First lesson is this Sunday.  I plan on flying at least 3 days a week, maybe more if I can get it in and retain the information.

I grew up flying around in Grandpa's Ercoupe (sliding back the cockpit on a nice day was amazing!) He sold that after a while and picked up a Piper Cherokee.  I probably flew a couple hundred hours from the time I was ~5-17 or 18.  It's been 20+ years since I've been in a small plane, but I'm going back, and I'm going to get my PPL!

I posted in team about this a few weeks ago, but my Grandpa passed away 2 years ago.  My grandma called me on the 2nd anniversary of his death and told me he wanted me to learn how to fly.  He always hoped I would (and if I had, I'd probably have a nice Cherokee about now, but I had other priorities ).  Anyhow, "he" is paying for my lessons.  So no need to take 2 years to do it, I can fly as often and as much as I need to make this happen.

I'll let you guys know how #1 went on Sunday!

Couple old pics I found.

My grandpa played pro hockey in the 40's or 50's.  

This is a pic of when he was on the Blackhawks practice squad.  He never played on the "A" team for them, did play for the Redwings.  

He's the guy sort of in the middle with no jersey on.



His Ercoupe - at Sky Harbor International - that's where his tiedown was!.  Was a much different airport back then.  




Him and his Cherokee



Me in the left seat, circa like 1988 or something.  I was young.



Him and his buddies (he's on the left holding the white helmet) after he set the Arizona altitude record for a hanglider flight or something.  I don't know, or remember, exactly what it was.

Very cool.  Your grandpa looks like a cool guy.

Awesome! Good luck on your training.

Good luck I'd recommend flying at least three days a week.

Cool pictures, and good luck with the training.

If you google the Cherokee tail number there's a ton of pics of it. It's out in California flying around.

Yup!  The picture of my grandpa is at that airport after he ferried it there when he sold it.  The guy who owns it now flew predator and reaper drones in the military and now flies drones for NASA.

First flight done!!!

Took me a second to get the taxiing down.  I was trying to use only the rudder to turn. CFI had to take over for a sec.  I guess you're supposed to toe the brakes to make turns when you're on the ground moving 3 miles an hour. We taxied all the way from one end of the runway to the other to get to our takeoff point, I had it down pretty good by then.  

I pretty much flew the whole thing.  He just shadowed me on the controls.  It all came back pretty quick.  He told me to trim the plane once we got up and I was looking for the trim on the roof.  It's not there on a Cessna.  I flew so much in a Cherokee I just *knew* it was on the roof, even though he already showed me where it was on the pedestal when were doing our pre-flight checks.

It was so much fun.  I'm still grinning.  We flew for about an hour (.9 in the logbook) but it felt like we were in the air for about 3 minutes.  He was pretty happy with my turns. I kept them level  and coordinated.  He asked if I was intentionally using the rudder in the turns and I told him yes, it was intentional.  For a second I thought I might have been doing it wrong, but he said he was just surprised I knew to do that on my own.  He knew I had been in GA planes before, but I think he was kinda surprised that I actually kinda know how to fly.    I've "flown" an airplane alot.  I've just never been in control on the ground, at takeoff, or landing.  

I can't wait to do it again!!!

I was just reading the Airplane Flying Handbook and I woke my wife up with my laughing.  



Say what now?

I always mention to people how foreign taxiing an aircraft is.
Out of everything I have ever operated, car, boat, bulldozer, etc., they all used your hands to steer.
Now you get into a plane, you're turning the yoke, and it's not going where you want it!
And then you break that years-old habit and start using the rudder pedals and brakes to turn.  
Weird, but once you get used to it, it's second nature.

I really wish my boat had rudder pedals. I often troll the shipping channel and it's very difficult to real in a keeper-sized Grouper and steer the boat at the same time.

Wait til you fly an Ercoupe... you use the yoke to steer on the ground! Guaranteed to screw with your head the first time.

So... Flight #2 didn't go that well.  Or at all.    I got lots of taxi practice though!

I did the pre-flight, fired up the plane, called ground and got clearance to taxi.  Taxied to the run-up area and began the pre-takeoff runup and checks.  Got to the magneto checks.  Switched from both to left and the engine quit.  Hmmm.  I don't think that's supposed to happen.  

CFI took over and restarted the engine.  He tried some plug fouling procedures but no matter what he did, when I switched to the left mag, the motor would lose a little power and stumble for a second then quit.  So, I got to learn how to call ground and return to the tiedown.  

I guess there's a reason for all those pre-flight checks after all!  

My friend refers to them as "Scarecoupes".
Another member of our EAA chapter has two or three of them.  They're pretty cool little planes.

Aced my medical!  

1 step closer to the poor house.

3.2 hours in the books.  Today was a lot of fun.  Slow flight and power off stalls.  We also practiced go-arounds and he demonstrated a simulated engine failure.  It was a little choppy up there.  OVC at 090, little bit of rain.  Winds went from 6 to 14 at the surface while we were up.  We shot for touch and gos, but after the first 12kt crosswind landing and take off my instructor decided it was probably a little counterproductive this early.  I managed to get the plane down on the first landing, but it was interesting.  Coming in for a full stop on the second landing we were encountering some wind shear and the crosswind felt worse.  He took over the airplane and landed it while I shadowed the controls.  A 172 has a maximum 15kt crosswind component and we were riding that pretty dang close on the 2nd.  

Honestly, I had a TON of fun.  I really enjoyed the stalls and learning what that felt like.  I thought the crosswind landings were 'fun' as well.  It was the first time I really remember coming in on final and looking at the runway out of the starboard side of the windscreen.  

The things I need to work on are inputting rudder when initiating a turn (nose is yawing a little) and holding altitude.  I find myself drifting up or down +/- 200' if I'm not watching it.  I'm also figuring out the throttle.  It takes more movement than I anticipate to make changes.  I'm moving it too slowly.  

Found another broken magneto today.  On a different airplane than last time.

I've learned here pretty early that following checklists matters.

On the bright side, we taxied back and just took a different plane.  It was bumpy and windy today.  Fun, but bumpy.  More slow flight, simulated approaches, and ground reference maneuvers.  It was a really good day for ground reference stuff.  Good winds.  

Tried using a gopro for the first time.  I got it all set up in the first plane and have about 15 minutes of us taxiing around and finding out there was a bad mag.  Moved it to the new plane and forgot to hit record.    This is my first gopro and I'm still learning.  I'll get it next time.

I can relate.  I planned the same cross country three times because every time I went to fly it there was something new wrong with the airplane.  I saw your PM about the telemetry on the video.  I've been a little busy but I'll send you the info on how I do it.  Its pretty easy to do, just more stuff to buy.

Your grandfather's Cherokee is still flying around out in California.   Google the n number if you are interested.

Yup.  His ercoupe is still active too.  I'm not sure if it's flying, but registration is current.

I don't know what the deal is, but ANOTHER broken airplane this morning.

Flaps wouldn't extend during pre-flight checks.  

Try again tomorrow.

Dude- you need to find another flight school. Something is fucky about the maintenance at the one you're using.

I don't know if it's me or what.  I've talked to other students there and none of them have had the issues I have.  This school has been in business for LONG time.  They have excellent reviews everywhere across the web.  Other students are super happy with them.  

That said, I'm just about at my limit.  My time is valuable too.

So, since the last couple hiccups, things have been going really great.  I have just shy of 10 hours.  We finally moved on to getting landings down.  We went out Sunday and flew to a different airport (we're flying out of SDL, and we flew down to FFZ).  Did touch and go's for about an hour.  By the end, I was doing it myself.

Went out today for 1.3hrs did 7 t&g, 1 flight down the runway, 1 no flap landing, and 1 full stop.  Happy to say that my instructor didn't touch the controls even once today!

We're going to try to go Sat and Sun this weekend.  He wants to spend some time practicing slow flight and introduce slips to landing, then just do more pattern work.  I'm starting to feel like I understand everything that's going on now.  I'm doing all the talking on the radio, deciding on my turns to downwind, base, and final on my own - setting power and flaps on my own.  

I'm pretty happy!

Aaaah, forward slip to a landing, no flaps, engine out.
That's what we concluded my check ride with last week.
It was fun, but man do you float a long way without those flaps!
And yes, I passed.  

Forward slips are pretty cool!  We practiced them for a bit then went and did touch and gos.  We intentionally came in high on final and used forward slips to get down to glide slope.

I really enjoyed it.  He's also started just pulling power out of nowhere and calling 'engine failure'.  Fun times!

Today a few lights clicked on.

We were practicing crosswind landings.  Not heavy, around 8-10kts or so.  I was having trouble keeping the nose straight and I was landing too fast.  We've literally only had 2 landings that had crosswind component and they were on my 2nd flight, IIRC, and he pretty much handled the first landing and flat out said "I'm going to land this one" for the 2nd because the winds were pretty strong.  So, I haven't really had to use the rudder to keep the nose straight on final.  I figured out after about the 3rd one that I was subconsciously still trying to keep the ball centered.  In a crosswind, you're obviously not supposed to do that.  I knew it, but I was doing it anyway without really thinking about it.  Once I got that figured out, keeping it straight and on center line was pretty easy.

On the too fast thing:  I claim instructor error.    More like miscommunication really.   I would get down, round out, and he would say "hold it, hold it" which I interpreted as "keep the yoke exactly where it is", but what he meant was hold it off the runway using more backpressure until the speed bled off.  Once we got those 2 things squared away, my landings got WAY better.  

Pattern was nuts today.  I talked on the radio A LOT.  Multiple corporate jets in and out, I was having to extend legs, turn early crosswinds, had to do an s-turn on base to final.  Really had to watch my aim point with wake turbulence.  He was really happy with my pattern work, identifying and locating traffic, staying in good communication, etc.  At one point, as we were lifting off after a touch and go, he reached over with a sticky note and said "oops, your altimeter just broke" and covered it up.  Just as he did it, the controller comes on asking me to make an early crosswind too.    I watched my rate of climb, looked at the ground, etc and when I felt we were at pattern altitude (2500 msl) I leveled off and said this feels like about it.  He pulled the sticky note off and we were right at 2490 msl.    He looked at me and said "Seriously, could you see through the paper???"  

I was pretty happy with myself and my confidence went way up.  Today was one of the most challenging days for me so far.  So much radio, watching for traffic, wake turbulence, weird patterns, etc but I felt really really good at the end of the flight.

I'm pretty sure he did too because he was asking me if I'd gotten my student pilot certificate in the mail yet...  I think the day is coming close.  

Glad to hear it is going well.  Even pattern work can get interesting when the airport gets busy:  https://cloudahoy.com/debrief/?key=FzPN0CAF0PYwpio

Since I've been too lazy to IM you, I use a Garmin 500 cycling computer when I want to record telemetry for video.  Then I use the Garmin Virb app to merge the GoPro video and the data.  The only difficult part about it is getting them to sync properly but that just takes a little work.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks!  That cloud ahoy thing looks pretty awesome too.  I might just get that.

It is pretty handy, It is smart enough to know when you are doing steep turns, etc and you can actually isolate the maneuver and check your speed and altitude.  For whatever reason steep turns to the right were my nemesis and it really helped me get a handle on them.

I have a foreflight subscription and my instructor has a stratus (I'll get one when I start seriously soloing), will it do anything similar or is cloudahoy markedly better?

I can't answer that.  I fly with Garmin Pilot and I haven't discovered any real recording ability. I'm sure there are some Foreflight users on here who might know.

I was just doing some googling, and it looks like foreflight with stratus is good to go for recording, but you can export your data to cloudahoy which has a far better debrief.  So, I'll try that next time out.  I have a free 35 day trial of cloudahoy.  I'm flying again Tuesday, so we'll see what happens!

Good Thread. I enjoy reading about student pilots learning to fly. It's fun to listen to voices go from timid to confident. It's fun one of our locals is blogging his progress and I'm following it and it's fun when his training coincides with my work time.

Thanks!

This flying thing is a lot more complicated than I expected.  As I said earlier, I flew alot with my grandpa.  But as I'm learning, I didn't really ever fly lol.  I just held the yoke on a trimmed up airplane in cruise.  

There's a lot more to it than that.  I'm really having a good time learning everything.  Some days are pretty stressful with all the division of attention my instructor is intentionally causing, but I feel good.  I asked him point blank how I was doing yesterday.  I don't have a frame of reference.  He said he was very happy with my progress, I pick it up quickly and make corrections without hesitation.  He also mentioned that he's happy with my ground stuff.  When he gives me stuff to study, I actually do it and know the answers.  I'm competitive by nature.  I want to know where I am in the 'standings'.  With this, there really isn't anything to measure myself by so I just keep going and doing my best, working hard to learn.

I use foreflight with a Stratus every day at work. I'll never go back to paper.

Student pilot certificate received today!  Instructor sent me an email today with a list of questions he suggested I know the answer to.  

Man I wish I had the funds and time to do this. Love flying!

Wow.  Today was quite the interesting day.  Got to argue with ATC, had tower call a go-around because a plane had an aborted takeoff when we were 200 AGL on final during a simulated engine out.  Had a guy call a pan pan because his gear wasn't showing extended while we were on downwind about to turn base.  Just an interesting day.

We departed KSDL for KFFZ to look for some crosswinds.  Before we entered their airspace, I asked for touch and go's.  I was cleared to enter base for touch and gos.  I read back the clearance.  I started entering and the controller came on and essentially yelled at me for doing it instead of making 360s.  I was like WHAT?  My instructor got on the radio and reminded her she had cleared us for base and she said she was sorry, it was really busy, but man was she bitchy about it.    Instructor basically told her nevermind, we're going back to KSDL and we turned around.

So, we start doing touch and gos.  Going pretty good.  Instructor pulls power abeam the numbers and says 'oops, your engine quit'.  So, I trim it up for 65 and turn base.  Things are looking good, I'm going to make it.  I'm on final, no problem.  We're just over the fence and the controller comes on and tells us to go around, plane on the runway.  Full power, flaps to 20, and controller told us to turn left and parallel the runway.  OK, so we do it.  Get back in the pattern and get on downwind.  I guess the plane couldn't get off the runway yet, so we had to do a left 360.  Another t&g and just as we're getting ready to turn base, a guy comes on with a pan pan.  His gear isn't showing extended.  Tower directs us to make a 360 and re-enter at midfield.  Guy does a low fly-by of the tower tower verifies his gear is down and sends him left traffic and clears him to land.  We finish our 360 and extend our downwind, watching him down.  He lands OK and we continued. Finally got in a couple engine out landings.  

My instructor was pretty pleased with the whole thing.  Usually he just gets to talk about bad/incorrect ATC instructions.  Chalk that one off the list in the 'real' world.  Usually he just gets to talk about stuff going wrong on final.  Another check.  Usually he just gets to talk about dealing with emergencies in the pattern.  Check another off the list.  

Pretty awesome day overall!!  After the flight, we spent about an hour talking ground.  Looks like I'm taking the pre-solo quiz next time with a take-home test.  

Oh, and here's my track log for the day (I missed the t/o out of KSDL).  

https://cloudahoy.com/debrief/?key=SmW0xlvOXb4guck

Pre-solo quiz aced.  Finished the take home quiz this morning.  Take home quiz was sort of difficult.  I actually knew almost all of the answers, but knowing wasn't enough.  I had to 'prove' it by listing where in the FAR, AIM, PHAK, or POH the correct answer could be found.  Took a long time to dig through everything.  He told me to start wearing a shirt I don't mind losing.  

The last flight we were just doing pattern work.  I made the comment that it seemed awful quiet.  I'm used to him talking a mile a minute.  He said "I'm pretty much just along for the ride now, I don't have to say anything, so I'm keeping my mouth shut."

I found this little cartoon that cracked me up, because I made a similar comment once.  He pulled power and said "Your engine failed" and I said "You know I used to be a skydiver, right?  Don't tempt me or I might just jump."

Well... I didn't get to solo today.  It got dark on us.  I did get my solo endorsements filled out in my logbook though!  He just hasn't signed them yet.  I'm pretty sure, as long as I keep up the good stuff, the next flight will be the one.  

Today things really 'clicked'.  My landings were really good.  On centerline, where I wanted to be.  Today we were practicing failures.  We did an aborted take-off, he covered my airspeed indicator and made me fly the pattern and land without it.  Did a short approach.  He 'forced' me into a go-around.  I was lined up on the runway, just slowing it down to land and he pulled back on the yoke a little making me balloon up enough that I had to go-around.  He told me he was going to do it, just to get a feel of what's really too high to get it back down safely.  Then he ballooned me a couple times a fraction less and I had to add a little power and re-land it.  We did a couple 'engine out' landings, 2 no-flap landings.  It was just really fun.  

2 things really clicked for me today.  #1, use the trim 'all the way'.   I was rough trimming the plane then being heavy on the yoke to control my speed on final.  I finally figured out that trimming it to exactly the speed I wanted to be at allowed #2.  A light touch on the yoke.  When the plane was trimmed for landing, I could keep a light touch and feel what was happening a lot better.  I didn't feel like I needed a death grip on the yoke on everything got easier.

Congratulations!

I still 'member my first solo vividly.  That little 150 seemed to climb like a rocket without my uncle/instructor in it.

Right!  I'm flying a 160hp 172.  Usually I'm not at pattern altitude until I'm on downwind.  Kick the instructor out and I was at TPA on my crosswind.  Climbs much better without the extra weight.  And he's a little guy.

Few things in life make you feel as good as soloing an aircraft for the first time.

Congratulations on the accomplishment.

Congrats, one of my homies works in the tower at SDL

Congrats.  Next stop is the solo cross countries.  That's when it really sank in for me.

Yeah, I'm excited/nervous for that.  We flew out to the practice area today and just did a review of maneuvers.  Oh, and a short field takeoff.  On the way back in we were setting up for a short field landing, but tower called us for a short approach, so I got to do that instead.  We weren't quite set up for that so I was a little high turning base to final, had to slip the heck out of the plane to get down.  Full deflection slip.  And I did it entirely myself.  He didn't even say a word.  It was pretty cool.  

My instructor and I are both busy this weekend, but we're scheduled Monday to do a quick flight to the practice area, fly back to the airport, and then I'll fly solo out to the practice area, do some maneuvers, then return.  That one I'm excited for!  

My instructor is pretty happy with the CloudAhoy program too, thanks for the heads up on that.  It was pretty nice to be able to go back over my solo and he could see all my altitudes and speeds.

Oh, and if you're not aware, LiveATC records all tower audio and stores it for 30 days.  You can go back and listen to your own radio calls.  Pretty nice deal if you don't have a way to record cockpit audio.

Look at this crazy crap.  That's ONE takeoff and ONE landing.



Took off, extended upwind, left 360, extended down wind, turned final, ATC says "Climb and go around" when we were still 3 miles from the numbers.  I climb back to TPA.  Before I even get 'over the fence', she says "Turn early crosswind."  I say OK, and figure I'll turn my crosswind about midfield.  As I cross the fence, she says "I need you to turn crosswind now!  Traffic on 1 mile final behind you."  I'm like WTF?  I'm at TPA and I'm not even over the numbers yet.  But, OK.  So I turn out and just before I start to turn downwind again, she says "Turn 180 and enter right base for short approach".  So I did.  And that pattern wasn't even that unusual today.  ATC told me to go-around once when I was actually in my round-out.  Her spacing was terrible.  It was awesome.

My Instructor was with me.  He was baffled.  He said he'd never heard such weirdness.  Some random pilot even keyed up and with amazing sarcasm said "You're doing quite the job today, tower."  We were cracking up.  It was an excellent learning experience.  It was very stressful, very demanding division of attention.  I'm glad to have had the experience.