Solo (Part 1/3)
The pre-dawn hours of an Alaskan winter morning tend to be ball-risingly cold. Women agree to this, despite their testicular lack, because the concept of being out in such weather invites a sort of ‘duh’ response that’s gender unspecific. Despite such unanimous agreement against it, I frequently dragged my sorry ass out into the blinding cold, testes be damned, because it was arguably the best opportunity to get some flight time in before the world awoke and decided that they, too, needed to log some hours. Selfish bastards.
The two things that I remember most about flying airplanes: 1. The peace and 2. The bowel-emptying terror of learning how to recover from a spin. I’ll supplement #2 (HA!) with an assurance that no bowels of mine were ever emptied during any flight, but it’s an appropriate association to make with the first time one experiences an aircraft entering a spin. My instructor was an F-15C pilot, which translates to his being roughly the same age and overwhelmingly cocky, but thorough. Very thorough. The first couple of times we went up, he primarily wanted to get me comfortable with the basics. Follow the checklists. Look at this, then that, then this over here, don’t push that, etc. And as I got to know both he and the plane, gradually, he began to teach me why and how a plane stays in the air and how hard it is to actually not fly it once it’s up there. For instance, early on when he would tell me to drop altitude, I’d slooooooooooooooooooowly push forward on the controls and watch the little needle start to eeek it’s way toward smaller numbers. After awhile he started saying, ‘Faster’, and I would veeeeeeeeery slowly push a little harder forward until finally one day he muttered, ‘OK, I have control’, took control, and dropped us ~1500 feet in ~3 seconds. His moral: If you want to get somewhere, just fucking go there already, holy shit.
Stalls and spins. *sigh* Ah, reverie. The power-off stall is easy, almost insultingly so. You kill the power, then attempt to keep the aircraft from sinking by gradually increasing the angle of the wings until finally, the aircraft lacks the velocity needed keep it aloft. You begin to fall, you add power, crisis averted. The power-on stall, however, can tend to be less straightforward. You apply full power and begin a steep climb, gradually increasing the wings’ angle of attack until it’s so steep that the air traveling under the wings isn’t moving as fast as the air moving over the wings. So, you’re crawling up, up, up, until you hear this little buzzing sound (stall warning) and then…..torque. Torque is the hell-bitch that you don’t expect in this situation, though any physicist worth his death ray will tell you that it’s obvious what’s about to happen. A propeller basically consists of wings attached to an axis. Let’s say you’re lucky enough to be in a plane being pushed along by a single propeller spinning clockwise. If you, gosh I don’t know, yank back on the stick and climb at a severe enough angle to eventually stall the plane, suddenly the propeller becomes the boss of everyone involved and it keeps turning clockwise, while the rest of the plane heaves over counterclockwise and begins to fall and roll until someone does something about it.
I can still hear that buzzer in the harsh and lonely night. Truth be told, recovery from a power-on stall is relatively simple as long as you don’t panic and, uh…well, do the wrong thing. Simplicity itself. Spins, however, are the asshole big brother of power-on stalls, as they not only rely on torque, but also yaw and pitch and your life flashing before your eyes. Spins are disorienting because the plane is doing something that it really shouldn’t be doing. It’s actually more awkward for the plane in some ways to be spinning sideways, but the bottom line is this: If a plane is moving sideways in a circle, then it’s definitely not moving forward, which is where you’re supposed to be moving in order to keep from gradually hitting the Earth. Recovery from many bad things that might happen in midair boils down to this: Figure out which way you’re going, then do your best to go the opposite direction. And also, it’s important that you realize in these situations that time isn’t moving any faster. He used to count the seconds aloud as I recovered from whatever it was we needed recovery from in order to illustrate that you generally always have time to do what’s necessary, as long as you don’t panic. A pretty fair life lesson, too, when you think about it.
Sir @ August 7, 2009
i’m pretty sure your instructor now works for United.
Have I ever mentioned that I’m terrified of flying? (In a plane . . . the superhero kind is okay.)
I’ve a life-long dream of learning to fly. in my brief stint in the AF, I wasn’t on a base that had a flight club where I could. Since then finances have primarily held me back – either no money or other things were more important. Anyway, I’ve always worried that I’d get too dizzy in a spin to be able to recover from it.
So what I hear you saying is that you can rent a plane and just fly yourself out here for August. That IS the point of this, right? And then once you’re here, you’ll take us all up for circus-ride plane trips, which will nicely provide a portion of our weekend entertainment. This is going to be so much fun!
Brandon: Entirely possible. He was growing less and less enamored with his profession, as it was losing it’s hair-on-fire-constant-excitement-he-went-to-the-danger-zone aspects. Of course, this was in 2000, so he may have changed his tune around the following September.
Ashley: There’s nothing to be scared of where flying is concerned. It’s perfectly safe as long you don’t crash. And shouldn’t you be getting massaged and wasted on meat and booze right now instead of reading blogs?
Bob: You only get dizzy the first couple times when you’re not really sure what to expect or why to expect it. The secret to recovery from any situation is to understand what’s happening well enough to realize that’s it’s not the end of the world.
Shari: I was not prepared for how ass-rape-y the ticket prices to Seattle and/or Portland would be. I’m trying to sell my body as much as possible right now in order to afford the trip, but I’m getting sore.
Dead cows and booze doesn’t start until tomorrow. Also, airplanes smell funny.
Selling your body to the point of soreness just to come visit? Don’t be silly! GO GET SOME LUBE before you get hurt!
Also, sometimes it’s cheaper into Spokane or Tri-Cities (Pasco, Kennewick, Richland).
Sweet Mother of Christ, my stomach fell to my feet and I peed a little just reading that. Garrrgh! I will admire your mad skillz from the ground, thankyouverymuch.
Also, “ball-risingly and bowel-emptying” – one of the reasons I adore you. You never fail to paint an interesting picture through your prose. ;)
I would definitely be wearing Depends for any of those lessons and carrying an extra pair of clean undies in my bag (you know, cause mom always said…)
Power on stalls….My instructor used to say:”step on the high side”. Those five words serve well until you crawl in a 182 with a (unknown to the pilot) wing damage history. The wings aren’t “exactly symmetrical” and the craft gives you a head-fake only to fall off to the opposite inverted. Luckily, the CG is such that it will tuck under and right itself in 3 or 4 seconds, but it’s 3 or 4 seconds of popping and creaking noises that sound like laughter from the wrongs side of Hell’s Gate….ah, good times, man, good times.
I don’t know what shady180 just said, but oh my god I’m totally turned on right now.
As for the flying? I did once have a desire to join the AF, until I was told they are routinely encouraged to wake before 9am. And that’s just wrong.