First flights... so far so good! [ENG]

Today I had my fourth flight on my new steed, the C172. 

I knew from my previous experience on a C150 at Quiberon air club, that cessnas weren't my favourite planes. I find them way too heavy and not very manoeuvrable compare to the low wing aircraft I was used to fly, and specially my little taildragger F-BPRT.

I also knew that the 172 would become my aircraft for the next 100hrs or so, so I had to forgot my a priori and try to become familiar as fast as I could.

When I first saw the flights sylabus I thought I'd get bored during the first few flights. I knew I was still be able to do medium turns, climb, descent, stall, and so on... 

But to be fair, the instrcutors are really picky. They point out all your mistakes wich forces you to be much more accurate on your altitude, speed, rpm for each phase of the flight, than during my PPL training in France.... I'm pretty sure it's to prepare us to the CPL exam in few months. Since recently I had never flown a whole fliht with 20-50ft accuracy on my altimeter, and to be honest after a such flight you're quiet proud of yourself...because it's not an easy task.

On top of that, they overwhelm you with a lot of mnemonics such as, ALAP, CLEAROF, LOI, HASELL, HELL, corresponding on various checks... Even if I have 80 hrs flying, I have to say that at the end of each flights I can hardly remember my name.

With now around 4hrs on the Cessna, I starting to get used to it. The next step is to be able to readback all the radio calls, because I currently readback 90% of the radio calls so let's get these 10% left!!

Following, a quick film of one of the flight. We'd requested an East departure towards Cambridge, which is not the most beautiful area near Hamilton unfortunetly. It's nice, yes, but not as nice as the west cost with Raglan harbour, the beaches... next time!