Day 2

Well Today is the second day of my training. I'm hoping that this day is a little better in terms of not being overwhelmed by information. I got to the airport at 8:00, again, eager to start the day. Bud pulled up in his civic and once again, things began to move like clock work.

Once strapped in, we headed out to Runway 3. This time I taxied out, to the runway, but was still fighting the plane. It seems to take some serious time to get comfortable with how much pressure and when to and when not to apply it. We got to the hold short line and did our run up. He talked me through the take off and then let me taxi out to the runway. Lined up, Power UP, ..1,2,3, push stick forward.. Hold.. Don't let the nose drop… and then we were air born. Right rudder in to prevent the inevitable "Feel your Butt!" and we were climbing out. PAAP… was the phrase of today… Power, Altitude, Attitude Pattern. This along with Feel your Butt was drilled into me throughout the day.
I felt that the first flight was too bad. I did see that I was still severely behind the airplane, but I did my best to stay on top of it. Budd has such a good way of making you see and FEEL what your doing wrong. He's laser accurate with his words, and that kind of precision is what helps make you aware of what you're doing wrong the instant you're doing it wrong. He also does a great job of getting you to feel what's going on so you can predict what's going to happen next. This is all critical when flying the Pitts.

After several touch N goes, I was tired, and I knew it. I did my best to stay focused and stay on top of it. Budd made me aware of how bad my coordination was every time I heard Feel your Butt. My ground track was all over the place too. I kept blowing past center line over and over. I was SCREWING THE airplane instead of making love to it he said. He said that if I flew the airplane like that a few more times he was going to send a letter to my girlfriend giving her his condolences.. That made me laugh, but I got the point. I need to become a better lover. And.. That is exactly what I was going to strive for on the next Hop.

Hop 2.
Better, but still not great. Hop two comes in at 3 hours of time in the aircraft. In Ground School Budd talked about the difference between making love and screwing. He was somewhat graphic in this discussion, and maybe that's why it's so easily remembered. This whole hop, that's all I was doing was screwing. I was all over the place. However, that's not entirely true. You see even though you are getting better, Budd is constantly making work harder, and is working you closer to being perfect. Not to say that I was anywhere near perfect, but I was getting better. Still screwing, but getting better at it.. Maybe one of these Hops, I'll be making love. Several landings,… or um.. Bounces later, I started to get a better idea of what was going on. One thing to mention is that now I am flying this bird from the back seat. The sight picture is a little different, but not too drastic. You still can't see for anything out the front. In fact, when you're at pattern altitude on final, you have a mile and a half blind spot directly out the nose. NOT GOOD. So.. Budd teaches you how to fly an angled approach to correct this so you can always keep the runway in sight, all the way down to the numbers. The way you do this is by slipping. Hold aileron in, and some rudder, and the Pitts drops like a rock. Because of this, Budd makes you fly a higher than normal approach. Instead of a 3 degree glide slope, we fly a 5 degree one. It's amazing just how steep that feels. It's a pretty big rush when you see the ground com rushing up at you!

HOP 3.
Getting better all the time. I can feel my confidence getting growing. I can now taxi the Pitts pretty well. I'm still a little late getting off the rudder, but I am figuring it out. I now have a real good grasp on take offs, but I'm still a little squirrelly. I know what I'm doing wrong, but I'm just a little slow in anticipating it, and correcting for it. It's funny just how driven I am to be perfect. Budd is hard on me, but I think I'm harder on myself. For some reason this hop was harder on me than any of the others. I think it's because I had such a bad headache, and was starting to get really tired. I had a real hard time keeping the aircraft coordinated. Again, this plane will magnify anything you are doing wrong, and this hop, I couldn't even fly straight and level with out a little rudder, or aileron in. It was frustrating, but I continued to push through it. On the last landing I must have bounced about 3 times before I got the thing down and stopped. Needless to say, I was glad that hop was over. I was ready for a break, and some much needed rest.