Already by my lesson on October 4, less than one month after starting my lessons, I was able to take the controls for the whole flight, doing the take-off, climb, turns, radio calls, descent, and landing. It's amazing to me that just a few weeks of lessons can take a student pilot to this point. Of course, my instructor is right there beside me and I could not possibly do it without him, but his role has become teacher and guide, rather than the-one-who-actually-flies-the-plane.
This month, I was introduced to what is somewhat euphemistically known as "upper air work." This involves learning to recover from "unusual attitudes," where the plane is not in the right position for flying. We did a few lessons where we practiced stalls, spiral dives, and spins. When an airplane stalls, it doesn't mean the same thing as in a car. In a car, a stall means that the engine has quit; in an airplane, it means that the wings are not able to develop lift because of the angle of flight so they stop flying. At the point of stall, the nose suddenly drops down as the plane loses lift. A spiral dive occurs when the airplane turns so steeply that it overbanks and starts to descend in a high-speed spiral. A spin is caused when the plane stalls but one wing drops dramatically. In a spin, the nose points straight down to the ground and the airplane spins like a corkscrew.
These are dramatic maneuvers! I loved doing them! To feel the loss of lift in the stall and the forces in the spiral, and to see the ground turning and coming at you in the spin is quite a rush! Amazingly, recovery from these dangerous situations is easy, assuming you recognize that they are happening. I definitely do not want to practice these by myself. Eventually I will have to practice stalls solo - the other two I just hope I never cause. These are major upsets with dire consequences if not recognized and remedied. It's one thing to plan to do them and to do them with an instructor but it would be quite another to be surprised by them. I would have to try very hard to keep my wits about me if they happened inadvertently.
At this point, I have covered a lot of the basic exercises, although there is still much to learn. I still haven't flown solo and I have to learn other skills such as instrument flying and navigation. But I have some basic flying skills now and it feels good.