Lesson 15

I was unable to fly for a few weeks because of an out-of-town trip. But I got back into it today. It was hot and humid, with a nearly-direct crosswind, but at least it was only at 6 knots. I was pleased to notice that the preflight checks were still routine, although the radio stack still confuses me.

We took off and turned on course for the practice area. The airplane had a pitiful climb rate today, barely able to manage 250 feet per minute at full throttle and 80 knots. And it had an annoying tendency to turn right all day, regardless of power setting or direction. Visibility was awful; from the west side of the bay we could barely see the eastern shore. We got to the practice area and did stalls, slow flight, and steep turns. I had to break one turn off and level the wings because I suddenly observed another airplane ahead of us and continuing the turn would have put us on a collision course. Just as I was rolling wings level ATC called to warn us about traffic dead ahead, one mile away, and converging.

Then the fun began - my first hood work. First we did unusual attitudes, which I recovered from without any trouble. Then the instructor just gave me headings and altitudes to maintain. I had a tough time holding a heading; I would look at the directional gyro and then the attitude indicator would tell me that I was in a turn. I'd level the wings, only to find myself on the wrong heading. I imagined I must have S-turned all the way. So I chased the heading for the whole trip back to the airport. More than once I thought I was flying wings level, and then discover I was banked over 20 degrees. And I kept climbing. And climbing. I'd push the nose down to try to fly wings level and then we picked up a lot of speed, even flying level. The speed just felt really weird, especially without the ground reference.

So I got out from under the hood close to the airport. We entered downwind, and I set up to land. I was trying so hard to put that upwind wing down to handle the crosswind. I seemed to have it all set up, got into the flare, and the wind died. I pulled back to compensate, and we ballooned. I instinctively added a bit of power, saved the landing, and set it down. I thought it was an ugly landing, the the instructor complemented me on how I handled it and he said he didn't help me with it. So there's my first real crosswind landing.

So I feel good about this lesson. I handled the maneuvers, albeit not perfectly. I struggled with the hood work, but at least I got about 30 minutes in. And I managed the crosswind without a hard landing or side loads.