First Lesson PT2: Takeoffs, Turns, Climbs, Descents.
First Lesson Part 2
Takeoff, climb, straight and level, trim, turns, and descents
This video is for entertainment purposes only. It is not meant to replace formal flight training or instruction. These videos show what you may expect to see in your first flying lesson. The following copy is taken from an automated transcription and may not be an exact transcription of what is happening in the video. Some content may require context to be understood correctly and some audio may be transcribed incorrectly.
I'm going to go ahead and pull out here and taxi up because I don't see anybody else around here and remember - with everything that you do …make sure you look around before you make any moves.
“Cessna 33Delta runway one-six Rainer intersection alpha five cleared for take off - West departure approved”
“okay, clear for take off one six right alpha five three three Delta”
Okay, we're clear for takeoff, so what we're going to do is we're going to look both ways and make sure nobody's coming because you just never know, then we're going to turn the transponder on, know what the transponder does, is it sends a signal to the guys on the ground with their whole radar or radar scope and so it pings a little code. Will they tell you where other traffic is, no they won't …so then I'm coming out here, taxi lights on, landing lights on, and strobe lights on, and again remember I'm pulling out of the runway, I'm going to verify my heading because I have my heading bug set for runway one-six. so there is runway one-six - the heading looks good so I'll go ahead my feet slide down off the brakes… and I just have my top my toes on the bottom of the pedal to add the power and as you do you have to step on the right rudder because that propeller is spinning to the right it wants to pull you to the left we're looking for 55 knots there's that pull back on the control wheel …and that is the defining moment right there. That liftoff …if that doesn't get you, I don't know what will. So, now ,we've accelerated the climb speed to 70 knots… and again because this propeller out here is spinning around to the right… it wants to pull the nose to the left so I have to continually add that right rudder pushed to keep it from the nose sliding off to the left so pattern outs due to this airport here is 1600 feet so I'm climbing straight ahead to 1,300 - 300 feet before the pattern altitude I'll go ahead and make what's known as a crosswind crosswind turn and now I'll go ahead and accelerate up to 80 knots and we're going to go ahead and climb straight ahead up to 3,000 feet. Whenever I make a turn I still have to step on that …it's called stepping on the ball …and what it is called is an inclinometer - but I don't think your instructor is going to say please step on the inclinometer. Center the Inclinometer- it just doesn’t sound right so, what they say is, “step on the ball”.
Okay so now we're climbing up to 3,000 feet right …so I'm going to go ahead and set my heading bug to a heading of 260 like that, hitting it takes me in the direction I want to go. And now when you're flying around, remember I'm climbing based on an airspeed so I'm climbing now about 90 knots… and it's kind of a cruise climb speed so when you're doing that you're not in here looking at the panel. going, what's my heading, what's my airspeed…are my wings level?
This isn't an instrument flight …the whole idea behind VFR flying is that you're looking outside and the reason behind that is because, like I said when you take off and you know that transponder turned on - ya, the radar guys can see it …but that's for instrument flying aircraft …we're not an instrument flying aircraft. We're a VFR (visually flying aircraft) so, we have to maintain separation from other airplanes. That's your primary job! Separation from other airplanes. It's easier to scan from left to right for whatever reason… the eyeball perceives information better that way …so I usually start in closer …focus my eyes on something…and scan in sections across. Then I move my eyes out farther …and then scan the horizon. Okay, so we're coming up at 3,000 feet - A lot happens on your first flight! That’s just the way it works, you know, but it's fun stuff!
There's so much information that comes to you when you're first learning to fly, it feels like your head's going to explode! But that's the beauty of flying … every time you take a lesson, you learn something new and, eventually, it starts to come together and it's just a really good feeling.
We just leveled off at 3,000 feet looking around for traffic …looking around for traffic …it looks good… beautiful down here! Now we're level …we have this thing called a trim wheel. What the trim wheel does is when you're climbing or descending in an airplane there are forces on the controls that will affect the pressure of the control wheel. I have this thing set for takeoff trim …remember I trimmed them to set the trim in the back on the tail for takeoff ? Well, when you get to cruise flight you have a top power… you get to 3000 feet …now, all of a sudden, you notice that you have to push forward on the control wheel. You have to add three or four pounds of force to make sure that this thing maintains 3000 feet. Well, if you don’t want to fly around all day long pushing on the control wheel to maintain three or four pounds forward to make the thing maintain altitude …and I'm guessing no, somebody came up with this great thing called a trim wheel. I'll show you what happens. Let's go ahead - I'm pushing three or four pounds on the control wheel at a straight level …I'm level at 3000 feet and I'm going to go ahead one… two… and two stripes of up trim … I pulled it up but it's called nose down trim … so let's see what happens if I add too much nose-down trim. if I have too much nose down trim, will that nose just drop off …see it? So I have to pull back on the control wheel to maintain 3000 feet. If I don't want to fly around all day long pulling back on a control wheel with three or four pounds of pressure what can I do? I can trim the nose up… I trim it nose up …one… two …and that and you can tell that you're in trim when you let go of the airplane. Let go of the control wheel, and you're not going to fall out of the sky. Let me show you that by the way…
A couple ways to fly …your first couple lessons (I've seen this several times) …Let's go ahead and make a left turn here…. so you can go ahead and do what's called the “death grip” …Just looking out at the traffic as we're making this turn …big thing! I'm always looking out for traffic - 99% of my scan is outside the aircraft… 0.1% is inside …looking at the altimeter and making sure we're good… a lot of traffic in this area!
Now I'm going to show you what it is …it's called the “death grip”! The death grip is when you're flying you've got both hands on the control wheel and your trainers squeeze it and it just holds the harder the better, you know, because you're so afraid that if you let go of that control wheel ….that the airplanes are going to fall out of the sky. Well… it's not ! so let's go ahead and continue around on that 360 degree turn. I’ll show you what happens… We’re in a turn right now…all right… What do you think is going to happen if I let go of that control wheel? Do you think the plane will just roll over and that's the end for Captain Scott? Well let's see what happens, okay? Ready ? I'm going to release the “death grip” then I'm releasing the death grip…the airplane continues to just turn. I have the airplane trimmed for level flight! It's turning by itself! beautiful, huh? It's very, very nice …so let's go ahead out here and shut that up so you've seen trim controls and how trim works… if you're pushing forward on it, you want to trim the nose down… if you're pulling back on it (the controls), you want to trim the nose up. Okay, so you understand that! Now let's go ahead and set up for descent. so I'll go ahead, we're cruising along, let's say we want to descend - so you can, the wings are level by looking out the window …about as much ground out there as I got out here…. and you're looking for an altitude looking at the horizon (the horizon is the stuff that's in front of you…) so what do you want to do …let's go down 500 feet a minute …I can push forward on the control wheel, and that makes the airplane go down. I can control my rate of descent by pushing forward. The more I push forward …the faster it's going to go down. Right now I'm going down to 500 feet a minute… let's go ahead and level off real quick. So, that's one way to go down… when you do it that way the airplane air speed increases. Makes sense, right? Because all of a sudden you got all this power! It's probably going downhill and you're going to pick up a few knots ….
It depends on what type of airplane you're flying. I don't want to get into it too much, but I'm just going to assume that one day everybody wants to fly a 747. I'm going to teach you how to fly this airplane like a 747. On a 747 do you pitch your nose down like that? you just push forward on the controllers to go down? no you don't ! what you do is just reduce the power… look what happens! When you reduce the power …holy moly, nose go down… Isn’t that cool? And the airspeed remains relatively the same! That's how you fly a jet!
Even if you're flying a 172 …if you want to fly like a pro… like a jet guy… that's how jet guys do it.
Ok let's level off again… level off …I've got wings level …same amount of dirt out there is the same amount of ground out there… looking good, ok, let's go ahead and climb to 3,000 feet.
Well I'm down here 2,800 feet so what I'd have to do is… if I just pull back on the control wheel, what's going to happen? I don't add power …let's take a look at it. OK…I am climbing, yeah, but what's happening to my airspeed? I’ll give you one guess. It's getting slower and slower. Right, so how do you do that? How do you climb and maintain airspeed? Well, remember we're on a cruise flight so we have cruise power. Let's try this… let's add power, we pitch back with the wheel, to establish the pickup attitude, and then i’m climbing there at about 600 feet a minute …at 90 knots…and the air speeds not dropping off
I'm maintaining that 90 knots… prior it was just going 90 80 70…so, that's how you descend and climb in an airplane. Okay, so it's really a function of adding power or removing power …from the engine …or just pushing forward or pulling back on the control wheel. You kind of see pretty quickly the reality of it. If you want to climb …you have power… if you want to descend…you take the power out. right? so that's how it is if you need to make a, you know, fine adjustment. 10 feet 20 feet 50 feet of altitude under your altimeter …no, you don’t adjust the throttle for that …you just actually push forward on the control wheel and trim it out. It's usually you're off altitude just because the airplane’s out of trim and so that's the whole thing is keep the airplane and trim. so okay we tried that… so let's now let's go ahead and and see …how do we turn this thing?
So when you make a turn, before you do any maneuvers out here, you want to kind of lift the wing up and look behind you. Look all the way behind you… make sure. It’s called a clearing turn… just to make sure that there's nobody out here. so I'm kind of looking all over the horizon to make sure I have no one behind me. looks good!
so I'm going to go ahead, what I want to do is, I want to make a turn to the right. I want to maintain 3000 feet. What happens when you make a turn? A couple things happen. To maintain altitude in the turn, when you start, We’ll make a 30-degree bank turn. 30 degrees of angle, 30 degrees of banking. It's 30 degrees of bank… where you have to pull back on the control wheel. Why? because the wing is losing lift, and when it loses lift, guess what it wants to do? It wants to descend. Right ? Okay, so we're in this turn and we're in this 30 degree bank turn, and I'm having to apply this back pressure. Well, you could accept that back pressure, you could trim it out, or what you could do (and what every jet pilot in the world does) is add power.
What happens when you add power?
Nose comes up, right?
That’s brilliant!
Okay, so I just added power. My airspeed came back up to my cruise speed… a couple knots less, no biggie. Now, I'm flying here with no control pressure. so I'll show you what happens when I let go of the wheel… 30 degrees on… get the 30 degrees of bank… and man… no death grip! pretty cool huh?
So that's how it all comes together. Let me just remove a little bit of that power… what do you think is going to happen when I pull back on that throttle? Your nose is going to go down. There it goes… 500 feet a minute… Okay, let's go ahead and wings level…
we'll take a look around us again (just to make sure that there's nobody out here)
Okay, so now we've made a right turn. We didn't climb or descend. We didn't want to lose or gain any altitude…
Now, let's say were in this thing and we want to start a descending turn. How do you do that? before you just start the turn… Do one of two things:
You can just push forward on the control wheel
Or actually reduce the power
Let's try it. Let's go ahead and bank here. Clear the area… don't see anybody around us… There's a 30-degree bank, and I'll go ahead and reduce the power by a couple hundred rpm. I get that nice five hundred foot per minute rate of descent. Man, that's just beautiful.
Let's say I want to maintain 500… I've got this power setting ..I can go ahead and just adjust the control wheel. It’s all I'm touching. I want to go down a thousand feet a minute? I can push it down… I want to just use standard the 300 feet minutes then I'll pull back on the control wheel. Really, what's the whole point of learning turns and you know descents and airspeed…When you're setting up for landing, you know… that's a whole idea there. So okay, we just did this nice descending turn. So, we'll go ahead we’re at 2700 feet up at a level off just to check the area for traffic again …I don't see anybody… There's a really fun Airport right over there where everybody goes for the hundred dollar cheeseburger and that in itself is worth a million dollars .. it's just cool stuff all the way around.
Okay, so now we're going to a climbing right turn. We're going to look where we're going …nobody up there …so I'm going to go ahead and pitch the nose up and then Bank it 30 degrees and then add the power. Now, what am I doing, I am climbing at 500 feet a minute and when you're doing that… you also remember you have to step on that inclinometer. hmm…that doesn't really sound so good so why don't we just say “step on the ball”.
What I'm referring to is when that ball moves to the right… you step on the right pedal… when it moves to the left …you step on the left pedal …that's what it means.
Okay, we're coming up to our 3000 feet… let's go ahead and level off. We lower the nose, we're looking at the attitude on the horizon, and we will go ahead and increase our speed. We're going to roll out on this heading… two six zero degrees… and that is how you climb and descend in a airplane. When you go into a turn, I'm applying control pressure …thirty degrees of Bank ….and then I stop, by neutralizing controls. You don't keep turning the controls because obviously the plane will go into a steeper steeper steeper angle and flip over …
Let's go back to the right, okay… cranking it around back to 30 degrees …and every time I'm making a turn, and this is a good maneuver to apply in practice when you are going after your solo …you know you go out there and do that thing …you start making these turns, and you realize that every time you make a power adjustment you have to adjust the trim.
That's pretty much it! and again, when you're making turns, let's go ahead and look outside and talk about that turn….When you're out here, and you're making this turn, you're looking at your reference on the horizon. I showed you back there …but let's just pitch the nose up. Am I climbing or descending? Obviously, you can't see the horizon…so i’m climbing…
what's this look like? this right here!
Am I climbing or descending?
We’ll just stay in this nice right turn …it's a good way to see it in this perspective. Am I climbing or descending? I'm actually at level flight right now. You can tell because I don't have a lot of ground… I'm not looking at all sorts of real estate down below me…. I'm looking at this area…this line of horizon that I can see all around me… now let's look at this… Do you think I'm climbing or descending? What's that look like? Yeah! All sorts of real estate huh? big-time descent! Ok, let's turn and look back… head back towards Paine field. Time to do a landing back there.
Isn’t this cool?! I mean, this is just fun stuff all the way around. It's just mind-blowing. Look at the view we have…Mount baker… some other mountain …Mount Rainier down there …right it's just super gorgeous out here.
One thing you'll find out when you do take flying lessons, is that you're going to be extremely tired when you're driving home from the airport. Don't be surprised by that. Your brain is taxed so hard when you're up here flying. There are so many things that you have to concentrate on. Like I said, the first flight you get on the ground …you might retain 10% of what you are supposed to remember. You might remember that it was really cool… but that's about all you remember. You might learn and remember some of the turn stuff …but it takes time. It does come together quickly, so there are the frustrating moments …and then there's the moments …the Ah HA, moments… where you just go
“…man, I nailed it… I nailed it!”
And that's what's so exciting about flying. I mean that's what I still love about it. To this day, I still strive for that perfection. You know, I mean you just …you're always continually learning in aviation, and there's so much that you've learned that you, a lot of times, have to relearn it. That's just the way it is! You know, but you keep on top of that stuff . That's what makes you a pro pilot.
You can approach it two ways… you can approach it like
“I'm going to learn it, never read a book again and I'm such a good pilot that I never have any problems…”
And you're probably gonna run into some trouble at some point. I'm just saying, you keep on top of things you know:
New information
New technologies
Changes to airspace
That happens all the time. You know you need to be aware and alert of all these things. You learn all that stuff and where to get that information as time goes by. But, for the first couple hours …this information that I've just given you, right here, is enough to get you through the first flight. What do you need to know for the first flight? Nothing!
I've told you guys that… but enough people have asked, so you know here we are shooting and flying together today. That's a pretty cool thing! I wish that this existed before, because it is a little bit intimidating when you go up on the first flight. Not understanding what the verbiage is, what the names of the controls are, that sort of thing …and it gets a little bit overwhelming. so, I hope I helped alleviate some of the concerns and questions you had about what's going to happen on your first flight. Like I said, it doesn't matter if you're going to be a 747 pilot, if you want to work for the airlines, or you just strictly fly for the pleasure of flying VFR. I do both, and it's interesting flying around the world in a 747 - but that's technical. Flying VFR (visual flight rules) where you're looking outside… looking out for other planes …it's an art in itself. You might think that’s easy and then flying a 747 around the world's hard - I look at it the other way completely… you're so handheld when you're flying in a 747 …in that environment, but when you're out here… it's you! You are making these decisions… it's you that's looking for other traffic… it's you that is avoiding the different types of airspace …and again, This is the stuff you'll learn about. It really is you handling everything. When you're flying a 747 around the world, there's a lot of people holding your hand…and maybe that's not as easy as that …but I'm just trying to show you and explain that, yes ,there are some differences … but this VFR itself is an art form… and it's fun! It's just addicting!
Anyhow, I hope this video helped you out…