| Lesson 9:
Date: Sunday 1/13/2008 Where: UZA Aircraft: Cessna 172 N818SP Instruction: 1.5/2.2 hours (air/ground) Dual Instruction with Derek Alter Slam it in: Today was mostly touch and goes followed by more touch and goes. We did a solid hour of nothing but touch and goes...and it's hard work! The wind decided to change direction and favor Runway 20 today. Despite the nice weather, the pattern was fairly empty - the ramp was pretty empty too. I did the usual preflight, then the runup from from position at Rwy 20...then took off. Over the street off the end of the runway, the air got much more turbulent, but as we climbed out the air smoothed off a little - but not much! At pattern altitude the air was still quite rough. I thought I had it on the first landing! I made a nice approach, got the flare started at the right time, and the wheels touched down smoothly with what I thought was a nice greaser. However, all I could hear through my headset was "come on..don't give up now, keep it coming - look" at which point Derek eased the wheel back a little and we became airborne. I had touched down, and was just flying with the wheels on the ground! The second time around, I managed a full stall landing, but from too high, and we thumped down - but even so, not too bad. All the others were a combination of this, plus a couple of bouncers and porpoises (I was sure we were headed straight for the grass on one occasion - I needed a whole lot of rudder to make the airplane even think of going straight - my problem was that I ran out of energy a few feet above the runway and got "slam dunked" onto the ground). My final landing started off really well - a good flare, and I kept the airplane flying level just above the ground. Then it all went to pieces just before touchdown - I lifted up just a little bit, then thump! Well, better luck next time! Conclusion: If at first you don't succeed...try again! Although it's tiring to do touch and goes, they are far from mundane, and practice will inevitably get me good at it. I feel I'm not doing too badly either...Derek told me that after the first couple he was thinking "he's getting good at this pretty quickly" - well, until my horrendous bouncer of course! I know I have it in me because I've done a couple of pretty reasonable landings today - I just need to keep practicing until I can consistently get the flare right. Just before leaving, Derek gave me something else. The Stage I written! I passed, missing only 1 of 50 questions. What I learned: You really need a good final for a good landing. Derek did a couple of landings to demonstrate the flare techniques, and I could look out the side a little like you need to, to judge the flare to demonstrate what it should look like. The biggest difficulty I have when I do it is doing just that - looking out the side a bit. My cool, "eagle-like" analytical part of my mind tells me to do it, but my "chicken" part of my mind yells "arrrrgghhh! you can't see what's coming" and somehow overrides that, and we balloon up, or don't come back far enough on the yoke and thump! I described this to Derek and he said that's how everyone feels, and it just takes time and practice to overcome it. |