5000ft Turns

I had to climb to 5000ft today to see the sun clearly. Looks nice, doesn't it? I spent some time doing power turns at 45 degree bank angles. It was fun to try and maintain the same altitude throughout the turn. I was occasionally rewarded with a slight "bump" as I passed through my previous wake turbulence. Good stuff. I had a little hard time maintaining altitude through the left-hand turns, but right-hand turns were right on the money.

I tried a stall at 5000ft as well, but I couldn't get the drop. I slowed down to 45 mph indicated airspeed, with the stall horn wailing away....but I couldn't get manage the drop. The wing was buffeting slightly, so I know that I was in a stall condition, and I was losing altitude at about 100ft/min. I was looking for the stomach-in-throat, sphincter-clenching, 100ft drop at the end of the stall. Oh well, I'll try next time. Maybe I need about 10degrees of flaps to get the aircraft a little slower - I'll have to read up on stalls and figure this one out. It was still fun to fly along in a mushing flight mode at a high angle-of-attack. Just need some more time in that flight attitude to be a little more comfortable.

I logged another 1.0hrs, which now gives me 17.7hrs total, and 7.2 hrs solo time.