Please excuse for misspells. I had a long 12 hours day...
Finally I had my second flight, although in a very poor weather. After takeoff we upped from a deck at 13000 MSL. That means I had my first IFR flight. Weather was so poor that we had to take LOW (8-14) and HIGH (16-22K MSL) MOA (Military Operating Area).
In area we did GX, Power-on, ELP stalls, Pattern Stalls, Slow flight, Stability demo and few recoveries from unusual situation.
GX- Establish ~220 Knots, bank near 70-90 and pull gradually up to 4Gs with full torque. During this maneuver, student practices anti-G breathing and straining. During first GX when g-suit squeezed the heck out of me, I forgot to strain and as a result started loosing my color vision. So I strained my lower muscles and regained color. :P Since this was my second ride, IP demonstrates and then I try to do. When I tied to do, I got up to ~200 knots and banked. But as a tried to get 4gs going, my speed dropped to around 180 and stick shaker activated so I had to relax stick. Just to further explain, T-6 does not have a stall horn. As a replacement of it, it has a stick shaker that gets activated 5-10 knots before stall. So I reached near critical angle of attack and activated stick. Lesson learned. Higher alt requires higher speed.
Power-on stall. Maneuver starts at 160 knots with torque between 30-60. Pitch up around 30-40 degrees and hold it until wing or nose drops. When that happens - max power, relax stick and roll level. We need to quickly break stick shaker and then to return to it. Fun little maneuver. There are two versions: straight and turning. I did OK, but was got too aggressive and dropped nose too much.
ELP and Pattern stalls both try to simulate stalls that can happen when in pattern. ELP is with engine simulated feathered position (4-6 torque). Pattern stalls is just as in a pattern. Both has three different stalls and are quite easy to complete. I had no problems with those.
Slow Flight. Drop gear and T/O flaps. Speed 85-90. No altitude loss / gain while flying straight or turning. Torque varies due to temperature, altitude and/or other conditions. I had a bit hard time keeping within speed / altitude parameters. I need more practice...
Stability demo. This one is performed by IP. It's almost like power-on stall but attempts to display stability of T-6. IP pitches up to 45 degrees bank and reduces power to idle. Nose drops and IP released controls. T-6 drops to what seemed to me near 70-90 degrees nose low. As speeds regained, aircraft attempts to return to last trimmed flight. So airplane picks up speed and starts pushing Gs while returning to level flight. Of course, it passes level flight and starts gaining alt. Dynamic stability. Fun
Recoveries. There are nose low, nose high and upside-down. All are simple to recover from. Nose low - bank to wings level while pulling up and trying to keep ac from building too much airspeed. Going to power idle and extracting "board" (speed break) is acceptable based on a situation.
Nose high recovery may require going upside down while pulling to get nose to level flight.
Finally upside down is simple - just bank until sky is up
For those, IP gets aircraft to those situations and student recovers. Piece of cake.
In the end, we recovered by vectors from approach to airfield. That involved a lot of flying through rain and clouds. Neato.
Mission lasted 1.4 hrs.
