Best. Flight. Ever.
I had the most awesome flight ever today! First question everyone's going to ask: Where did you go? I went nowhere; I just stayed in a pattern over Palo Alto. But, it was my first unsupervised solo -- my first time showing up at the club, no instructor, no ground lesson, just go out to the plane, preflight, start her up, and get going! I wasn't nervous; it wasn't anything out of the ordinary really, and it was totally comfortable.
So yesterday, I'd gone up with Alternate Instructor #1 -- let's call him Chris. Chris was really great! We went over what I'd learned so far, then we had a long ground lesson on short field and soft field takeoffs and landings, and then we went up into the pattern so he could see where I was.
Immediately he picked up on my bad habits, and kept on me about them. This is a good thing. My hand wasn't on the power on the ascent, I was riding the brakes during taxi, and I wasn't pulling back enough on the landing, so I was landing flat and fast. We did 12 landings, and I never did get it. I understood the concept, but I couldn't do it.
Well, today I did it. Of course when no one's watching, right? But I did it, on the final three of my five landings. The first two weren't bad, but they were like yesterday. The last three, man, they were beautiful. At the point where I would ordinarily have just let the plane land, I started pulling back. If I sensed the plane coming up a little, I compensated, but kept pulling it back. These were the smoothest touchdowns I've ever performed -- just two skid sounds on the runway, and done. Landings #3 and #4, I even had the stall warning going, for 2-3 seconds! These were really good landings.
I think the key is that on each of these landings, there was a split second where I was afraid I was short. Then I looked and decided, no, I'll make it just fine, and in fact I made it with plenty of room. I think in the past I'd react to that, get high at the last second, and then have to cut the power and drop hastily toward the runway, which is a hard attitude to gain control of again. This time, that didn't happen once, even when I started out high.
What's more, my radio work was flawless. Granted, there was nothing complicated going on, but I didn't do anything stupid, which was very nice. I still rode the brakes once, but most of the time I kept away from that habit. I think my hand's still coming off the power -- I move to trim, and then I don't go back to the power. But I'm aware now.
Anyway, I can't wait to fly again. I thought about continuing, but it's good I stopped when I did, with a complete success. And besides, I had to get to work!
So yesterday, I'd gone up with Alternate Instructor #1 -- let's call him Chris. Chris was really great! We went over what I'd learned so far, then we had a long ground lesson on short field and soft field takeoffs and landings, and then we went up into the pattern so he could see where I was.
Immediately he picked up on my bad habits, and kept on me about them. This is a good thing. My hand wasn't on the power on the ascent, I was riding the brakes during taxi, and I wasn't pulling back enough on the landing, so I was landing flat and fast. We did 12 landings, and I never did get it. I understood the concept, but I couldn't do it.
Well, today I did it. Of course when no one's watching, right? But I did it, on the final three of my five landings. The first two weren't bad, but they were like yesterday. The last three, man, they were beautiful. At the point where I would ordinarily have just let the plane land, I started pulling back. If I sensed the plane coming up a little, I compensated, but kept pulling it back. These were the smoothest touchdowns I've ever performed -- just two skid sounds on the runway, and done. Landings #3 and #4, I even had the stall warning going, for 2-3 seconds! These were really good landings.
I think the key is that on each of these landings, there was a split second where I was afraid I was short. Then I looked and decided, no, I'll make it just fine, and in fact I made it with plenty of room. I think in the past I'd react to that, get high at the last second, and then have to cut the power and drop hastily toward the runway, which is a hard attitude to gain control of again. This time, that didn't happen once, even when I started out high.
What's more, my radio work was flawless. Granted, there was nothing complicated going on, but I didn't do anything stupid, which was very nice. I still rode the brakes once, but most of the time I kept away from that habit. I think my hand's still coming off the power -- I move to trim, and then I don't go back to the power. But I'm aware now.
Anyway, I can't wait to fly again. I thought about continuing, but it's good I stopped when I did, with a complete success. And besides, I had to get to work!
posted by MKT at 10:37 AM
1 Comments:
Maybe you just need a really bad cold to make the landings stick.
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