The chief instructor wanted me to fly once more with my regular instructor before going out on my own. So that's what we did today. The remnants of Hurricane Gustav blew through yesterday, soaking the whole area and with some significant winds that left me without power for a couple of hours. But today was beautifully clear, with light winds.
I told the instructor about the things I had struggled with on the stage check, so we did a couple of engine out approaches, including my first ever approach back to the departure end of the runway. The landings weren't pretty, but they were better than that awful first one I did on my phase check. Then the instructor got out and I went around five more times by myself. The wind picked up, became variable, and made the approaches kind of challenging. I was getting tossed around a lot in the pattern and found myself having to work pretty hard to hold altitude.
The pattern got really busy for a while and I had to take care to maintain spacing. One guy on downwind heard me announce my downwind leg and he called out wondering where I was until I assured him that I had him in sight and there was plenty of space between us. Another pilot was entering the pattern, saw the airplane ahead of me, then announced a 360 degree turn for spacing. He finished, rolled wings level, and was on a converging course with me, so he announced another 360 and I thanked him.
I bounced it once, on the second to last trip around. I couldn't end the day with such a bad landing, so I made one more trip around, fought the wind in the flare, had to dip a wing to keep from drifting sideways, and landed smoothly on the upwind wheel first, so that's how I ended it.
So now I've flown solo three times in the pattern. Next time I'll fly completely alone, no babysitter for the first few times around. Then I can start working on my cross country flights.
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