and ensuring that I was hitting the right airspeeds, altitudes, flaps settings, on each leg requires 100% concentration (at least for me) and I was ready to call it a day after half-an-hour of doing that. I assume it gets easier.

 

Thanks everyone for their feedback in this thread, and if this inspires just one simmer to take a discovery flight and see what you're capable of, then that would make me quite happy.

 

Happy flying all.