I was finally able to get up in the air today, right before I’m forced to take a long break due to work.
I was super tired today and falling asleep on the train which is a first for me. I must not have been getting good sleep the past few nights, especially since I’d wake up check the weather, go back to sleep and repeat an hour later for two days. The walk woke me up though.
They were using runway 19 so we’re right there, but had to wait for the oil to warm up before doing the engine run up. Went straight into the pattern to work landings, and it was so nice having only a 8 knot wind pretty much down the runway.
It’s been awhile since my horrible landing and I haven’t flown since due to scheduling and weather, so this was my first landing after it. I got nervous right before. You never realize how long a second is and how much you can think in that second until you’re waiting for a plane to touch down. It was one of those moments I drew in a sharp breath (I wanted to close my eyes but didn’t!) and going through my head was, “What the heck are you doing?! You’re crazy!” but it was fine. It wasn’t a perfect landing but much much better. It took me another landing to get more comfortable and not afraid before landing the plane.
After a bit, my instructor told me to do all the talking and she would stop talking. That is exactly what I needed. It wasn’t terrible. I wasn’t particularly proud of any of my landings today but they were all 10 times better than the progress check, and they definitely were better than safe. Sometimes just a bit off the center line and we worked on that.
During the first few take offs, we had low clouds in the left crosswind. I know it technically wasn’t “legal” but we got around them just super close. It was fun for me to fly that close to clouds so I enjoyed it immensely. We requested going to the right to avoid clouds after they weren’t moving.
On the last landing, some Piper really screwed up and turned a weird base in front of me. It was definitely scary to see someone crossing right in front of me, even pointed just slightly towards me, only a mile ahead. My instructor took the controls for that part because we weren’t really sure what he was doing at all.
I did 9 landings, I was definitely exhausted an hour into the lesson so only did a couple more after that point. We debriefed, she was saying how what she heard from the other instructor about my landings and what she has seen in the past/saw today is night and day. She just believes it was nerves and we’ll make sure I’m ridiculously comfortable with landings soon. So I can only hope! I can’t believe how long I have to wait, it’s such a bummer but after I’m done with this event I think I’ll be able to take the rest of July off and hope the weather is good for flying!
Lesson Time: 1.5 hours
Total Time: 23.1 hours
I’m glad you got up in the air at least 1 day. I imagine it would help to have your pre-solo check close to a previous lesson, to make sure you’re in practice. I remember on my preflight, I thought I did everything terribly – it was the first time in a long time I’d done a forced approach and not made the field, and then coming back, I almost landed on the wrong runway before my instructor asked me what runway I was planning on landing on. It did a number on my confidence – more than I realized. I couldn’t imagine how much work it would take to perfect all of that to a point where I could feel confident in passing the flight test (checkride for you yanks.) But we only spent a week touching things up. It was nerves a lot, for me on the pre-flight too, I think. I got up there, and I was there to prove I was ready. I wasn’t even sure how close to ready I was, got flustered, discouraged. I couldn’t be like that for the test though, and I had to just focus my mind completely on what I was doing and shut the little voices of uncertainty out. I couldn’t think about whether or not I was confident that I could do it. All I could afford to think about was that I was doing it, right now, and that’s that.
Whatever you have to do in your head to beat it and perform your best, you’ll figure it out.
Wishing you good weather for when you get back into the air. 🙂
Well, when I actually had the check I was able to have a lesson clos-er to it. I don’t have to go through it again, which is nice, just more lessons.
Thanks for wishing me good weather. We’ll see if the end of July can get it’s act together.It’s a heat wave right now. All I can think about while outside running around like a mad woman for work is how slow the plane would climb these days!
Yeah, we’ve got a heat wave here too – we were supposed to get some thunderstorms yesterday, but they never made it this far east. It’s hot and muggy and overcast – we really need a good storm to cool things down 😛
Oh wow! I remember a similar incident with a plane coming at us while both me and the instructor are like “where is he!!?” especially when reported position versus actual position don’t match when you finally do spot them. Crazy stuff. But probably a good thing to have happen for the experience of it alone.
Happy to see you got some air-time even with all the weather. Bummer though that work will keep you from it. I know how that goes! 🙂 It’s a lot of help for people like me, though, to see how far you’ve come and that I’m not the only one nervous about situation a or situation b happening. Especially because I’m afraid of flying, and heights! *lol* I guess it also serves to remind me and others that we’re all going through the same thing and it’s not a finish first it’s a be safe and have fun kind of thing.
I definitely enjoy reading about similar situations in others blogs as well. Strengthens the sense of community in aviation which is important (just reading an article about it in Flight Training Magazine). It’s funny you say you’re afraid of heights because I was just thinking about how I’m afraid of heights when not in an airplane. If I’m on a balcony looking down I get nervous, I think I feel comfort in a plane knowing I won’t fall right out of the sky.
Keep calm and keep at it… I’m sure I’d passed my PPL and gone past 100 hours before I felt like I could land. In fact, it wasn’t until I went and got a taildragger endorsement that I became anything like confident. Cessna originally marketed their tricycle gear under the name ‘Autoland’ and that’s exactly what happens: You plonk the mains down and the nosewheel will find the runway and sort everything out for you. With a taildragger, you get much better feedback so you learn to land by yourself. Anyway, my five cents worth is watch your RATE of descent – and hold it off… hold it off… hold it off…
Thanks for the advice! Tailwheels look so fun! I’d love to get that endorsement some day, everyone does say it definitely tests your flying skills.