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My lesson on Saturday was amazing.  Having not flown for five months, I was really anxious to get up in the sky.  The started at 6:30 that morning.  Its about an 45 minute drive to Wilmot, Wisconsin.  The drive is not bad at all; no traffic and a lot of scenic farms and such.  I arrived at 5K6 about 7:20 and met Dana, my new flight instructor.  Dana is a real nice guy.  He was really friendly and did a good job explaining today’s tasks, club policies and rules, and just on overall synopsis on how the club runs.  We grabbed the keys four our airplane out of the club’s lock box.  Westosha is a self service flying club meaning it never closes.  Member’s get their aircraft keys by swiping their member card at the key box.  The machine logs what member swiped their card, when they did it, and when they returned the keys.  Our plane for the day N25351, a 1977 Cessna 152.  I was surprised how small as 152 looked on the outside (the inside was actually not too bad).  We took the checklist from inside the plane and started in on our preflight.  The flow was the same form as the Piper Warriors; Inside, tail, right wing, nose, left wing, cockpit.  The lists were about the same too with a few differences.  sampling fuel from the fuel sumps requires a different type of fuel tester.  Its looks just like a test tube but has a thin metal rod that sticks up out of the top of it.  You stick the rod in a special hole and it pulls gas out of the tank so you can see if there’s water in it.  There were a few other slight differences but nothing extremely different (well, besides the wing being on top instead of below the plane).  We moved inside the plane to get familiarized with the new aircraft.  The interior was in nice shape, carpet was clean and the windscreen was clear.  We completed the pre-start, start, and pre-taxi checklist checklists.  He explained the significance of each item and why we do it.  I took control of the aircraft and taxied to the runway.  Westosha has on paved runway (03-21) 2,800 feet long and a good condition turf runway (14-32) 1,500 feet long.  Because the airport doesn’t have any parallel taxiways, we had to back taxi down the runway to our starting position.  I lined up with the runway and announced our departure intention and departed to travel east.

We climbed to 3,000 feet and stayed there for the majority of the lesson.  We were at a position where we could simultaneously see both the Milwaukee skyline as well as the Chicago one too.  For the majority of the lesson we worked on the fundamentals of flight.  I’m really glad we did too; I was able to re-associate the horizon with the pictures of a standard climb descent and turn.  It really helped out.  After getting a feel for how it handles, we worked on a couple of more difficult things like steep turns, slow flight, and stalls.  I had a bit of trouble with steep turns.  After a little bit of practice I got a good feel of them going to the right.  For some reason, however, I just couldn’t get them to the left.  I was having a hard time keeping altitude and bank angle constant.  Next time though I will be focusing on locking in that sight picture.  After the turns we moved into slow flight.  It was amazing how effective the flaps are in the Cessna.  After a quick familiarization with its slow flight characteristics, we moved into stalls.  We worked on both approach stalls and departure stalls with power on and power off.  Recovery was as easy as it was with the Piper.  After about an hour of maneuvers practice, we headed back to the airport to work on landings.  The pattern altitude at Westosha is 1,500 feet; about 700 feet above ground level.  We did 5 landings total.  The first one we did a full stop.  I made the approach but Dana gave me a hand putting her down.  we then back taxied to the start of the runway and took off again.  I took off the plane very well and was starting to get a good feel for the pattern.  At 1,200 feet, I made a 90 degree turn to the left (the crosswind leg).  I started to use landmarks as reference points for my turns.  For example, a new to aim for a black silo when turning crosswind.  I turned downwind when i got to the edge of the field like most people do.  When  I was lined up with the numbers on the runway, I added carb heat (in Cessna aircraft you use carb heat whenever your engine slows under 2000 rpm), reduced power to 1500 rpm and put in my first notch of flaps.  After that point its all visual.  Judgment is key to a good approach (and a good approach is key to a good landing).  The second and third landing were the same way only we did go arounds instead.  For some reason I had a tendency to force the airplane down (like I was nervous to put it down).  Because of this, Dana suggested I try to keep the plane off the runway as long as possible.  It worked like a charm.  The last two landings I did all by myself and they weren’t that bad.  I need to remember to let off the brakes a little bit and to let the nose come down by itself.  Other than those two little mistakes, I did pretty well.  We taxied the plane in front of the Club’s building and did the shutdown checklist.  Overall it was great day.  We went in, and Dana got me a member number and some club paperwork.  While we were there, I paid my initiation costs and Dana, scheduled my next lesson,  and was on my way.  I’ll be back up with Dana on Saturday (November 8th) at 8:00.  I’m really looking forward to flying with Dana and defying gravity for another hour or so.  I was able to log another 1.3 hours into my logbook (making me a student pilot with 7.6 hours) and a little bit more experience under my belt.  Thanks for reading and for everyone’s support!!!

Evan Krueger

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