Lesson 27

I've had about enough of these lessons. I'm anxious to finish!

It was a clear day, few clouds, winds mostly calm. Kind of hot.

The goal of today's lesson was to get closer to finishing my minimum IFR training requirements, along with check ride preparation. We took off and I put my foggles on almost immediately after departing the airport area.

I flew under the hood for a while, eventually climbing to 3000. Then the instructor told me to take the foggles off and he pulled the power and asked me where I planned to land for this simulated engine out landing. I looked around, pointed to a field, and then he said no, he wanted me to land at an airport that was nearly directly below us and that I hadn't seen. It turned out to be Bay Bridge airport. I did two complete cirles to lose altitude and then lined up to land. But I did a bad job of managing altitude and we wound up way high - I floated and got the wheels on the runway but we quickly decided that we had to add power and climb out again or risk running off the end of the runway.

Then I had to find Ridgely, where I entered the pattern and I did another power off landing. We turned it into a touch and go, and the next thing I knew we were on a collision course with a crop duster working a field to the west, so I had to dodge it, all the while looking for the other traffic in the area that included flights that were dropping parachute jumpers and an airplane towing a hang glider.

We departed to the south, contacted Easton, landed, taxied back, and took off again. We continued south, approached Cambridge, landed, turned it into another touch and go, and returned to Fort Meade with me under the hood.

So now I lack only 0.2 hours of hood time and that's the last of the minimums necessary for me to take the check ride.