There's a guy just ahead of me where I'm learning. He just finished his dual XC and I asked my instructor if he was going to solo XC next. He said that he likes to dual XC, then dual to an aiport w/tower next. So, I guess next week I'll be talking to a tower ;-)

My CFI owns a 182 and he took my daughters and me up one day a couple weeks ago (EAA Young Eagles flight). He let me fly it a bit on one of the flights and I could not believe the difference. With the 150, you barely put any pressure on the wheel, I felt like I was doing a bench press on the 182 by comparison. And ground speed, I couldn't believe it!

I've never flown a 172, have you flown a 150 or 152? I've gotta believe there's a non-trivial difference. Some of the pilots at our place that regularly fly Pipers say they don't like to fly the 150 - they feel like it gets away from them too easily. I almost took lessons in a 172 (I hope to buy one in Summer '03). But, I talked to my wife's uncle (runs Bill's AeroService in southern Indiana) and he recommended the 150. He and his son both said, "The 172 kind of wants to help you. If you learn in the 150, you'll be a better pilot for it." Not knowing anything about flying when I started, that was enough for me to decide on training in the 150, which, btw, is not approved for spins :-)

I haven't tried a power-on stall by myself yet. I imagine that'll scare hell out of me. Thought I'd do it one more time dual since I haven't been doing anything but take-offs and landings of late. Crosswind landings were pretty exciting. With stalls, thinking about it for me is worse than doing it. When I'm doing it, it doesn't seem that big a deal, but knowing that I could enter a spin if I don't keep those wings level, <shudder>.

I haven't practiced ground-reference maneuvers in a while, I pretty much sucked at that the first time or two. Steep turns I did okay, (except the last time). On my last turn to the right, I started out pointing 180 and finished at 270. Smooth.

I just finished ground school and will probably take the exam next week some time (assuming I can get some time between now and then to commit all those FAR's to memory).

bcnu,
Mikem

How many hours do you have? (PIC and DUAL).

Do you own the 172 you're flying? If so, and if you don't mind my asking, what's insurance running you/year?

I'm going to be doing my XC planning tonight (and tomorrow probably ;-)

Thanks for the pointers.

bcnu,
Mikem

I got renter's insurance for $330 ($500,000 liability and only $10,000 for the plane I'm flying - a 61 C150A won't be worth much more than that ;-)

I'll bump it later, of course.

Right now, it doesn't look as though we'll even be flying tomorrow (warm front is hanging around - 40% chance of thunderstorms along route tomorrow morning - when I'm supposed to fly).

I was gonna hit www.duats.com today, but at this point I'm less than hopeful.

Thanks for the tips, I suspect my CFI will be asking me about every 30 seconds where we are, how long until we get to X, etc. as well.

bcnu,
Mikem