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If you have a comment about my quest, or a memory of learning to fly, send it in via email. I may post it here, subject to editing.
• BTW, I forgot to ask about whether or not you found the "steam gauges" on the Piper to be daunting. I know that looking in all of the flying magazines at the panels on the new aircraft makes me FIRST look for, at least, round guages, dials, etc SOMEWHERE on the panel so that I could safely fly VFR from point A to point B.
Regardless, you're getting a good "exposure" to the different aircraft. I found, flying in 3 different Cessna 150s over the > 3 1/2 years that I spent between my 1st lesson and my checkride, that their panels could vary , too. I guess it keeps you from getting complacent, and makes you grab a look before you grab a knob or lever.
Small note: I grew up mowing lawns with a power mowers that had throttles knobs that you PULLED OUT to advance the throttle, and, well, on aircraft you PUSH IT IN to make the RPMs move to higher numbers. Once, during my first few hours, when we were landing and were almost over the numbers, and I had a little too much altitude, the CFI told me to "cut the throttle," (whatEVER) and, you guessed it, my tiny mind reverted to my hundreds of hours behind a 3 hp Briggs and Stratton-powered lawnmower, and I pushed it all the way in. Out of the corner of my right eye, I could see him reverse his kind of relaxed position and saw him jump up, pretty much the way the little Cessna did when I let all 100 (!) horses under the hood gallop at the same time! I realized what happened after about 1/2 second, and since YOU ALWAYS KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE THROTTLE WHEN TAKING OFF, LANDING OR ARE SIMPLY IN THE PATTERN, I pulled it all the way back and we made a kind of bouncy landing, but our airport's little 2700 foot runway still had plenty of room for me to recover and we did a touch-and-go and I don't remember EVER doing it again!
I had so many hours before I ever took my checkride that potential emergencies didn't affect me like the would've had I soloed in 10 hrs, and was ready for my checkride at 40 hrs. I maybe have told you this before, BUT, with my hours before I was finished training (over 100!) I think that I responded correctly in most of the untoward situations. A number of things contributed to my "maturity" in the left seat when I had certain "situations" thrown at me when I was flying solo (sudden changes in wind direction when I was on short final, failure of avionics or instruments - a transponder that literally began smoking when I was on one of my 50-plus Nm trips from my home airport to the one where I was taking lessons from my 3rd CFI, an attitude indicator that suddenly began spinning [really] when I was flying straight and level en route to the same CFI's - to name only two failures) - wow, a LOOONG parenthetical statement!
Short story long...you'll have lots of stories, too, and I'd bet a LOT FEWER hours before you're done with training. Simulator time will help, as will having a REAL flight-training school - I had to "free lance" and find my CFI's on my own: three different airports and four different CFI's, each with his own "correct" way to fly (especially LAND) a Cessna 150 - some say that you cut the throttle to idle when you're abeam the approach end of the runway when you're on your downwind leg and coast all the way to a landing, and others say that you reduce the throttle to 1700 RPMs at the same point in the pattern and leave it there, unless you need to make adjustments, till JUST BEFORE touchdown! Learning, then unlearning a few times does DO two things: you get to increase your knowlege-base and you SPEND MORE MONEY (on the plane and the CFI!).
Keep us informed.
Tom
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