Today there was no ground school — right out to the plane to preflight and takeoff. I did the radio calls again — I feel lucky here, as my experience simming has given me a lot of fake ATC experience. I have to give a shout-out to PilotEdge here. PilotEdge is a great subscription ATC service for flight simmers with ultra-realistic radio comms — definitely a great help preparing me for the real thing. I highly recommend them!
We got out to the practice area and worked on various turns and flight attitudes with the focus being on keeping the plane in coordinated flight. When you turn in a plane, the tail has a tendency to slip or skid in different directions than you are turning — that is why you have a rudder, to keep the tail of the plane aligned with your turn (a very simplified explanation, but all I have right now!) At best, an uncoordinated turn is inefficient and will cause poor maneuvering and poor flight & fuel efficiency. At worst, it is extremely dangerous and can cause the plane to enter a spin — a very bad situation!
We worked on a “box maneuver” — basically, drawing a box in the air with the nose of the plane. I raise the nose up to draw one side of the box, then use rudder, some opposite aileron, and elevator together to move the nose over to the right (or left) while keeping it level with the horizon (forming the top of the box). Next, I drop the nose to form the third side of the box, and then use rudder, some opposite aileron, and elevator together again in the other direction to close the box. Easier done than explained!
The purpose of these maneuvers is to teach the beginning concepts of a slip, where you use opposite aileron and rudder to keep the nose straight while losing altitude — this is a very useful maneuver when coming in for a landing where you need to lose altitude while keeping the plane on a stable approach path.
I worked on the boxes for a bit and then we headed back to DXR. My CFI did the landing again and I did the after-landing cleanup and taxi back to the ramp. This was my longest flight to date!
Flight time today: 1.5 hours
Total flight time to date: 4.2 hours