Lesson 2: The Cessna 172 Skyhawk

Saturday's flight lesson was awesome. I don't have any in-flight pictures because I spent more time playing pilot than photographer. Which is good. After all, that's what I signed up for. However, I do have pictures of the Cessna I flew and some intense experiences that I'm not sure I could ever verbalize to their full credit.

VFR-into-IMC
I arrived at 3:00. Chris was on a discovery flight and running a little late. No big deal. I sat down and thumbed through some magazines. I found a photocopied article about Cessna safety. I would be flying a Cessna today, as chance would have it. The article explored a sobering topic: VFR-into-IMC is the biggest pilot killer out there.

A pilot flying Visual Flight Rules (VFR) flies by sight. Everything he needs is visible to the naked eye: the horizon, ground, mountains, towers, power lines, other aircraft, etc. Gauges are also used in VFR, but they are secondary. On the other hand, Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) occurs when visibility is severely limited. The pilot cannot fly by sight and instead must use instruments as the primary reference. This mode of flight is called IFR (Instrument Flight Rules). Only by earning an instrument rating is a pilot qualified to fly IFR.

VFR-into-IMC means a pilot starts in VFR and then finds himself unexpectedly in IMC. This is an especially dangerous situation when the pilot is not instrument rated. Disorientation and unawareness of position/heading lead to disaster. Sadly, this situation spelled the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, and his sister-in-law in 1999. Even as a student pilot, I am already deeply committed to a conservative, cautious attitude and intend to earn my instrument rating as soon as possible.
I glanced up as the front door opened. Chris entered followed by a man who appeared to be in his mid 40s. They had just finished the discovery flight. I immediately recognized that quiet, slightly glazed-over look. It's in the eyes, a kind of thousand-yard stare. He was on auto-pilot. Inside he was still sorting out the excitement, fear, and discovery of it all.

"Okay, let's see .. that's sixty-two dollars," the girl at the front said. His eyes came back into focus.

"Really? sixty-two? That's all?". The first one is always free. Advanced Aviation had created another junky.

The Skyhawk

Chris sat down across from me for our pre-flight briefing. Today was going to be about slow flying. Specifically, maintaining control of the plane right at the edge of a stall. It was not going to be a joy ride. We were getting down to business.

Cessna's 172 is the quintessential personal/trainer aircraft. Introduced in the 1950s, it's the tried and true stuff of an earlier generation. Put simply, if the DA-20 fought the Cessna 172 in an epic boxing match, it would be called Rocky IV.

In the right corner, weighing in at 1,116 pounds the Austrian-engineered, state-of-the-art, streamlined 1992 DA-20 C1 Falcon from the Diamond company. Constructed from high-tech lightweight composite material and equipped with the latest avionic technology, this bird is all about smooth efficient flight.


And in the left corner, weighing in at 1,620 pounds the American made, tried and true, blood and guts 1952 Cessna 172 Skyhawk. The steel frame, high wing 172 is the most popular trainer aircraft in the world. 30 years before Diamond was founded, Skyhawks were coming off the Cessna assembly line. Here are some pictures of our 172.





Brie Cheese versus Apple Pie. That's how some people see it, anyway. For me, flying the Cessna was so I could understand both ends of the spectrum and make an informed choice as to which I would stick with for the remainder of my training.

The Skyhawk is a roomier 4-seater and the high wings and covered cockpit make it a cooler flight. The Falcon has less room and gets hotter because of the bubble canopy, but is much newer, has better avionics, and far greater visibility. I also like the stick better than the yoke. Chris agrees that fundamentally they aren't much different. Having flown both, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to stick with the DA-20 Falcon. The deciding factor for me is the fact that the United States Air Force uses the Falcon in their pilot training program. If it's good enough for USAF pilots, it's good enough for me.

Take-Off
Taxiing is a little easier in the Skyhawk. Where the DA-20 uses only differential braking to steer, the Cessna's rudder pedals actively turn the wheels right and left. Chris told me a rule of thumb for taxiing: you never taxi faster than you could sprint. We did preflight and I taxied out of the ramp and toward the runway. We pulled over to do the final pre-flight engine checks.

"Ok. Take us to that line and stop," Chris said. It was the take-off runway.

Calm down, I told myself. We're just getting in all the taxi practice possible. Chris will take it from here.

Tower called over the radio. "November fifty-two seven forty one, you're cleared for take off." That was us.

"Ok, here we go," Chris said. "Give us full throttle, straight ahead."

Holy shit. He wanted me to take off.

"So .. I'm taking off? Full throttle? Now?" I asked as cooly as possible. I'm sure he's seen that look of terror plenty of times.

"Yep. Go for it. Full throttle," he replied.

I pushed the throttle all the way in. The engine roared up, and we started our race down the runway. The panels and everything were vibrating wildly. I had the yoke in a kung-fu death grip, ready to pull up.

"Let me know when to pull up," I shouted over the racket. At the time, I guess I felt that Chris, my fully certified commercial flight instructor, needed a friendly reminder not to let his student careen the plane off the end of the runway into a ditch.

"You're doing fine," he reassured me.

Then something changed. The rattling high-speed noises and vibrations had all but stopped. We felt lighter.

"Pull back gently," Chris said. Point of no return. I pulled back on the yoke and we started to climb. Tilted up at about 45 degrees, all I could see ahead was blue sky. I looked over my left shoulder and watched the ground shrink into the distance. My ears popped. I uttered an expletive. I had survived the first of two gut checks of the day. What would come next made take-off feel like a walk in the park.

Slow Flying and Stall Recovery

We climbed to 4,500 feet and headed North toward Lake Lanier. As we leveled off, I remembered something had I wanted to ask Chris.

"If I let go of the yoke, will the plane naturally level off?"

"Yes," he said. "Watch this." Chris pulled back on the yoke, facing our nose up and then let go. The nose drifted down into a dive. My stomach clenched momentarily. Then the nose started back up by itself, past the horizon and back into a climb.

"If we let it, the plane will oscillate like this for 10 minutes or so until it finally levels out," he explained. "That's what the trim control is for - micro adjustments to get us smooth and level." Things I had read in the textbook were starting to come into focus. Lake Lanier materialized below us.

"Ok we're going to do some slow flying," Chris said. "I'll do the first one, and then you can try it." I knew I was not ready for this, whatever it was.

"See our altitude?" Chris asked. "We're at 4,500 ft. Now pick a point in the distance - let's use that water tower." He pointed out a white tower way off in the distance. "That's our point of reference. We want to keep that tower in front of us."

"Now, pull the throttle back to idle," he said. I pulled the throttle out. The engine noise went away. It got very quiet. We started to dip forward. "The nose wants to dive, so I'm going to trim nose up," he explained and adjusted the trim dial. The nose came up. We were loosing airspeed, quickly approaching the low end of the "green" airspeed gauge. Butterflies. My pulse quickened. "Ok more nose up trim," and he dialed up the trim to maximum nose up. We were about to stall.

Our airspeed dipped into 40 kts. A high pitched, unmistakable whirring sound poured through the earphones and cabin. It was the stall indicator. Our nose pitched down into a steep dive. My adrenaline was pumping. Keep it together. "Ok, we're going into the stall - go full throttle," he said. I pushed the throttle all the way in. Comforting sound of engine noise again. The nose came back up into a climb. Chris spun the trim dial, nose came back down. More trim adjustment. "Throttle back to 2200 RPMS," he said. I throttled back. We leveled off. The water tower was still dead ahead.

I felt like I had been on a roller coaster. Climbing, diving, throttling up and down. Check out the altitude," Chris pointed. 4,500 ft. We had not climbed or dived at all. The nose up attitude had balanced out our throttle loss. We had stalled, but not long enough to loose altitude. At the onset of the stall, we pitched down to get air moving over the wings again and throttled back up to keep altitude. This maneuver is called a Power Off stall recovery.

"Ready to try it?" he asked. He walked me through it. We repeated the maneuver a couple of times. It got less and less scary each time. Am I comfortable with it? No way. But I'm getting there. The 2 hour lesson came and went. Time flies up there. I steered us back to LZU and Chris landed the smoothest touchdown yet. I truly enjoyed flying the 172.

Next Saturday, it's back to the DA-20 where I will stay. The agenda will include take-off, navigation, more stall recovery, a new maneuver: high bank angle turns. I'm looking forward to it.