so I paid $99 over the phone and drove up to KHPN for my 11am discovery flight. mainly because w0x has given me the bug. I was met by a really nice instructor named Sam who took me out to the Cessna 172SP Skyhawk. We did a bunch of preflight stuff where he showed how the ailerons, flaps, rudder works as well as trim surfaces. he told me which wires' connection to look for to make sure the control surfaces were working properly (and where not to put your fingers). He stuck a little doohickey in 5 little holes under each wing to extract a bit of fuel making sure there was no air bubbles.
we got in the plane (i got the left seat) and we did a bunch more preflight checklist stuff...selecting both fuel tanks, checking the battery etc. After turning on the avionics Sam told me to put the key in and fire it off three clicks to the right. With the right mixture set the plane roared to life and we were good to go.
You have to steer the plane on the ground by braking the top left or right rudder pedal which is a little weird at first as i of course was trying to steer the plane with the yoke lol. typical n00b error i'm sure. Sam got the plane out of the parking lot and onto the taxiway where he basically gave me the control as we taxied. i was overcompensating a bit but got the hang of it pretty quickly.
We had to wait for a JetBlue flight to leave which was pretty cool. As we taxied towards runway 34 Sam said he was taking control and stopped the plane about 200 feet short of the runway and steering the plane so it was no longer facing the runway. I guess this is so just in case i'm a crazy person or terrorist i cant zoom the plane towards the runway as the Jet Blue went to take off.
After the Jet Blue takeoff Sam requested takeoff clearance and he told to add power until full and at about 55 knots rotate to takeoff then push the stick forward once in the air. So all that happened in a blur and pretty soon we were up and with a little left turn we were heading west right at the Tappan Zee Bridge. It really was absolutely awesome to be up there at the controls flying. Sam at this point was letting me know a few things but he was pretty much hands off and letting me fly.
Once I got about 1000 feet or so it was time to lower the nose a little bit so I pushed forward on the stick and was surprised at how much force was required to keep the nose down...maybe 10 pounds of pressure. Thats when Sam showed me a little rotary knob in the center that trims the airplane so you can fly without much or any pressure on the stick. I guess i havent realized yet that despite some oscillations back and forth the plane really just wants to fly straight and level. yet i was sorta rolling us back and forth and i mentioned this to sam and he joked yeah man you're really rocking me to sleep.
We got a few miles out and over the Hudson and I made a left turn and a right turn. Sam told me something about how I'm supposed to make one of the indicators on the garmin - its right in the middle -line up into a triangle. it was a little difficult to understand and process while i was looking at the view and snapping a few pictures but flying was definitely not difficult at all.
I made another left turn and we were pointed back towards the airport. Sam radioed for landing on runway 34 and we were told to enter left traffic. not sure what that meant really. we flew south towards the long island sound and had to fly the downwing leg a little longer than usual as we had to give way to a twin engine and a corporate jet that were coming in to land. sam said we were going to stay high for the landing (4 white dots on the thingy to the left of the runway) to avoid the wake turbulence. then sam put the throttle to idle.
i was kind of waiting for him to be like okay you just watch as i land the plane now, but he just gave me a little guidance as we approached and i kept control of the airplane. (he probably had his hand on the yoke too but i never once felt an input by him) i didnt realize when he did but sam extended the flaps and the runway started getting big and then really big and once over the threshold, Sam said to lift the nose and we touched down (no stall beeping) not really sure how fast at the time but it was fairly smooth, no bounce pretty much right down the centerline. i'm sure sam was helping out with some rudder inputs but overall it was my landing. we taxied off back towards the parking lot...tied the plane down and headed inside.
overall it really was a great experience and would recommend it to anyone.