I met with my CFI for the first time at Sundance Flying Club. We spent about an hour in the club going over the plane checkout process, talking about fundamentals of flight and developing a plan for our first flight. The weather was not immediately cooperative for this first lesson. The ceiling was around 800 ft, but was forecast to begin burning off by 9:30.<\/p>\n
We made our way to the ramp and I followed my CFI around the aircraft for a pre-flight inspection. My original plan for flight instruction included learning in a Cessna 152, but an accident at the airfield just over a week ago totaled the only operating 152 in the Sundance fleet. As a result, I will be learning in a Cessna 172 and my first flight took place in the aircraft pictured in the header at the top of this blog.<\/p>\n
At the conclusion of the pre-flight, I noticed the rotating beacon had been deactivated indicating the field had cleared up to Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) which would allow us to fly under Visual Flight Rules (VFR.) My instructor had decided we would depart the delta to the north and practice maneuvers of the Leslie Salt flats. I called Palo Alto Ground for a taxi clearance and began taxiing toward the runway.<\/p>\n
My first attempt at taxiing was not stellar. The pedals required an incredible amount of pressure that I didn’t anticipate needing to apply. My instructor helped me pull into the run-up area and we began the before takeoff checklist. We then covered the basics of what to check during the run-up and I was briefed on the function of each instrument on the panel. Time for takeoff!<\/p>\n
I feel like this first lesson was definitely trial-by-fire. My instructor left it up to me to taxi onto the runway, align us with the center-line and commence the takeoff roll. The result of his persistence I do these things on my own can be seen in the video below… I let the first fourth of the runway creep by while barely increasing airspeed, completely unaware that “full throttle” means all at once in one smooth motion. My instructor kept saying “full throttle, full throttle,” but it wasn’t registering that I could apply it all at once. Finally he told me to either apply full throttle NOW or we would need to abort the takeoff. I got it then!<\/p>\n