Bravo Zulu Aviation

Learning to fly in Oregon is second to none. The geography was designed perfectly for student pilots. There are the beautiful Cascade volcanoes for great visual cues, and endless farmlands for emergency landings. There also happen to be a plethora of great little airstrips all around. My third official flight lesson involved more slow flight and of course stalls and stall recovery. I’ve haven’t eased into many activities in my life, so why start here. We spent a fair bit of time getting used to the feel of the controls during various flap and power configurations. Now it came time for the actual ‘stalls’. My CFI demonstrated a stall or two, and now it was my turn. As I was doing it he was talking me through: “Ease back on the yoke until it’s full back…wait for the buffet…a little longer…now, that’s it, just ease forward on the yoke to recover…” Well all was well and good until the ease forward on the yoke part. I had a slightly different concept of gentle, and managed to throw the yoke forward. This caught us both off-guard and with the weightless sensation that followed that control input, we became further disoriented. As the windshield quickly filled with a full view of the cornfields below and we both floated above our seats, my instructor calmly proclaimed ‘my airplane’. That was the end of our stall practice for the day. It was after this day that I truly learned how important finesse is when piloting an airplane. My next lesson I got right back on the horse and practiced stall recoveries until my stomach couldn’t take it any more. No more ‘aerobatics’ during basic flight maneuvers.

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