I don’t have control…..

….and I hate it.

At my request we spent some time under the hood today, I was particularly keen on having another stab at the “unusual attitudes”. After last lessons “leans” incident, I felt I needed to conquer that particular demon.

I duly navigated us to the practice area under the hood, doing a pretty reasonable job if I do say so myself.

Bob took control.

I made a distinctly unhappy sound.

Not my usual whining and complaining vociferously. Just tense and unhappy.

Bob carried on doing whatever it was he was doing with the plane.

I flexed my fingers, itching to take back the control column. I settled for resting them on the glare shield and listened intensely for any audible clues as to what the hell Bob was doing.

“You might want to rest your hands in your lap, that way they’ll be closer when you recover,” he advised.

I claw my hands back and repeat the unhappy noise.

“Are you OK?” Bob enquired, perhaps puzzled by my silence.

“No, you are doing something really messed up with my plane and I totally hate it.” I retorted.

Please understand this isn’t a fear thing, like the power on stalls are. This is purely, 100%, a control issue. Willingly handing over control of the plane is one thing. Handing it over to someone who you know is going to do something crazy with it is another. Having to sit there with my primary sense blocked off and let Bob do something that I’m going to have to fix is almost intolerable.

Every fibre of my being rebels against it.

I’m so tensed up in anticipation, both mentally and physically that it hurts.

My feet are hovering over the rudder pedals, dreading a stall with a potential wing drop. My ears are straining to pick up any subtle changes in the engine rpm, hoping for a clue as to whether I’m nose up or down. I can feel Bob playing with the trim wheel.

Eventually he calls “recover” and I look at my instruments in confusion. Despite me tensing up in extreme anticipation, the instruments in front of me seem fairly benign. No airspeed rushing towards the red line, no screeching of the stall horn.

A quick squirt of power and a gentle nudge of the wings and we are straight and level.

Bob senses my confusion in the vitriolic look I flash him.

“I kept the rpm constant deliberately. I put you in a gentle descending turn. You don’t necessarily need to apply full power. As you did, you just get the airspeed back to something normal and the wings level. Back to cruise. All you need but sometimes in cloud you can find yourself in a slow descending turn like that.

I nod in agreement whilst complaining “Jeez! What the hell have you done to my trim?!”

Bob chuckles and I’m back to normal!