In the first stage of flight training, for the private pilot course, you learn only a handful of maneuvers. Flying an airplane isn’t very hard, or at least it was easier than I was expecting. The airplane I’m using now, the Piper Warrior, (go to the ‘Airplane’ section under ‘Base Airport’ to learn more about the Warrior), is very stale and beginner friendly plane. It’s a really great airplane to learn to fly in. Anyway, flying an airplane is fun; not only do you have to direct it left, or right, and accelerate or decelerate, you need to monitor altitude. With that in mind, I’ll go over the maneuvers I’ve learned so far.
The first maneuver I was taught was slow flight. Slow flight is important because it simulates the traffic pattern. At slower airspeeds, the airplane behaves differently. The control surfaces are less effective and the pilot needs to rely on the rudders to control where the airplane goes instead of the ailerons. The hardest thing about slow flight is that you’re only a split second away from a stall. When done properly, the entire maneuver should be conducted with the stall horn aloud. The stall horn is sounded when the airplane ‘senses’ a stall. What I mean is that on the leading edge of the left wing, there’s a little flap that will move around when not enough airflow is traveling over it. This occurs at slow speeds and a high angle of attack (AOA). With the stall horn on, and all the flaps put in, you need to be able to climb, descend, or turn the airplane. However, to ascend, you need to apply power since you can’t pull back on the controls. Dong so will increase the AOA and cause a stall. The same goes for descending, except reducing power. In slow flight, lowering the AOA will cause the plane to gain speed, and fly out of slow flight. Slow flight is definitely the trickiest maneuver for me in the first stage.
The stalls are important to learn because what you’re really practicing is stall recovery. The instructor needs to show you how to recover from a stall when one occurs. There are two common types of stalls, the power on stall and the power off stall. The power on stall simulates a stall if the pilot pulls up too much and too quickly during a takeoff. During a power on stall full power is applied at the rotation speed (rotation speed is the speed at which the plane can become and sustain lift) plus 5 knots. In essence, you’re simulating that you’re on the takeoff roll and rotating. Once you apply full power, you pull back on the controls (yoke) to simulate that you are taking off with too much AOA. The recovery for this is easy; you just lower the nose to regain smooth airflow over the wings.
The power off stall is a little more involved. It is my personal favorite maneuver so far because I find it fun. The stall is used to simulate that you took too much power out during a landing and have stalled the plane. To perform the maneuver, you establish a 3 degree descent to simulate an approach to landing. Then once at the ‘deck’ altitude (the altitude that is representative of the ground), or just above it, you take all the power out as to simulate that you’ve flared (a flare is the part of the landing which brings the nose up so the back wheels can touchdown first). As you do this, you increase back pressure on the yoke to simulate that you’re flaring too high. With no power and a high AOA, the airplane will stall. I like this maneuver because once it stalls, the nose drops dramatically towards the surface. The second this happens, you apply full power, step on the right rudder pedal to counteract the left turning tendency, and take out the first notch of flaps. It’s fun because you have to do a few things at once. The first time I did it correctly, I felt like I was Tom Cruise in top gun.
The last set of maneuvers in stage 1 of private pilot is ground reference maneuvers. The point of these is to practice flying with a reference point on the ground. There about 4 or 5 of them, but so far, I’ve only learned two. The first is turns around a point. The goal of this is to pick a point on the ground, and complete a circle around it while keeping a constant radius, as well as speed and altitude. The tricky part is playing the wind. If the wind is blowing hard form one direction, it’s going to blow you farther and faster when you’re in the downwind. This means you need to increase the angle of bank. While in the upwind, the angle of bank is shallower because you’re going against the wind. It only took me a few tries to get the hand of it, and of course the stronger the wind is, the harder the maneuver’s going to be.
The second ground reference maneuver I learned was S turns. This is done along a straight line, usually a road or straight beach. It is done at the same altitude and speed as the circle around a point. The difference is that once you make a half circle, you need to turn in the other direction and complete an S shape. It’s hard to picture it in your head if you’ve never done it before. The goal is to make the half circles the same distance away from the reference line. If you can be efficient with turns around a point, than the S turns become a lot easier.
The last maneuver, while not being a true maneuver, is landing. This is important because anyone can takeoff, landing is the tricky part. The first month that I did landings, my instructed never let go of the controls. He held on to them until I could prove that I was able to do them sufficiently without any help. The maneuver we do is called a touch and go. This means that I land, and once on the ground, I retract the flaps and apply full power and takeoff again without leaving the runway. After a month of doing about 5 touch and goes at the end of each flying lessons, I became comfortable and confident with my landings.
The maneuvers I’ve learned so far were challenging at first, but once I got the hang of them, they become fun and easy, almost boring.
The first maneuver I was taught was slow flight. Slow flight is important because it simulates the traffic pattern. At slower airspeeds, the airplane behaves differently. The control surfaces are less effective and the pilot needs to rely on the rudders to control where the airplane goes instead of the ailerons. The hardest thing about slow flight is that you’re only a split second away from a stall. When done properly, the entire maneuver should be conducted with the stall horn aloud. The stall horn is sounded when the airplane ‘senses’ a stall. What I mean is that on the leading edge of the left wing, there’s a little flap that will move around when not enough airflow is traveling over it. This occurs at slow speeds and a high angle of attack (AOA). With the stall horn on, and all the flaps put in, you need to be able to climb, descend, or turn the airplane. However, to ascend, you need to apply power since you can’t pull back on the controls. Dong so will increase the AOA and cause a stall. The same goes for descending, except reducing power. In slow flight, lowering the AOA will cause the plane to gain speed, and fly out of slow flight. Slow flight is definitely the trickiest maneuver for me in the first stage.
The stalls are important to learn because what you’re really practicing is stall recovery. The instructor needs to show you how to recover from a stall when one occurs. There are two common types of stalls, the power on stall and the power off stall. The power on stall simulates a stall if the pilot pulls up too much and too quickly during a takeoff. During a power on stall full power is applied at the rotation speed (rotation speed is the speed at which the plane can become and sustain lift) plus 5 knots. In essence, you’re simulating that you’re on the takeoff roll and rotating. Once you apply full power, you pull back on the controls (yoke) to simulate that you are taking off with too much AOA. The recovery for this is easy; you just lower the nose to regain smooth airflow over the wings.
The power off stall is a little more involved. It is my personal favorite maneuver so far because I find it fun. The stall is used to simulate that you took too much power out during a landing and have stalled the plane. To perform the maneuver, you establish a 3 degree descent to simulate an approach to landing. Then once at the ‘deck’ altitude (the altitude that is representative of the ground), or just above it, you take all the power out as to simulate that you’ve flared (a flare is the part of the landing which brings the nose up so the back wheels can touchdown first). As you do this, you increase back pressure on the yoke to simulate that you’re flaring too high. With no power and a high AOA, the airplane will stall. I like this maneuver because once it stalls, the nose drops dramatically towards the surface. The second this happens, you apply full power, step on the right rudder pedal to counteract the left turning tendency, and take out the first notch of flaps. It’s fun because you have to do a few things at once. The first time I did it correctly, I felt like I was Tom Cruise in top gun.
The last set of maneuvers in stage 1 of private pilot is ground reference maneuvers. The point of these is to practice flying with a reference point on the ground. There about 4 or 5 of them, but so far, I’ve only learned two. The first is turns around a point. The goal of this is to pick a point on the ground, and complete a circle around it while keeping a constant radius, as well as speed and altitude. The tricky part is playing the wind. If the wind is blowing hard form one direction, it’s going to blow you farther and faster when you’re in the downwind. This means you need to increase the angle of bank. While in the upwind, the angle of bank is shallower because you’re going against the wind. It only took me a few tries to get the hand of it, and of course the stronger the wind is, the harder the maneuver’s going to be.
The second ground reference maneuver I learned was S turns. This is done along a straight line, usually a road or straight beach. It is done at the same altitude and speed as the circle around a point. The difference is that once you make a half circle, you need to turn in the other direction and complete an S shape. It’s hard to picture it in your head if you’ve never done it before. The goal is to make the half circles the same distance away from the reference line. If you can be efficient with turns around a point, than the S turns become a lot easier.
The last maneuver, while not being a true maneuver, is landing. This is important because anyone can takeoff, landing is the tricky part. The first month that I did landings, my instructed never let go of the controls. He held on to them until I could prove that I was able to do them sufficiently without any help. The maneuver we do is called a touch and go. This means that I land, and once on the ground, I retract the flaps and apply full power and takeoff again without leaving the runway. After a month of doing about 5 touch and goes at the end of each flying lessons, I became comfortable and confident with my landings.
The maneuvers I’ve learned so far were challenging at first, but once I got the hang of them, they become fun and easy, almost boring.
