Tuesday Afternoon Flyin'

Went flying on Tuesday afternoon to finish out my flight training before scheduling my check ride. After weeks of marginal VFR and IFR weather, we finally hit some nice weather, and it has been CAVU since! The pressure was high - altimeter at 30.47inHg, which I noticed was a drastic contrast to the previous altimeter setting on the C172...something like 29.5inHg. Anyhoo, we flew to Cambridge MunicipaI (CDI) to practice manuevers around the airfield that I would take my check ride at. The only time that I have been to CDI before was to log a couple of night landings, so my instructor wanted to make sure that I knew how to find the airport. I suppose that's good due diligence on the instructor's part, but I'm pretty confident of my navigational skills in Ohio, with the possible exception of south eastern OH, since I really haven't flown down there at all. While on the final descent into CDI, at 800ft AGL, we noted that there were large yellow X's on each end of the runway. Didn't hear ANYTHING about that on the AWOS, could've been a real problem if we were landing at night. Hopefully, it was just closed during the day for some routine maintenance.

So, quick change of plans....I climbed to 3500ft and put the goggles on for a little simulated instrument. Walt had me dial in the Newcomerstown VOR and fly a heading to the VOR, and then a heading away from the VOR. A little challenging, but it wasn't too bad. The biggest challenge here is looking at your CDI and imagining your course line and what heading you should fly to intercept that course heading. I wanted to be able to use that King autopilot in the DA40, but it was good practice to use my own stick and rudder skills.

Next, Walt had me try a little exercise for spatial orientation. He had me close my eyes and try to maintain straight and level attitude. I flew that way for about a minute and when I opened them up, I was at about a 10 degree bank to the left and about 40 degrees off my course heading. Basically, the point here is that you can't trust your senses. Point well taken.

Then we practiced recovery from unusual attitudes, which was interesting. Walt had me close my eyes while he flew the aircraft into a steep descending turn or climbing turn and had me open them and recover to 115mph, 3500ft, and straight and level. It was really fun, trying to guess the direction of the turn or the climb with my eyes closed, and then recovery was even more fun when Walt started covering up gages.

A good lesson, and I was pretty accurate about holding my altitude. With 52.5logged hours to date, I really feel ready for my checkride. Hopefully, my next entry will be as a licensed Private Pilot!