Lesson #7
Took off today again looking to do ground reference maneuvers. The ceiling was about 2500' so it looked good. We flew out over the Queen Mary and over to the breakwater. At 1000' we picked a spot on the breakwater as a reference and began doing S turns. After a couple of not so close attempts, I started to get the hang of correcting for the slight wind and began completing them fairly well. Moving on to turns around a point, the wind had picked up a bit, and again it was a few times around before I could get a handle on it. After about 8 or 9 times around the same point, with at least a few of them within limits, we noticed that the clouds were getting lower and made the decision to head in. Upon getting into the pattern, Derek took the flight controls and started walking me through the correct procedures for a landing. Having been landing for all of the previous lessons, I felt like I was just missing the correct sequence of when to do certain things, so this was really helpful to just sit back and watch him talk me through it. As we touched down, I took over the flight controls and took us back up and into the pattern. Now, with a sense of the sequence of events to go through, my confidence level rose slightly. Abreast of the end of the runway, powering back, losing speed, first notch of flaps, turning base, still descending, 2nd notch, decelerating, turning final, lined up nicely with the VASI, 3rd notch, still slowing, nice smooth decent,
little bit of a cross-wind, staying calm, shifting gaze to end of runway,
nearing the ground, power to idle, flare..........touchdown.... it was my best landing yet. It is amazing what a nice landing will do to brighten your day. Again, with the big smile. We here this a lot on these forums, but I can't believe I waited this long to fly.
Can't wait 'til next time.
Don