Taxi
Prime with the electric boost pump on and watch the fuel flow. Now you
know that the boost pump works. Taxi with the boost pump off. Now you
know that the engine-driven fuel pump works. If it is called for in
your airplane's P.O.H. ("pilot's operating handbook"), remember to
switch the boost pump back on for takeoff so that you have redundancy.
Maintain a sterile cockpit (no chatting with anyone else in
the plane) when taxiing, at least if you're anywhere near hangars and
other airplanes. If you are going to hit something with your plane, it
will very likely be when taxiing.
Takeoff
Add a "position ailerons for crosswind" item to your takeoff checklist.
In the rush of being cleared by the tower and rolling onto the runway,
it is easy to forget to look at the windsock and hold an appropriate
crosswind correction.
Midair
Don't look at your instruments and adjust the flight
controls, for example, to keep the altimeter steady. The instruments
have a tendency to lag behind reality, and therefore if you "chase the
instruments" by adjusting the flight controls, you will overcorrect and
oscillate. Staring at your instruments is also a good way to get motion
sickness. Use the flight controls to keep the nose of the airplane at a
constant attitude relative to the horizon. After you've got that
attitude established, glance at your instruments to see if the chosen
attitude is giving you what you want (level flight, climbing, a
descending turn, whatever). If not, set a new attitude for the nose
relative to the horizon and look at the instruments again a few seconds
later. In VFR flight the primary instrument is the nose's position
relative to the horizon.
Landing
Don't stare at the runway numbers in front of the nose of the airplane.
Keep your gaze centered about halfway up the runway, sort of the same
way that you keep your gaze in the middle distance when driving on an
Interstate highway. This makes it easier to detect the small changes in
aircraft attitude that are critically important. The scene right in
front of the airplane's nose doesn't change that much as you yaw and
pitch. But the distant portions of the runway move around dramatically
as your attitude changes.
You can fly all day midair without using the airplane's
rudder. Maybe not super efficiently but you can get where you want to
go using only the ailerons and elevators. Landing is different,
especially a crosswind landing. The rudder becomes a critical tool in
keeping the airplane on the runway centerline and for making sure that
the tires are pointed in the direction of aircraft movement so that the
gear aren't side-loaded during touchdown. On short final, press
relatively hard on both rudder pedals. Mostly
your left foot is fighting off the pressure from your right. But at
least you are consciously working the rudders and, when necessary, will
push decisively in the required direction.
There are two things that are hard about landing. One is
flying the airplane at landing speed with the wheels just over the
runway. Two is flying the airplane just below landing speed with the
wheels on the runway. You might say that item two isn't flying but
rather taxiing. But in point of fact the ailerons and rudder are still
functioning as control surfaces for keeping the plane headed down the
centerline. Let's suppose that you do 10 touch-and-gos. How much
practice will you get in these two regimes of operation? Maybe 20
seconds (10x2) of flying low over the runway and 40 seconds (10x4) of
rolling down the runway really fast after landing. Landings are quick.
I didn't learn anything from my first 20 except that the airplane was
always in the wrong place and that my instructor tended to start
yelling about 10 feet above the ground.
My friend Richard came to the rescue. He suggested that I go
up to the Pease tradeport in New Hampshire. The runway at this former
military base is more than two miles long (11,300', longer than Logan
Airport's longest runway!). Richard suggested trying to fly the entire
length of the runway with the wheels just above the centerline, then
coming back to land and roaring down the entire remainder of the
two-mile runway at 50 knots without lifting the wheels. "Ask for
clearance for the 'option' when doing the low flight," Richard noted,
"and tell the tower that you want to practice aborted takeoffs for the
long taxis."
This was the key. After about 90 minutes of playing around on
the Pease runway, I felt confident in my ability to control the
airplane on or near the ground at or near landing speed. All this with
an instructor I'd never flown with before. Final score: six complete
landings with no instructor assistance against one landing where the
instructor needed to push the controls a bit. The instructor, Lara
Greenwood, noted that the easiest way to land a plane was to try not to
land. She said "if you just try to float along the runway as low as
possible without landing, eventually you'll sink down onto the runway
in more or less the correct attitude." And she was quite right! My best
landings were after the long floats. When I concentrated on landing, I
would flare too much or too little.
Simulation
According to flight instructors and some of the students that I've
interviewed, expert PC flight simulator users don't get their first
pilot's certificate all that much faster than raw beginners. On the
simulator you don't get any physical feedback as the plane moves. You
can't look around when using the simulator. It is a pretty poor excuse
for reality. Why don't they make the kinds of fabulous hydraulic
simulators for primary flight students that you see for Boeing 767s and
fighter jets? Because a really fancy and realistic flight simulator
costs more than a Diamond Katana or Cessna 172. It is cheaper simply to
go up in the sky.
The foregoing notwithstanding, Microsoft Flight Simulator
(MSFS) is an excellent program, and it might make you feel more
comfortable that you can handle unusual situations. If you do set up
MSFS, try to do it on a computer with two monitors so that you can open
one window on the bottom or side for the instruments and reserve the
main monitor for the view over the cowl.
The Knowledge Test
It is possible to pass the FAA knowledge test (a.k.a. "the written
test") without knowing how to fly an airplane, and a passing score is
valid for two years from the date of the exam. If you're on a tight
budget, it is therefore probably best to do all of your reading and
studying before taking your first lesson in an actual airplane. The
most successful prep course is from www.kingschools.com.
Normally you need an instructor's signoff before you can sit for the
exam, but the King Schools can supply the signoff for you. Do the King
course, take the exam, learn to fly, then review the material from your
knowledge test shortly before your practical test ("checkride").
If you don't mind spending some extra time and money, you
could defer studying for the knowledge test until shortly before your
checkride. Then you won't have to study twice. Again, however, you'll
probably want the course from www.kingschools.com.
(Personal results: I used King Schools courses for Private,
Instrument, and Commercial knowledge tests. My scores were 97, 98, and
100 respectively.)
Useful Educational Materials
Aside from the standard textbooks that you'll be assigned by your
flight school, I've found the most useful to be the classic Stick
and Rudder (Wolfgang Langewiesche 1944) and John
S. Denker's See
How It Flies (Web-only). Denker is a PhD
physicist who works at Bell Labs and is also an FAA-certified flight
instructor.
Another resource is joining Airline Owner's and Pilot's
Association (www.aopa.org).
Membership is free for student pilots.
Flight training hasn't changed for 50 years. Chances are your
question has already been asked, answered, and indexed in one of the
aviation newsgroups such as rec.aviation.student. Check http://groups.google.com/
before posting a duplicate!
Motion Sickness
Light planes in good weather to be somewhat more nauseating than
commercial airliners, but nowhere near as bad as a boat. That said, I
felt really sick during my first lesson and continued to get queasy
whenever my instructor touched the controls. If you tend toward motion
sickness, try to find an instructor whose style is to talk you through
everything rather than demonstrate and correct with his or her hands
and feet. A $100 electronic ReliefBand for your wrist will probably
help but the keys to avoiding motion sickness while training are the
following:
- Eyes out of the cockpit; fly by watching the nose's position relative
to the horizon and periodically check the instruments to see if the
visually established attitude is getting
you what you want in terms of airspeed and climb rate
- Instructor talking to you instead of working the stick him or herself
- Fly on non-turbulent days Maybe it will take you a few extra hours to
get your certificate but you'll have more fun.
Oh yes, be sure to carry a barf bag for any passengers. In the
immortal words of Charles Wright, instructor at East Coast Aero Club,
"Having a passenger throwing up violently a few inches from you can be
very distracting."
Nearly all Air Force fighter pilots succumb to motion sickness
during their training, which of course involves aerobatics. The Air
Force does not wash out those students who throw up. If a pilot throws
up and then is able to continue the mission he or she is considered a
good pilot. It is the pilots who throw up and remain incapacitated who
are washed out. The good news is that nearly all Air Force pilots
develop a tolerance for aerobatics and stop throwing up. The bad news
is that if a pilot doesn't fly for a month or so the tolerance is lost.
Additional Tips
Flying early. This won't be for everyone, but I
liked lessons at 6-6:30am. The plane was always available and usually
fueled, the instructor wasn't running late from another lesson. There
was no/little traffic in the pattern and on the field - providing more
time flying and less time taxiing or extending downwind. And the air
was usually calm and cool - great while you're still starting out. Of
course I still flew at other times of the day, but I loved those early
mornings.
Plan your own lessons. You may get an instructor who plans
for you, but if my experience was typical, the instructor will more or
less randomnly decide what to practice while doing pre-flight with you.
I quickly found I could get *much* more out of a lesson if I proposed
the activities for the day. E.g. 'before we do circuit work, can we do
some steep turns? I'm not happy with how I handled them the other day'.
or 'Could we work on short-field landings today as its been a while?'.
Also, at the end of each lesson I would ask 'What do you think I should
work on next lesson?'. I found that the instructor's response was
usually much more appropriate then, after spending an hour or so in the
cockpit with me, than just before the next lesson.
William Kershner's Student Pilot's Flight Manual. For some
reason this book hit a chord for me. I found the explanations really
helpful and the practical techniques worked well. I read many many
books while learning to fly, but this is the one I ended up using as my
reference.
Take the written early. Of course some schools require this.
Mine didn't but I went ahead and did it after only about 15 hours of
instruction. I found I benefited from this in many ways, and when the
topics came up again in actual training I was able to get much more
from them.
'Fly' while parked. It doesn't cost anything to sit in the
plane on the ground, so if you can, turn up early for your lesson and
run through the day's procedures while sitting in the plane (with
everything off). While this is especially good for checklist
procedures, I also found it useful for steep turn practice, cross
control practice (e.g. slips), stalls and other manouvers.
Try other instructors. Especially if you're blocked on
something. E.g. I just couldn't get my Taylorcraft to touch down softly
- until I flew with another instructor who suggested holding the yoke
just between my thumb and forefinger. Magic! The T'craft was just SO
much more sensitive than the Cessna 150 I'd been flying previously
(that plus the bungie cord landing gear).
Get some controlled field time early. I admit it - I had my
Private's license and almost 250 hours before I really did any
controlled airpot flying - and I was scared of screwing up! My lessons
weren't at a controlled field and I only went into one once during
training. If I was starting over, I'd insist on going to a nearby
controlled field until I was truly comfortable with the radio
procedures. The irony was, of course, that once I got used to it it was
actually easier than an uncontrolled airport - albiet less convenient
at times.
Cut your lesson short if need be. Some days I just couldn't
get my head into whatever skill I was learning. My instructor did me a
favor and taught me to quit while I was ahead and/or before I learnt
bad habits by trying more. It saved me money, gave me a chance to go
home and study the manouver more, and generally the next time I flew it
would all fall into place.
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