Showed up at the field early this morning for my first lesson. Instructor was very nice and the club plane (a Nexstar) was in good condition with a nice OS motor. Anyway he went through the basic of proper plane setup, how to check the plane out prior to flight, how to start the motor, a brief discussion of what we would be doing and then off we went.

First flight he did the takeoff and I waited until he had the plane at about 100 feet in level flight and then he let me take over. Flew in a oval pattern for a few minutes, half throttle, practicing turns and trying to keep the plane level during the turns. No big incidents and before I knew it, it was time to land. He took over, got into pattern and landed

Second flight he did the takeoff and I again waited until he had the plane at about 100 feet in level flight and he let me take over. Flew in an oval pattern for awhile and then he took over, instructed how to do a loop, did a loop and then handed it over to me and let me do a loop. IT WAS AWESOME and a real sense of accomplishment. After the loops and such he took over, got it into pattern and landed and he turned it over to me to taxi in.

Third flight same as before but once we were up in the air he asked me to take over and do some figure eights. Definitely not as easy as just flying around but eventually I got the hang of it. By the time I was done flying around I was comfortable with flying the plane where I wanted it and he was actually impressed with my control skills. For about the second half of the flight we practiced getting into the patterns and having me fly down the runway at low level as if I was going to land.

Fourth and fifth flights were much the same except he let me take off both times and fly around as I pleased. We practiced stalls, loops, figure 8's, shallow and steep turns, and getting into the pattern. On the final flight I was lined up for the pattern and he said go ahead and get it lined up for landing and I'll take over. Only thing is HE NEVER TOOK OVER AND I LANDED IT! Although not perfect it was actually quite a nice landing with a half-attempted flair but the plane landed okay and I was able to taxi back to the box.

Afterwards he said I was ready to solo! So now I just have to finish building my trainer, bring it out and get it setup and fly a little with him and I should be ready for solo flying!!!

I AM SO EXCITED!!!! IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!

Thats great ..........

Great
Just make sure YOU are comfortable with your flying before losing the instructor. I would hate to solo too soon and crash a plane that an instructor could have saved.

I am going to spend plenty of time with the instructor before I go ahead and solo. I will say this though, at $60 the Tower Trainer isn't so great a loss if I do happen to crash it!

How did you like flying the nexstar? Shout out the goods and bads...

It seems to fly just fine. Very stable, nice stall characteristics. I don't think you really can mess up bad in this plane. It seems like whatever you do it will correct itself. It did seem a little underpowered with the OS .46 but that might be because the motor was well used (this was the club trainer afterall) and was set to run pretty rich.

I will say that I have heard the same things about the plane I am building (Tower Trainer 40) which was only $60. So although the Nexstar is very nice it is also very expensive!!!!

Sounds like you flew with the afs on, did you ever turn it off? Just courious, when I solo I think I want it off, I don't like how it corrects itself, seems like it would be difficult to fly. At least on the sim its a pain in the butt with the afs on...

No AFS was off the whole time. It just has enough dihedral (sp?) to be stable and its stall characteristics are very gentle.

Now spend the rest of the week trying to get the smile off your face

CONGRATS!

Wow that sounds like a fun time. I wish I could do the same but the local club here won't respond to my emails. [:@] It's sucks having two planes and no one to teach me how to fly them. I might have to learn the hard way. [&o]

Congrats on the quick learning! Definitely stick with the instructor and learn as much as you can before going 100% SOLO.



If they won't respond to e-mails, simply show up at the field and talk to them... I am sure you'll get better results.

Or a phone call if they have a number listed.

Yeah.. it's a great feeling to get that thing to take off, fly around, then land it. Especially on the first day out. That's awsome.

One thing I would do before asking to solo, though, is to try to get a few more flights in while doing several landings, as well as, and I feel this is very important, some emergency procedures. Have him do some practice dead-stick landings with you. Not necessarily to the ground, but to final and add throttle and go around and do it again, but from a different location... upwind, downwind, and from mid field, dead stick on take off, and during approach to landing. This is all important because you want to know what to expect when it happens to you (and I guarantee that it will).

Great job!!

CGr.

Our next lesson period will focus on touch and go's, emergency procedures, etc. They just don't allow that stuff with the club trainer!!! Have to do it with my own plane!!! In fact they don't allow student LANDINGS on the club trainer but my instructor was comfortable enough with my skill that he was okay with it.

Thanks for the inputs. And they won't let students land the club trainer, thats gay!

If you are upset that they don't let students land the club's trainer you have never seen a first landing attempt go wrong. It makes great sense.

I think it makes absolute 100% sense! Nexstar's are not cheap. Especially for a club. I think it was great they were even able to provide a club trainer...

Then how are you suppost to learn to land?

You learn to land with your own airplane.
You will still be on a buddy box and all.
Most club trainers are only for intro flying, you are expected to get your own plane at some point.

This is very true. Many clubs will actually limit the number of flights a "student" can make on the club trainer. They use it for "intro" flights for when people show up and want to know what it's all about. But they urge people to purchase their own trainer for actual instructions.

Ken