Commercial Training - Day 3

Summary
Scheduled Time: 1PM - 4PM
Actual Hours Ground: 0.3
Actual Hours Flight: 1.4

Finally, the weather was good enough to go flying. We started with a full pre-flight, as usual, but since this was my first pre-flight of the Cessna 177RG Cardinal, I had lots of questions. Once complete, we climbed in, started the engine, and began the first flight lesson.

We departed Paine Field to the West and headed for the practice area. The first maneuver was Commercial steep turns. These are a little different from your standard steep turns in that the bank angle is 50 degrees rather than 45 degrees and you fly both full turns (left and right) back to back instead of one each way.

After the turns we did some slow flight and stalls. These are basically the same as what I've always done in the past, but the stall recovery is performed before the point of full stall.

Then we had a simulated engine failure. I hit the required speed and found my landing location, but would have come up short due to the extra drag brought on by putting the gear down too soon. We'll have to work on this area.

The final Commercial maneuver of the day was the chandelle. The chandelle is a 180 degree turn with a reducing speed climb. The objective is to turn around in a small space while simultaneously climbing. At the 90 degree point, you should be at the maximum pitch and half the final airspeed. This is quite interesting and will take a few hours to master.

With the maneuvers out of the way, we headed back to the airport for some landing practice. Landing a new plane well is a difficult task. After six tries, I still have some more practicing to do. The plane lands much harder than the Commander and seems to drop out of the sky the last foot or two. It also tends to bounce if you carry too much speed. Dropping the nose after a bounce causes it to porpoise down the runway. Not a pretty site.