Lesson 30

There's a club rule that says that students must have flown with an instructor with the previous 30 days to fly solo. In order to be able to fly solo over to Easton for my check ride, I needed to fly with an instructor, so I decided to try something different today. I sent a message to the instructor (which he apparently didn't read) about going to Gaithersburg, 20 miles to the west. I had never flown west from Fort Meade, so it seemed like a good idea to use the lesson for familiarity with flight in that area. When he drove up today, he asked me what I wanted to do today. He said he'd never been to Gaithersburg/Montgomery County airpark before, but we can make that flight. I'm glad he also grabbed his GPS because we wound up needing it for the flight.

So we took off and headed straight out and he showed me the landmarks to look for to stay clear of BWI's class B and the FRZ. While the wind was calm at the ground, it was sure zipping along at altitude and it gave me trouble for the whole flight. We did a touch-and-go, and then saw just how much the airplane was struggling to gain speed because of the uphill slope on the runway, then it only slowly climbed out. Not fun.

We turned on course to go back to Fort Meade, and I came in way high on the landing. Then we had to do one more takeoff/landing so I did what was probably my best soft field takeoff ever, again climbed slowly, came around, and landed again.

Boy was I rusty and glad I wasn't trying that flight alone. Boy was I glad for a little practice before my check ride. I think I'll make a few trips around the pattern before I fly to Easton on Wednesday for my check ride. A few more landings wouldn't hurt.