Instrument Stalls

Today I got to do the dreaded instrument stalls. They weren't actually that bad. I just kept my eyes on my artificial horizon and everything was okay. The air was really smooth today, and I had no problems whatsoever keeping my altitude for any of the maneuvers I performed. I worked on slow flight, steep turns, turns around a point, S-turns, instrument stalls and instrument slow fight. I was able to keep my altitude +/- 100 feet fairly well. Maybe it was the smooth air, or maybe I'm just getting better.

I also landed twice today and did one go-around.

Go-arounds are just about the easiest thing in the world to do, you just have to know not to pull back as soon as you apply power- you need to gain some speed first. Go-arounds are executed when something occurs that might mean an unsafe landing, such as deer on the runway, another plane on the runway, heavy wind shear that blows you away from the runway, or anything where the pilot makes the decision to basically "try again". Here is a go around:


I also did slips (full rudder and opposite aileron) on a no-flap approach. When my instructor in Charleston had me do slips for my very first lesson, I could not do them. Here, now, they're a piece of cake. We approached the runway from the side and probably scared the Citation Jet waiting to takeoff because we were about 50 feet to the right of the runway at the threshold, almost passing over top of him on the taxiway. Here is a video of a plane slipping on approach- As you can see, the plane is basically flying in sideways (this is done in order to increase the descent rate without increasing speed):


On my landing with flaps, I got the stall horn to go off right as I touched down (which is characteristic of an ideal landing).

I feel like I'm getting much more proficient in every maneuver I've been doing. I will be soloing fairly soon! And then it's on to cross-country flight (which I am looking forward to).