Congratulations, Konrad! Would you care to bounce on up here to Oregon to give me some lessons in our new bird??
I would need to a least get signed off for cross-country, first!
I am only about 4 hrs post solo (a full year ago, now).
I did find Gary's suggestion of the low pass very instructive, feeling out the needed control inputs without the "distraction" of actually landing. And, I did have a little stick time with Gary in 61U, but not TO&L of course. (I'm sure both of us would rather the first ground loop be Gary's
)
And I am not as rusty as you get doing nothing related to flying, I just have not been doing the "real thing." I have the X-plane(.com) flight sim, with a control yoke and rudder pedals (real-time performance calculations, not a look-up table of performance parameters, like MS FS). The sim can be harder to fly in some respects due to reduced feedback. And you can crank up the wind with abandon
. However my CPU's are a little slower than the program would like and it gets a little behind if you crank up too much scenery or weather, and I have rarely used as much crosswind as we had on Sat. and been as sucessful. (Aside: I have "built" a C152 for X-plane if anybody wants a copy; no paint job yet and I need to refine the aerodynamic coefficients some, but it "flies" very close to the POH numbers. In fact some knowledgable second opinions would be nice.)
I also fly r/c models, which is completely different feedback forcing you to think more about what the plane is doing rather than see/feel it. Wind affects it more and it is slower to identify it and correct for on TO&L without standing somewhere along the centerline of the runway (not the best of ideas). I deliberately did not install enough engine on my heavy, draggy, no-flaps U-crash-Em to overpower it, so I have to fly it like a full scale plane, especially on TO&L. It does not instantly react to power changes, or play helicopter like a lot of r/c models you see.
So, I have had some kind of practice at it over the year. But still not the "real thing". I stopped because of the flight schools' maintenance attitude, but I like Hicks Field and wanted to continue with the same instructor (DoH!). Just one example: two 100 hr inspections over 4 months for one of the 152's and the nose gear strut loose in the mount was never addressed, ever after being pointed out 3 times by me & instructor. So what else were they blowing off, eh? I didn't want to find out (the hard way). Which brought me here last Jan. to lurk to investigate buying. Just took longer than I thought, trying to work it around/thru other projects and a temporary 3 month job re-assignment to the JSF program. But, finally !!
I will also take this opportunity to again thank Gary for his incredible assistance in this whole deal, start to finish, for someone he did not even know beforehand. I must also recognize the contribution of Royson and Lori for the club itself and these forums. The Porsche Club America has a motto that is just as applicable here: "It's not the cars(planes), it's the people!" It would have been a much more daunting task without the help and resources found here. Thank you ALL.
