Flying keeps me grounded

Another week, another lesson learned. This week, I was supposed to learn how to enter, recognize, and get out of 'slow flight'. However, we ended up doing two lessons in one this week. The other lessons was stalls.

I'll start out with trying to explain some characteristics of slow flight. Slow flight generally exists right after an airplane takes off, and right before it lands. It's defined as the airspeed below the endurance speed, but above the stall speed. Some of the characteristics of slow flight include slow airspeed, high RPMs (engine output rate), and sluggish performance of the flight controls. For those of you who are interested in the details, you can read more about slow flight here.

I found that flying an airplane in slow flight feels like a whole new way of flying. As stated above, the flight controls act sluggish and different. It's useful to practice slow flight in case a pilot finds themselves in a situation where they mistakenly enter slow flight, they'll then know how to safely exit out of it.

I haven't made a joke so far.

We practiced slow flight for a bit, and then it was time to do stalls. STALLS. That's a word that people hear and don't normally associate with airplanes. Unlike earth vehicles such as cars, stalling an airplane doesn't have much to do with the engine itself. The definition of a stall according to Wikipedia:
"a stall is a reduction in the lift coefficient generated by an airfoile as angle of attack increases. This occurs when the critical angle of attack of the airfoil is exceeded."

Sounds exciting right?
For people such as myself, who'd rather stick a fork in their eye rather than try to understand what the definition above means, a stall can mean that the wings of an airplane can not generate enough lift (for various reasons) in order to keep the airplane at the same altitude.

I made a joke.

And so the airplane stalls, and the nose of the airplane goes from a nose up attitude to a nose down attitude very quickly. Depending on how severe the stall is, the airplane I fly can generally lose 100 to 300 feet of altitude in a mater of two seconds or so. If the stall is aggravated by wrong handling of the airplane controls by the pilot, the airplane can enter a spin, and things can potentially get worse from there on. As well, if a stall occurs close to the ground, for instance during takeoff or landing, the results can be, well, devastating, for lack of a better word. This is why we practice stalls, so if they happen accidentally, I will know the correct procedures to perform in order to get out of those sticky situations. Would you like to read more about stalls? Here you go.

Sounds terrifying? I thought I'd be terrified. But a funny thing happened to me this lesson. There was some sort of change in me. I feel I have conquered some of my fears. I've come to love the essence of flying an airplane. It was a very windy and cloudy day this time around. The conditions were less than friendly, especially for doing exercises that push the boundaries of the airplane, and yet I felt strangely at ease. I rolled with the punches, or the turbulence in this case. There I was, in an airplane with an engine that has 100 horsepower, constantly trying to dodge grey clouds and rain, battling the winds at 4000 feet up, I realized that flying keeps me grounded.

In the next lesson, we're going to practice more advanced stalls, as well as a spin or two. I didn't think I'd look forward to this time in my flying endeavors , but to be honest, I can't wait for the next lesson.