Today's lesson was quick and easy, only moderate turbulence below 4000 feet. Needless to say, we did most of the lesson at 4,500 feet where it was smooth.
I practiced constant speed climbs and descents, where you climb without changing your speed. Imagine driving your car on a hilly road and you are attempting to maintain the speed limit. You have to give it more gas going uphill and let off going downhill. The same applies in a plane.
I worked changes in airspeed in level flight, which is slightly more difficult than it sounds. You have the plane trimmed and flying nice and easy at 4,500 feet going 120 knots, and all of the sudden ATC tells you to slow to 90 knots for spacing. So you have to pull back on the power. Then the plane wants to nose over to maintain 120 and you start losing altitude, so you have to pitch back and retrim. Once the plane stabilizes, your airspeed is now 100. So then you have to repeat the process to get down to 90. Its basically trial and error.
I did slow flight perfectly, and we moved on to steep turns. I was still having some trouble with them, but I'm getting better. I tend to lose too much altitude.
We returned to the airport and I executed a perfect landing. Which is fitting- it was my official 100th landing.
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