Today was a right seat familiarization dual to see what it would take for me to be able to fly from the right seat. CFI and I flew from KRHV to Frasier Lake and did a bunch of low approaches, then returned to KRHV. CFI did the landing at KRHV, so zero landings for me today.
The sight picture was weird. I had real trouble doing air work. I had none of the comfortable sense of mastery that I have when I'm sitting in the left seat.
I spent a long time figuring out which way is forwards. :) My normal sight references were not there, and the "bulk" of the horizon and panel is on the "wrong" side so it shifts my attention in the wrong direction all the time.
The flight also uncovered "undiagnosed" over-reliance on my instruments. My air work was very poor without the constant reference to the ball and VSI. This is something I can work on from the left seat on my own, and I should indeed improve that before coming back to more right seat practice.
During one low pass, the CFI noticed I had a rudder wiggle. That's because we were sinking a bit and my brain decided my left hand was the "stick" and my right hand the "throttle" as usual. So I "added power" while adding right rudder, anticipating the torque. But of course the result was to dive for the runway and veer off to the right. Which I tried to adjust but ended up in a bit of PIO.
In general this was eye-opening and will lead to further learning experiences, but it was also a very rough day, reminiscent of my early days as a student where I wondered if I would ever be able to fly anything.
The sight picture was weird. I had real trouble doing air work. I had none of the comfortable sense of mastery that I have when I'm sitting in the left seat.
I spent a long time figuring out which way is forwards. :) My normal sight references were not there, and the "bulk" of the horizon and panel is on the "wrong" side so it shifts my attention in the wrong direction all the time.
The flight also uncovered "undiagnosed" over-reliance on my instruments. My air work was very poor without the constant reference to the ball and VSI. This is something I can work on from the left seat on my own, and I should indeed improve that before coming back to more right seat practice.
During one low pass, the CFI noticed I had a rudder wiggle. That's because we were sinking a bit and my brain decided my left hand was the "stick" and my right hand the "throttle" as usual. So I "added power" while adding right rudder, anticipating the torque. But of course the result was to dive for the runway and veer off to the right. Which I tried to adjust but ended up in a bit of PIO.
In general this was eye-opening and will lead to further learning experiences, but it was also a very rough day, reminiscent of my early days as a student where I wondered if I would ever be able to fly anything.
No comments:
Post a Comment