Re: Major breakthrough last weekend
- From: Mark Hansen <meh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:23:56 -0800
On 01/29/08 07:44, es330td wrote:
Coming into last weekend I had about 17 hours and hadn't soloed, not
that this bothered me as I knew I wasn't ready. This weekend the
winds that are normally 90 degrees to the runway were coming directly
down runway 28, varying from 8 to 15 knots. Before now, doing the
pattern was, in my mind, a mechanical exercise and I only knew how to
do it one way. Get to TPA, carb heat, approach flaps at the numbers
on downwind, the whole nine yards. To this point, I didn't
intuitively know how to adapt if something was different. In plenty
of landings I felt coming in that we were low (and I was right) but
was actually concerned that we were going to be short and my CFI would
have to tell me to give it power. In every single lesson before this
one I would get apprehensive because I didn't *know* what to do if
things weren't going as expected.
Never again! Sometime during the past week my mind finally
internalized what pitch and power really do. We came around on base
and I saw that we were low. I added power and got the plane back to
where I thought the glideslope should be and landed right where I
wanted to. I proceeded to do this 5 more times around the pattern.
Because of the varying headwinds, every time I had to handle power a
little differently but every landing came out where I wanted. Each
save one was a nice soft full stall, and the only "bad" landing
happened when the wind slacked when I was two feet off the ground and
I lost all my lift. Two seconds later and I would have batted 1.000
for the day.
The CFI said he can tell that I "get it" now and that we'll try to do
my solo during my next lesson.
Congratulations, es330td. It really is a great feeling when it all
finally seems to click. I remember it seemed to take forever for me
to 'get it', but when I did - wow! What a feeling.
Now, just be prepared for some amount of regression in the near future.
Once you get to this point, you start really learning to fly the plane,
and this bring new understanding as well as new challenges. You may have
some days where it feels like you just can't do it as well as you did
today. However, those difficulties are generally short-lived, so try
not to let them get you down.
Great job, and I hope you will post your solo experience once you get
there (I'm sure it will be real soon).
--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane, USUA Ultralight Pilot
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA
.
- References:
- Major breakthrough last weekend
- From: es330td
- Major breakthrough last weekend
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