Since I’ve started taking lessons the worst part about the weather has been some really hot days. This lesson was the first one that I worried that I might not get to fly. I checked the weather and it was close but the weather was just good enough. I wondered what we would do since I was pretty sure that most of the maneuvers were out of the question. My question was answered almost immediately. First we would do some ground work on traffic patterns and landings. Then I would fly the pattern and make some landings.
Josh sent me down to do the preflight. It was thoroughly uneventful. I did the radios again. This time however I did much better. I told them we wanted to do some touch and goes and stay in the pattern. We took off from 23L and made right traffic. On the first time around we turned our crosswind at the end of the runway. I was trying to find some checkpoints on the ground so that I would know were to begin my turns. I noticed a church that would do quite handily for turning onto the downwind. About half way through the downwind, we received a landing clearance for 23R. The reference for the base leg was easy as Pellissippi Parkway runs pretty much parallel to the runways. When I was about even with the numbers on the runway I reduced the power, added 10 degrees of flaps, and started my descent. After reaching the parkway, I turned base and added another 10 degrees of flaps. Once I was over the intersection of the parkway and Alcoa Hwy I turned final added the last 10 degrees of flaps and lined up with the runway. There was a small crosswind that required a little bit of right rudder to compensate for it. I was doing well so far. I was on course for a nice landing. As I got closer and closer I got more nervous. Finally, at the last moment at Josh’s urging I let off the rudder so the plane lined up and we touched down. It wasn’t smooth but it wasn’t bad for someone with very little experience. I needed to flare a little more.
The next trip around was all me. I didn’t do as well as the first time. I didn’t put in all the flaps and as a result I was much faster when I got to the touch down part. This wouldn’t have been a problem if I kept the plane up and let the speed bleed off, but I didn’t get enough flare in and we bounced. It wasn’t a bad bounce and I immediately recognized it as a bounce and reacted accordingly, but it was a bounce nonetheless. The second landing was much better and we stayed down.
On the third trip Josh gave me a little bit of coaching and I did much better with getting set up. He told me to try to set it up so that just before turning base shoot for about 80 kias and 10 degrees of flaps. Then on base look for 70 kias and 20 degrees and on final 60 kias and 30 degrees of flaps. This set me up for a good landing, but I ran into an unforseen issue which was making sure I was straight when touching down. This was needlessly stressful because Josh said to give it some left rudder to straighten it out and I accidently pushed harder on the right. Everything wound up working out but it could have been bad.
The fourth trip was better still. I still had issues with making sure the plane is straight but it wasn’t as problematic. The only issue was after I throttled back up. The rudder becomes very effective once the plane is going about 40 kias. There were a few little wobbles but I got control and took off.
In all I made 8 takeoffs and landings. Only about 3 of them were decent, but I am learning the tricks. I think I will do much better next time. I think I’m going to try to transcribe some of my notes from the ground school here as a way of studying for the written test. I only have a couple more classes and I want to take the test soon. Perhaps future entries will be ground related.
Also, I am going to attempt to bring in some multimedia. I realized that the plane has a four place intercom. I might try to set up my recorder and catch some audio. Also, I should probably take some pictures.