Optimal Frequency of Lessons

Good advice Shawn. I most likely will schedule weekly in order to
hedge against the weather. And while I'm at it I'll post my most
recent aero experience below.

Dave


Last week I completed my second year of participation in the annual
spin and emergency maneuver training offered by Rich Stowell here in
NJ. But unlike last year I had to battle a number of obstacles that
didn't exist last year. The first was that I had knee surgery about a
month ago and although I'm recovering fairly well, I'd only flown once
within the last month and a half. I was also recovering from some type
of stomach virus that continues to make me somewhat queasy. In fact
this was my biggest concern as I didn't want to blemish my record of
not tossing my cookies. I also started coming down with a cold which I
fiercely fought against and won.

The weather also stood as a possible deal breaker as low ceilings on
Friday caused the six flights for that day to be rescheduled.
Fortunately the weather held up until the time we were returning to
the airport from the flight, when a light rain started. But enough of
that. I arrived at the airport, Alexandria Field, at about 1:30 where
I was greeted by Rich, the airport owner Linda Castner, and the two
other guys flying that afternoon. I happen to know one of the guys
fairly well and the other in passing, as we all had the same
instrument instructor.

We went back to the classroom where Rich discussed what we would be
doing that day. Myself and one of the other pilots had gone through
the course the prior year so Rich asked what we wanted to do. I
decided that I wanted to review spins, but to also add some control
failure exercises and unusual attitude recoveries as well. I will
admit that while I had a terrific time the previous year doing spins
and some basic aerobatic maneuvers, I was a little anxious and felt
like I was doing it again for the first time.

I was the second of the three to fly, just enough time for the jitters
to build back up. But when it was my time we strapped on the chutes,
hopped in the Super Decathlon, and were on our way. We started with
some coordination exercises, followed by a few steep turns to clear
the area and two power off stalls. Then Rich asked me if my stomach
was up for a spin, to which I agreed. As Rich prefers to allow the
student to perform the entire maneuver, I pulled the power to idle and
allowed the airspeed to bleed off. I wasn't as aggressive as I should
have been in getting the stick back, but eventually got it down to
just above stall speed and then kicked in the left rudder. While it
had been a while since I had last seen the earth from that
perspective, it seemed like a familiar friend and I didn't have to
urge to say "Oh Sh&t!", as I did with my first spin the year before.

We went on to do three more spins with the power off before moving to
control failures. These consisted of Rich first having me perform
coordinated left and right turns, then telling me whether I had an
aileron failure or rudder failure. For an aileron failure I simply put
the plane into a slip by applying opposite rudder. But in the SD with
slips at 100 kts, the degree of uncoordinated flight is so high that
it's almost uncomfortable, especially if you don't lean into it. For
rudder failures in the turn I went from aileron deflection in the
direction of turn to opposite aileron to enter the slip. In both cases
I applied enough forward pressure on the elevator to get the AOA down,
and adjusted the available control surface to maintain the heading.
The last part of this exercise was Rich blocking a control surface at
random, me figuring out what had failed, and applying the appropriate
corrections.

The last module was recovery from unusual attitudes. But these were
far more unusual than the one I experienced as a student pilot as they
all ended in spins. Rich took the controls, I put my hands in my lap,
and waited to see what was coming next. The first unusual attitude was
a steep climbing left turn into a spin. This was followed by a spin
out of a botched loop, and finally a spin out of a snap roll, which in
itself was interesting. The difference between these three spins and
those I had done before was that they all were entered with power on,
so I had to complete all the steps in the Power, Aileron, Rudder,
Elevator recovery. In fact I had to call out each action as I did it.
I was surprised that I didn't feel rushed, and the reason for the
callouts was to have me think consciously about my actions and to
assess about what I was seeing.

On the way back to the field I got to perform a loop, which I did last
year as well, in addition to a hammerhead, which was a blast. While
the experience was a tremendous benefit last year when I did it, the
components that we added this year increased my knowledge and
confidence that much more. As I plan to take between 5-10 hours of
aero before starting the commercial, this will be a good refresher
before starting.

Dave


"ShawnD2112" wrote in message .uk...
David,

As usual, I agree with what Dudley says, but only based on my own
experience, as I'm not a flight instructor. I'll also add that I really
learned how to fly when I got hold of a Supercub one summer and was flying
several times a week. Not long flights, most of them spent in the pattern
doing every concievable kind of take off and landing combination I and my
mates could think of. There were rest periods in between, and lots of
analysis and hangar flying to boot, but there was definitely something about
frequency in there for me. This wasn't the old "get your PPL in two weeks"
kind of pressured course, it was just me flying after I got my PPL as much
as I could. Flying more often allowed me to retain more between lessons,
requiring less relearning during each. I developed a feel for the airplane
during that period that I've never matched since, simply because of how
often I was flying. I would suggest you give that some thought as a
balancing argument to having weeks beetween lessons.

Also, depending on where you live, if you schedule for every other week, in
reality you'll get weathered out at least part of the time and end up only
flying one weekend per month sometimes. Consider scheduling every weekend
and let weather and other factors give you the seperation you're talking
about needing.

Just my .02 worth,
Shawn