The Doctor's Lair

Finally after two years of watching people dress up and we in jackets and jeans, dear Rahul Bagdia finally decided to dress up and go in as well. As usual he pulled in a lot of people. Everyone was at least armed with a scar on the forehead and the cut-throats went to the yost arena to have some fun. Not before we had used some colors and gel to modify our appearance. I tried lots of gel, made my hair all messy, weird color on the face and the master stroke, torn shirt dripping with blood. Surprisingly, the shirt got a lot of comments, including a very sweet fairy whom you see below. Also is a photo with other people at the skate. Good fun. Photos courtesy the sweet fairy.

October the 8th. What good is flying if you cant fly in a straight line. You will not be able to reach anywhere. Well, in straight and level flight, you will generally fly straight, but there is a small complication: The Wind. Always trying to push you one way or the other. So to gain confidence and to fly straight, you do what are called ground reference maneuvers. Turns around a point, S-turns, Turns around pylons are examples of ground reference maneuvers. The aim is to make beautiful looking circles and half-circles and not ugly looking ovals. The instructor says to be patient in these, but yours truly probably has been impatient and draws some weird shapes 800 feet AGL. Oh, yes, these are done about 800 feet above the ground, so its also important to pick an open field nearby should the powerplant decide that she has had enough.

Ugly looking shapes, but good looking photographs. Here are some photographs taken by my instructor on this day. How its done? By opening the window, putting the camera and your hand outside and Click!

Here are some photos from that day.


Pumpkin patch and a cemetry
Pumpkin path from overhead
Four fields
Nice light and shadow

October the 6th. Today was an extremely good learning day. I schedule the flight at 8 in the morning and things went quite well. A little fog, but it had cleared enough so as to go out and practice. Most of the practice was done in the westerly headings. Easterly the sun and the remaining fog made the visibility very poor. No foul ups on the radio frequency this time(I did last time) or anything and the takeoff was good. Offcourse, when you are learning there have to be a few hiccups. While practicing slow flight, I stalled; so learned the hard way that I need to keep an eye on the airspeed especially in the slow flight maneuver. Then we turned into the wind and with us going at around 35 KIAS and the wind at 3000' being at 30 kts, we were nearly hovering in the air. Its a weird feeling, looking down and not seeing the ground move backwards. Next came power off stalls and power on stalls: nearly put on of them into a spin again, but apart from that they went quite nicely. We flew back to the airport and proceeded to do some comings back to the earth, or landings as they are known. Did five of them, improving a little each time but still a long way to go. "Landing is about balancing the pitch and the power," was what I got to heard more than a couple of times.

Coming to the topic of the post, taxing past the hold short line to the active runway, we passed a very small bird sitting calmly on one of the taxiway lights. Our wing nearly passed on top of the bird and the bird did not flutter at all. I guess he things he is the king of the airport

October the 2nd. Things get interesting. This being the day when I almost landed a plane by myself. I would say almost though, the instructor is there and helps with everything, especially the rudder since it is hard skill to master. But the cream of the day were the stalls. Its where you nearly stop the airplane in the air and then it wants to come down. They come on two varieties, power off and power on. I nearly put one in a spin. The natural habit of using ailerons to keep level does not work in stalls and will put you in a spin. I got to hear,"Keep and ailerons level, use the rudder, lower the nose," a couple dozens of times now. The stall characteristics of a Cessna 152 are pretty mild though with you having to literally force a stall. The plane really does not want to stall. Did I ever tell you people that N222UM, the Cessna 152 that I usually fly was made in 1977. But it has an engine that is only about an year old. Most airframes last a long time. There are lost of WWII aircraft that are still being flow today.

Its been a while since I wrote anything. A couple of posts are from flights that were made earlier. I will try to be regular, but no promises. The following is for a flight for septemeber the 23rd

Added 1.5 hours to my total, with today being pertty hectic. I thought we covered quite a few things. Instead to just trying to hold straight and level and turns and climbs, today was much much more. Approaches!! Yep, coming back to mother earth; and as instict tells you, when the earth comes up to meet you, you pull back on the stick to keep away. My CFI tells me its very natural for a new person to do that. I got a little over that habit today, but will have to work more on it. There are two reason you do not want to keep pulling on the stick, the first is offcourse you are going to go slow and then stall, the second, how will you land if you keep pulling up, you need to come down right? Its was a different aircraft too, this one name tree tree tree Uniform Mike or 333UM. The tree comes from the pronunciation fundas. When talking over the radio, the listener cannot see your lips move and hence it takes a little more effort to understand. To make it easier, some pronunciations are suggestion. Like, tree for 3, fife for 5 and niner for 9.