Well, had my 2nd flying lesson on the weekend.
It was a perfectly clear day. Not a cloud to be seen. A little blustery on
the ground, but nothing major.
Today, I did my first take-off. I wasn't expecting it to be such an intense
experience. It was much twitchier than I was expecting. Not really sure what
I was expecting to be honest.
Anyway, barrelled down the runway, and at 50kts gently pulled the stick
back. Up we went. Pretty much nailed the climb rate which I was pleased
about. I had been worried about pulling back too hard, or not enough.
The air was fairly rough for the first 500ft, but then settled down, with
the exception of a few hefty reminders that the wind was still about, thrown
in for good measure.
It had been just over 2 weeks since my first lesson, due to bad weather the
previous weekend.After about 10 minutes or so, my instructor was satisfied I
was once again comfortable with the handling of the a/c, and we moved onto
todays lesson. Climbing and descending.
We did about 3 step climbs, and she was satisfied I was understanding the
concept well. After the 3rd one, I was feeling confident with it. Same with
descents. I actually enjoyed the descents for some reason. It's hard to
explain why I felt that way. I think I maybe felt like it was ME flying, ...

Hi Crash

Well done & glad that you are pleased with efforts so far.
You certainly brought back some memories - the whole flying thing is just
beautiful right from takeoff to touchdown, taxying etc. But like yourself
I especially enjoyed some aspects a little more than others.
The take-off and final approach/touch down *always* had that in-defineable
"something special" - and I could never find the right words to describe
that special feeling.

It seems like that the aeroplane becomes an extension of our spiritual side.
That desire to be free and to fly like the birds or nearer to God. Even as
I type this - it is difficult to express those feelings with mere words -
but I certainly understand exactly what you were feeling.

I guess my most enjoyable experience was flying solo at 14,000ft (yep -
FL140) in a red and white C172. (VH-India Charlie Delta) and happily weaving
in and out of largish "cotton wool" cumulus clouds. I could have stayed up
there forever. Just too delicious for words.

All the best - keep us up to speed on how things are going.
TACAN (aka Graham)

I assume you were 1500m horizontally from cloud and had 1000ft vertical
cloud clearance, or were IFR.

Cheers,
Richard.