Today I strapped myself into a little Cherokee 140, N8277N and went out with my instructor to the Tooele valley to practice spins. This is something that I have looked forward to for some time, so I was very excited about it. Matt and I slowly climbed up to 9000 ft, cinched down our belts, and Matt demonstrated the proper way to spin a Cherokee and recover. I loved it!
Next it was my turn. I climbed back up to 9K, and because we were already slow from the climb all I had to do to produce the stall was to reduce the throttle to idle. This plane only has a stall warning light, which seems to go off early. I held it nose high until it shook and then I gave it full left rudder. Sure enough, the thing dropped the left wing, and started to spin. It is a unique and exquisite feeling to only see ground in all the windows of the airplane. There is an old saying, "keep the blue side up" which is an urge that you have to suppress when practicing spins. It is extremely exciting to watch the ground whizzing around in circles. With the Cherokee, all you have to do to recover is to relax the rudder and the elevator, and then bring the nose level. No snappy jerking motions to break the spin. It was a lot of fun.
After we did a few spins and we practiced what to do if a student gets the airplane in that condition, Matt challenged me to do a spin, and roll out on a specific heading and altitude. I tried it, and I was within 100 feet and 10 degrees. Pretty good. I cannot believe that anyone would want to do anything other than fly airplanes for a living. I can't wait till I get there.
CFI checkride is scheduled for April 5th. :)
9:34:46 PM 
|
|
