Pilot Brad’s Flying Blog

I am happy to say that after logging a total of 2.0 hours two flights over the weekend I now have a current BFR and I am checked out for solo rental of a Piper Warrior.   Yesterday we took care of the BFR, and today we worked on polishing my landings.  It felt great to get back into the air, and while I was a little rusty, I wasn’t nearly as rusty as I thought I would be.  I meant to take some pictures, but with everything going on I completely forgot to get the camera out.  Maybe next time.

My instructor was great; I figured that since this was the first time I had flown (as PIC) in a few years, and the first time back into a Piper Warrior in over 15 years, that he would want to perform the first takeoff and landing.  To my delight, he only touched the contols once, and that was only when I asked him to while I retreived something from my flight bag.  I was a bit concerned that I wouldn’t know what to say over the radio, but it all came back to me very quickly.  The hardest part was recognizing when the tower had called our n-number,  as I had never flown this airplane before and half the time I couldn’t remember what the n-number was even though it was placarded directly in front of me.

For the past 6 years, I have flown nothing but tailwheel aircraft with tandem (centerline) seating and control sticks instead of yokes.  With this being my first flight in a Warrior in many many years, one thing that I really noticed was how heavy the controls felt and how sluggish it was to respond to control inputs.  I am not knocking the aircraft, it’s just different than what I have become accustomed to.  Even though I thought the controls were a bit heavy, and at the risk of sounding a bit arrogant, I was really surprized at how easy it was to fly and then to land.  I thought my first landing was going to be horrible, and while it wasn’t great, it really wasn’t that bad.  However, rather that taking credit for my satifactory landings I’ll attribute them to the design of the Warrior’s landing gear with it’s shock absorbing struts.  As none of the aircraft I have flown for years have had flaps, I had to remember to apply the flaps at the appropriate times, but it quickly became habit once again.

One thing I do have to work on is getting the aircraft aligned better with the runway on landing.  As I mentioned, I had been flying aircraft where you sit on the centerline, but now I am in in the left seat of side-by-side seating and the sight picture in the flare is a bit different.  None of my landings were horrible or dangerous by any means, it’s just something I need to work on improving.

It feels great to be current once again, and I am glad I am checked out to rent an aircraft solo, but before I stretch my wings and start flying places with passengers, I am going to take a conservative approach and log a few solo hours.  It’s not that I am uncomfortable or feel that I am unsafe, I just think it is the wise thing to do. 

With the BFR and check-out now behind me, we are going to dive right in to the instrument training, with my first instrument lesson scheduled for next Sunday.   Since I am getting back into this after a few years off, we agreed that for the first few lessons we would work on polishing my VFR skills in conjunction with introducing IFR concepts.  I think that is a good plan, and I will certainly let you know how it goes.