Time: 1900Z (1300 MST)
Flying time: 2.1 hrs.
Landings: 5
Ok, they can't all end with me ecstatic that I'm learning so bloody fast.
Run through the check list, get it started. Call clearance delivery, get departure frequency and squawk code. Get clearance from ground, taxi to 17 at Delta. Get clearance from tower, taxi into position and hold. Cleared for takeoff. Perfect. Turn to 260, climb to 7500MSL. Departure clears us to resume on navigation. Climb to 8500'. Jeff and I go on a brief trip to see if we can see traces of the abandoned airport to the northwest that shows up on the Albuquerque sectional. No sign, they must have built the suburb of Rio Rancho on top of it. Out to the practice area and climb to 10,000'MSL. Terminate radar service. So far so good. Jeff comments that I've gotten the radio stuff down pat.
I do a couple of good power-off stalls. Climb back to 10,000 and go for some power-on. Reduce speed to 75 knots. OOps. No, not FULL power (I had thought I was supposed to simulate a takeoff) before full backpressure. We've got our nose WAAAAAAAAAY up in the air, and she wants to stall. Of course, she wants to yaw to the left, too. What does Tom do? Does he apply correct right rudder to compensate? NOoooo, that would be too easy. He jerks the yoke to the right, and guess what aerobatic maneuver he starts to do? Yup. A spin to the left. "I've got the aircraft" says Jeff. I begin to breath normally after a few minutes, and Jeff steps me through the correct procedure to recover from a spin. Now do another power on stall. This time I don't give it full power, and stop the yawing tendency with right rudder. Whew.
Now it's time to learn how to set her down safely if the engine fails. Ok, power to idle, let's see how you'd do. Pitch to get airspeed to best glide (85 knots). Look for a good landing spot. That dirt road might work, just keep your eyes on the power lines to the north. Ok, set us up for final onto the road. This gets me nervous. I'm scared enough landing on paved runways. We line up with the road, and maintain best glide until we're about 200'AGL. Then full power and climb back to 10,000' to learn emergency descents. Eeek!
SO far only one flub. That damned spin is still affecting my breathing patterns. Now it's time to head back to AEG and do some landing practice.
First landing approach sucks. I'm concentrating a bit much on doing the radio work right and overshoot while on base, and have to correct a lot to get the final lined up. We land safely, with a lot of help from Jeff, taxi around and take off again. Perfect crosswind takeoff, keeping it well lined up all the way up. Come around the pattern again, and this time my final approach is right. Having a lot of trouble keeping it lined up right, and don't fly the slip properly. Jeff fixes it, we land, and talk through what went wrong. Again, this time doing a simulated go-around. One more landing, which is much better but still leaving much to be desired. Now back to ABQ.
And my brain fell out.
From this point until we land I get nothing right. My radio communications goes to hell --- I keep saying "Skyhawk 78730" instead of "Skyhawk 7873November". The only reason I can think of that I was doing that was that my zip code was once 78730 and my mouth is on autopilot without brain engaged. I have a hard time remembering what ATC is telling us, and there's a lot of it because it's busy and we're getting vectored all over the place. Fly to this VOR and report, watch for this Aztec traffic, follow that plane in. We're also landing on a different runway this time because the winds are strong and in a different direction. Sigh. Lot of help from Jeff gets me in without getting yelled at by the controller.
Anyhow, this was fairly disappointing, with a major flub and a massive brainfart in one day. Still, got a bunch of stuff out of the way.