The story that started me..in this safe hobby!

[helmsdeep]

First thanks to you all for your warm welcome! It was great reading your comments, thank you.

Bout four years ago I was approaching my twenty and ready to retire. So I thought, what would I like to do and be GOOD at? I decided I always wanted to fly. So I went to a local private airport and started my first lessons with an instructor in a little Cessna 152.

I was scared to death and held that yoke like I was holding onto a cliff ledge. My most fearful time was STALL practice. You go up and raise the nose until the stall warning horn sounds. With your ear phones on it sounds like a beep beep beep, kind of like a detector, then the plane just drops out from under you and spins down. ONE MUST GAIN AIR SPEED AND APPLY RUDDER TO GAIN CONTROL. TO GAIN AIR SPEED , USUALLY YOU MUST BRING DOWN THE NOSE AND THIS PICKS UP AIR SPEED. KIND OF DIVE ACTUALLY.

Ok so, one day I was ready for my FIRST crosscountry. Got to go fly by MYSELF, for forty miles, do a touch and go and come back. My instructor is nervous as he wheels out the one Cessna I hate cause it is a bag of bolts and louder than hell. I took off and could hardly hear the tower. For thirty miles I am sceaming at myself in that plane, "WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING UP HERE, I'M GOING TO DIE , I AM A MORON".

At about 10,000 feet flying over UTAH LAKE it happened. BEEP BEEP BEEP! My guts almost exploded! I looked at the gauges everything was good. I thought, it is going to stall I got to lower the darn nose! I dropped the nose and picked up speed. BEEP BEEP BEEP! I really dropped the nose! BEEP BEEP BEEP! I am sweating bullets now! I start to basically DIVE straight for the lake. BEEP BEEP BEEP! 9,000 feet, 8,300 feet, 7,400 feet 6,000 feet BEEP BEEP BEEP! IT WOULD NOT STOP AND IT WAS ALL I KNEW TO DO. Just about the time I could describe the ladies bikini colors, the BEEP stopped!!! I pulled up a bit and , being soaking wet, I turned around and headed back 30 miles! Instead of landing at the airport 8 miles away!

I landed and READ MY INSTRUCTOR up and down. "This plane is a curse it tryed to kill me"! "Get those guys over here they got to fix this piece of junk, this is nuts." He called me later said they could not find the problem etc . BULLCRAP! I got lots of apologies and was complimented on staying in control! THE VERY NEXT DAY WE WERE DOING CLASSROOM STUFF AND I AM SITTING THERE WITH FOR OTHER GUYS.

ALL OF A SUDDEN, BEEP...BEEP... BEEP .....BEEP ...BEEP BEEP. I LOOKED DOWN AT MY NEW FANCY WATCH I JUST PURCHASED 5 DAYS AGO! I hit the button to turn off the loud alarm....and then it hit me. Its 11:05 I took off at 10:47 yesterday, I was over UTAH LAKE at ..oh my GOD 11:05! I sat there looking like a kid who just burned the house down. My instructor did not catch on...he just looked at me and said.."What..whats wrong?" "Ah, I ..AH was over Utah Lake at this time yesterday." He said yea, so? Then a smile started to come over him...LIKE the GRINCH of Christmas, he looked at my arm and started to BUST! I covered my face and could hear him sceaming in laughs and crys as he told the class and ran down the hall and ... well suffice it to say I melted into the floor and to this day...every student pilot hears of the 'Seiko Student'.

Its why I am such a bad detectorist. I hear a loud silver..Beep Beep ..and I start sweating and immediately look at my watch! I get no understanding from my buddies either!

Take care all! HH

 

[Ron J]

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[Lil Brother]

too darn funny! Face it though; you are a legend to all the new students.

Do you STILL fly? Good story.

Lil Brother

 

[Royal]

will never forget my first stall.

Thanks for the funny story and the inspiration to write about my stall. I might have told this a few years ago but maybe not!!

Thanks again for the post

 

[Micheal_R]

I never enjoyed that part of the training. However, I managed to get through that and then got my licence... Then , after all that expense, I discovered just how expensive, per hour, flying can be. I used the licenece a couple of times and have not flown since. I still wish that , at the time, I could have afforded to fly more.

Fair winds

M

 

[david(tx)]

n/t

 

[Wayne in BC]

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[Sunny]

n/t

 

[Dan-MO]

Great story!

 

[helmsdeep]

No, like others here it got to expensive. I could not keep writing the checks. About 2 years ago, I had a plumber at my house. We started talking about flying and how he is getting his private license. He said his instructor told him about some NIMROD who could not tell the difference between a watch alarm and a stall warning horn.

I just shut up and said yea, that is pretty stupid. I had not attempted any stalls in that particular plane. You do your first crosscountry pretty fast..I just thought what else could it be...MY WATCH! I get no RESPECT!

 

[Rob/Windsor Ont.]

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[jason_in_utah]

The correct procedure to recover from a spin is as follows..

1 Pull the power so as not to exacerbate the loss of altitude.

2 Arrest the spin by applying opposite rudder. There is sufficient airflow and airspeed over the control surfaces to arrest the spin.

3 Apply enough forward forward elevator to stop the stall IE. You're trying to get enough airflow over the wings to make them generate lift again. This is when you nose it down a little NOT while still spinning.If you attempt to arrest the stall before stopping the spin the increase in airspeed will accelerate your rate of descent and your spin rate which can be very difficult to recover from. Then as you regain flight apply power and resume a normal pitch attitude.

Happy flying...errr hunting

 

[Royal]

that is probably what I was going into the first time I tried it. I gave it left rudder, not on purpose but because I was in a semi panic, escalatingto a full panic. I was looking at the ground to my left when she took over. It only took me ten years to get over that one

Welcome to the site. Stay a while

 

[Arkie John]

...and welcome to our little corner of the world. I think you will like it here.

Tell us another!! We're all ears! <><

aj

 

[VT Dave]

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