May 1, 2011 - Windy and All Alone!
The sense of excitement in the air this morning was palpable; it was Air Canada's first day back at CYTZ, and a crowd was already ahead of me on the ferry. Unfortunately for flying smaller planes, the winds had picked up since I last checked the weather, and my anticipated 10 knots was now 17 gusting 22! Nevertheless, I braved the ferry ride and hoped for the best. At least, I figured, Lari and I could do some dual work on short and soft field take-offs and landings.
Lari, however, had other ideas. Determined to not lose momentum with my recently (and miraculous) growing confidence soloing in the circuit, he pulled out an insurance waiver, insisting that since the wind was right down the runway, we would attempt another solo this day, despite the threatening knot count! :-D
First we did a short field take off together. Step One, request "static take off", then right to the edge of the runway... ideally tail could be even overhanging the threshhold, then 10 degree flap, apply brakes, full power -- check temp and pressure in the green, and RPMs at 2350. Then release brakes and apply rudder to stay straight down the runway. Like soft field, one can also try to stay in ground effect, and then there was something about clearing obstacles or something which I now can't remember (stay in ground effect for that, too? Or just climb at best angle? Argh! Too many details to remember!)
Anyway, after a few bumpy circuits, Lari let me loose to practise on my own. The idea was for me to practise precision (i.e. short field) touch and goes, so rather than landing at the usual threshold, practise landing at another point, in this case we selected the intersection. It was good practise to try to make the plane do exactly what I wanted; not only did I realise how used to the threshold I had gotten (and therefore needed the perspective of a different touchdown spot), but I also had never soloed in such gusty wind, so my old fears resurfaced a little, but had to be overcome, since I was all alone in the plane. Interestingly, it all worked out okay. I did find that I was fighting with altitude again a little (wind!) on the downwind, but I managed to get my too high approaches under control in the end, and even had a few accurate touchdowns at or fairly near the intersection.
For my final two landings I decided to move back to the threshold to see if I could do it, and I could! AND the landings were even smooth, how about that?!
Amazing what can be accomplished when one sticks with something for a bit instead of giving up the 57 thousand times I have felt like it in the past year, lol! (Now... if only I could be as discliplined with the ground stuff -- study habits have dropped off considerably in the past two months for some reason. :-P Time to get serious again and carve out some study time in my ridiculously insane schedule.... Right after I book in some time for sleeping!)
Next lesson Wednesday hopefully... depending on weather (snow is gone now, but lots and lots and lots of rain this spring!)
Lari, however, had other ideas. Determined to not lose momentum with my recently (and miraculous) growing confidence soloing in the circuit, he pulled out an insurance waiver, insisting that since the wind was right down the runway, we would attempt another solo this day, despite the threatening knot count! :-D
First we did a short field take off together. Step One, request "static take off", then right to the edge of the runway... ideally tail could be even overhanging the threshhold, then 10 degree flap, apply brakes, full power -- check temp and pressure in the green, and RPMs at 2350. Then release brakes and apply rudder to stay straight down the runway. Like soft field, one can also try to stay in ground effect, and then there was something about clearing obstacles or something which I now can't remember (stay in ground effect for that, too? Or just climb at best angle? Argh! Too many details to remember!)
Anyway, after a few bumpy circuits, Lari let me loose to practise on my own. The idea was for me to practise precision (i.e. short field) touch and goes, so rather than landing at the usual threshold, practise landing at another point, in this case we selected the intersection. It was good practise to try to make the plane do exactly what I wanted; not only did I realise how used to the threshold I had gotten (and therefore needed the perspective of a different touchdown spot), but I also had never soloed in such gusty wind, so my old fears resurfaced a little, but had to be overcome, since I was all alone in the plane. Interestingly, it all worked out okay. I did find that I was fighting with altitude again a little (wind!) on the downwind, but I managed to get my too high approaches under control in the end, and even had a few accurate touchdowns at or fairly near the intersection.
For my final two landings I decided to move back to the threshold to see if I could do it, and I could! AND the landings were even smooth, how about that?!
Amazing what can be accomplished when one sticks with something for a bit instead of giving up the 57 thousand times I have felt like it in the past year, lol! (Now... if only I could be as discliplined with the ground stuff -- study habits have dropped off considerably in the past two months for some reason. :-P Time to get serious again and carve out some study time in my ridiculously insane schedule.... Right after I book in some time for sleeping!)
Next lesson Wednesday hopefully... depending on weather (snow is gone now, but lots and lots and lots of rain this spring!)