> Although I've said before that I wouldn't do it, Grin ... sounds like you had a good (and generic) intro flight.
> I had expected that in an introductory flight the instructor would [...] Nope; what you got is pretty standard. A good flight instructor tends to blend into the background. You hardly notice him (except when being explicitly taught something) but there is someone ready to rescue you from your dangerous blunders. Any non-dangerous blunder, however, is generally allowed to continue as part of the learning experience. > I was prepared for a heavy > propeller effect It's proportional to engine power (you had a little one) and angle of attack (you were in a shallow climb). You really notice it with 180hp and a best angle Vx climb, but the effect is mild, otherwise. > I found it very hard psychologically to keep the > nose up, since it covered my forward view. Exactly, and that feeling gets worse as you start doing traffic scanning. > Scanning the instruments in a C150 is *not* like watching the > instruments on the screen of a PC simulation [...] That's a good description of the situation. One of the reasons I wear heavily tinted sunglasses is to get the sky and the panel into the brightness range where pupil adjustment is as rapid as possible. > It's probably easy for an experienced pilot, but I, > with only a few minutes' flying experience, growing vertigo from the > aircraft's motion, and a total inability to read motion cues, was very > unwilling to tear my eyes away from the outside. If you were moving your head to switch from exterior to panel, that will contribute to the vertigo. Similarly, stress and adrenaline accentuate sensitivity to motion, as does dehydration and the like. For VMC flying, most instructors teach you to do almost everything without reference to the instruments. You perform the maneuver entirely using outside information, and only glance at the instruments to determine whether you are performing to the desired standard. Your simulator experiences may also be causing you to concentrate on the forward view excessively, which reduces the ability of your brain to subliminally pick up visual attitude cues from the horizon line. > The truth was that I was > terrified to let go of the yoke and was feeling more and more motion > sick You may have been trying too hard, equivalently to the cars that zig and zag down highways because the driver isn't looking ahead enough. This generates a lot of bumps, due to the aerodynamics and controls. If flying level, with practice you should be able to fly without touching the yoke and merely reaching out with a toe and touching a rudder pedal occasionally to keep the course line straight. If you're stressed out, as a flight student, your ability to learn is degraded. Give the plane back to the instructor, who has more practice at this and will fly smoother than you, sit back and enjoy the view for a bit ... that's part of the fun of being there. > The motion sickness was a big problem -- I was still experiencing > vertigo 6 hours after the flight, and feel slightly unsteady even this > morning even after a good night's sleep. We hit rough air twice, but > I don't think that was the main reason. The vertigo didn't interfere > with my ability to fly (I knew it was there, but was able to focus > through it), but it hit hard once I was on the ground and out of the > plane, and even harder once I had driven home. Right after the > flight, I was thinking I might not want to go up again; and hour > after, I was sure I wouldn't. That sounds to be mostly a stress reaction as a result of trying too hard. > I still feel disappointed that I felt no excitement at all from > actually being in the air, though (I enjoyed taxiing and the preflight > more, if you can believe it) -- I was like a kid looking forward to > Christmas and then getting nothing but socks. If you think about it, you were too busy trying to fly the plane to enjoy the fact that you could fly the plane and enjoy the view. > I'm going to think things over and perhaps try one proper lesson in a > bigger plane (like a C172) -- if I'm less crowded, the vertigo might > not be so bad, though lessons will be slightly more expensive. If the cramped space makes you uncomfortable, the impairment in your learning effectiveness will cost you more money than the bigger plane. _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
