I'm Back

After a month of layoffs because of work (and any thing else you can think of), I finally got back in the air today. I couldn't have asked for a better day to fly. It was dead calm when we took off so I didn't have to fight any crosswinds. This is exactly what I needed for my confidence. I had the best day of shooting landings I had ever had. I did soft field, short field and did some slips also. I did a slip beginning my turn to base and also slipped to final. I have never slipped an airplane as much as I did today. It was by far the most fun I have ever had flying.

Just before we decided to call it quits (that's because Richard gets bored when you do something right), we headed southeast to do some turns about a point. Since we had calm air, he thought it would be good to see what it was like to do this without any wind. The interesting thing about wind is that it is truly dynamic. What was calm 20 minutes ago, now may have a northeast wind blowing you around. Richard kept telling me that the wind should be coming out of the southeast but as I looked at the wind patterns on the lake, it was coming from the northeast. That explained why my TAP was not very uniform. Now that I knew where the wind was really from, we did much better.

I am so happy with my performance today that I want to go fly some more. Richard wants me to get back to flying solo again but I may have him go with me to do some more crosswind landings, just to get current again. I still need some night flying, instrument work and some hood work but it will all come in time. I feel really good and want to keep this feeling going. So instead of flying anymore today, I'll take my daughter swimming.

I'm going to try to find some cool videos on YouTube each time I post something. Today is about VERY short takeoffs and landings. See if you can get as good as these guys are. Good luck.



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