Stage 1 Check

Today I flew with the chief CFI for the club. It was hot, but the humidity was way down, so visibility was quite good.

We took off and I navigated to the practice area where we did the usual steep turns, stalls, slow flight, and unusual attitudes. He didn't say much. I guess he was evaluating. After uneventful maneuvers, we returned to the airport and this is where things went south. He had me establish on downwind well away from the airport, which completely screwed my pattern up. I wound up coming in on final way too fast, floated, bounced, and basically showed him my worst landing in a while. We went back around and this time it was far better. Once more around and this time we did a simulated engine out. I always struggle with these, especially with speed control. Best glide in that airplane is 60, but I frequently wind up going too fast, no matter how much nose up trim I manage to dial in. I also learned something on this particular approach. He told me to keep the nose down and it looked like we'd come up short and land in the grass, but we came into the ground effect and floated and made the runway after all.

So I botched that first landing. He kindly called it "poor." He (rightfully) criticized my technique. I reverted to my previous problems of overcorrecting in the flare, and he called it "double clutching", where I alternate between pushing forward and pulling back. On the second one I had a nice touchdown and I thought I had done it pretty well, with me pulling back on the yoke pretty hard, just about has hard as I could, holding it off, and even keeping it back to bleed off speed on the ground, but he told me that I relaxed at the end. I sure didn't feel relaxed. Also, at one point while taxiing, I got confused about which way to turn the ailerons, and of course got it backwards.

We talked a bit more after the lesson and it's clear to me that I need my regular instructor to throw in a few unexpected things to deal with as I go forward in my training. He was so reserved during and after the lesson that I wasn't even sure that I passed until I got home and saw the message that he sent to my regular instructor. It wasn't pretty, but I passed.

It's clear that my first landing or two each day is pretty rough around the edges. Clearly I'll still need to have the instructor along for the first couple of trips around the pattern.