Lesson 10

More pattern work...

Yesterday, temperatures in the 70s, variable crosswind, ceiling reported at 1200 (but the AWOS is known to be unreliable), and visibility less than 5 miles. But we were staying in the pattern so we decided to fly. I seem to be getting the hang of the whole process on the ground, the preflight checks, the engine start, and the run-up checks. I filed the ADIZ flight plan and got the weather briefing and transponder code.

As soon as we left the ground, we got blown around and, as usual, I had a hard time staying over the runway on climb out. We immediately weather-vaned and all lesson long the instructor was admonishing me that I was turning and straying off course when I was just trying to steer straight. In retrospect I think I need to focus on steering toward landmarks. The low visibility made it impossible to see the horizon, so I was looking down a lot. But my biggest challenge was speed control - we got too slow several times. Nowhere near stall speed, but on base and final I slipped below 60 knots, which is definitely not what I want.

On final, I seemed to be all over the place trying to keep on the glide path, lined up with the runway, and keeping my speed under control. More than once I had to drag it in with power because I got too low.

I guess the only real new development is that I managed to bring it in a few times with the stall horn chirping just as we touched down. The last landing was pretty good so I said I'd had enough and we called it a day.

This time I remembered to bring my hiking GPS receiver with me. I turned it on and threw it in the back before we started the plane. The track looks pretty cool in Google Earth.