Two and a half weeks after my flight in the C150, I was back at the airport, preflighting 2875X again. Carl let me lead him through the preflight, and I didn’t miss anything major.
Run-up complete, the tower cleared us onto runway 11 for takeoff. Carl didn’t say anything, didn’t grab the controls, and I got the message. I admitted my nervousness, and Carl simply replied.
“Full throttle and steer straight down the centerline.”
“Yeah, I know what to do, I’m working on the how to do it part,” I thought as I acknowledged him with an, “OK.” The throttle went up, and I even managed to keep it on the centerline for most of the run. Before I knew it — literally — I was off the ground and climbing out. The Warrior easily picks up to it’s 90kias climb speed, and with proper trim is a breeze to get a great climb out of.
Leveled off at 3,000ft and safely in the practice area, we slowed to maneuvering speed, I chose about 95kias, although I could have gotten away with 100, and Carl introduced me to steep turns in the Warrior. 45 degree bank for 360 degrees then reverse and do it again. Being in the left seat, it’s easy to make a left turn, but the right turn is something completely different.
I quickly figured out that I could chose to either maintain altitude, roll-out on the specified heading, or keep a perfect 45 degree bank, of course you’re supposed to do all three.
We did enough steep turns to make me sick of watching the altimeter dropping before turning back.
Carl asked me to setup the approach, so I dropped power and nosed-down the Warrior to lose altitude. At two miles out for runway 29, we were still way high and above the acceptable flap speed. I pulled power back some more and pulled the nose up to lose speed so I could deploy the flaps.
Despite my less-than-perfect setup, Carl took the controls and slipped the Warrior down for a beautiful landing.
Logbook
Aircraft: N2875X (PA-28-161)
Dual: 1.3hrs