I finally get to fly one

When I was a teen I collected brochures of different airplanes and the one I really fell in love with was the Cessna 210 Centurion. I saw the plane as gutsy. Naw ... the plane was ballsy. When I saw them on the ramp I found it down right intimdating.

Today, I got to fly one at Skypark (15g). WOW. What a rush!!

I sat in awe and got to do one takeoff which was the same as flying a 737 to me.

Quick, send me a check for $110,000.

My flight instructor is messing with me

Yesterday I went to the airport for 1 1/2 hour lesson expecting to do that the basics plus a few takeoffs and landings. That's what I had in mind, but my flight instructor had different ideas.

We started off with the basics, regular takeoff, depart the pattern, fly southwest of airport, climb to 3500 feet, do some slow flight, steep turns (45° bank), and turns around the point. Overall I did okay, I still need to work on my power management to maintain altitude and slow flight. My turns around a point were okay, and I identified a mistake before my flight instructor did and made a second attempt that came out much better.

After completing those maneuvers he told me to fly back to the airport, and three minutes later after giving me these instructions, he decided to start messing with me. My flight instructor pulled the power all the way off and announced to me "You just lost your engine what are you going to do"?

So I started putting together some commonsense answers in my head and then explained them to him as I started the procedures. But the more I explained to him the more he kept asking me "then what"? I selected a field to the left of me and we had plenty of altitude to set up even though I was unsure of my selection. As I made my selection I gave them a brief overview as to why and he seemed to agree with me, and did not point out any better selections.

After this emergency procedure he told me to fly back and overfly the airport and 3500 feet. I thought maybe he was going to show me another procedure instead, he pulled off the power again and told me to land at the airport. He explained to me the best way to accomplish a safe landing and taught me to procedure, resulting in a decent landing.

So twice today he played this game with me. Luckily I put on extra deodorant because in the Cessna 152 you are in very close quarters with your passenger.

So we decided to practice some takeoffs and landings and except for a couple of minor issues I was having a good day.

On my second landing I was slightly off-line with a runway which was easily corrected but instead I opted to practice a go around. And I am proud to say that this one went quite well is specially since this was my first practice go around.

On the following landing while on the downwind leg, you guessed it ... he pulled the power off again! He told me to make a landing without power from my present location. Surprisingly it was not difficult at all and I should feel even more comfortable with this procedure once I practice it two or three more times. It resulted in a good landing, and I only swore at him once or twice under my breath.

The third time around the pattern was uneventful, the landing was smooth but I will have to make sure instead of looking over the cowl to look off to the side to judge my height. I don't know why I am not doing this now because when I started flying again I automatically looked off to the side to judge my height and my landings were perfect. But then again, I was in a Piper Cherokee.

I hope to get up in the air this weekend and see if I can pick up where I left off. I'm just wondering, since he's starting to throw emergencies at me... MAYBE HE WANTS TO KICK ME OUT OF THE NEST???