My Aviation Journey: Airborne Again--At Last!

Lesson 16
8-6-12
1.2 hours logged
17.8 hours total recorded in logbook

Joanna came along again to watch
and take pictures--
her favorite part!

Today, at long last, I travelled the familiar road to HXF for my first lesson in more than a month and a half. It was an absolutely beautiful day for it--cooler, with that first touch of fall in the air, but with a cloudless blue sky! So clear in fact, that at altitude, I could just make out the Milwaukee skyline far off on the southeast horizon.

I was concerned about how the long break might affect my performance. Would I remember the things I worked so hard on in May and June? Would I have to do a lot of review to get caught up to where I was? I did the pre-flight and was relieved that I at least remembered how to do that! I could still taxi okay too! Even my first takeoff wasn't too bad considering it was my first one in weeks! As we climbed, I breathed deeply and closed my eyes (only for a few seconds though!). The wind blowing through the open door on my face and in my hair felt sooo good! I knew I was back where I belonged and it was a wonderful place to be.

Just to get the feel for the plane again we climbed to 3,000 feet and away from the airport to try some turns and stalls. It's hard to do a really good stall in a Cub. The nose, rather than flipping down abruptly as it would in many other types of airplanes, only sinks in a Cub--with me in the back seat anyway! After I'd tried a few, Joe took the controls to try one and when he couldn't get it to do much better than I had, he attributed it to the fact that I was in the back seat. "You're too light," he said. "If I were sitting there I could get it to do a good one!" he claimed.

We flew back to the airport descending as we went and set up for the first landing. Down here the wind was quite a bit stronger than it had been up at 3,000 and I had to put in quite a lot of wind correction angle (or crab angle as it is sometimes called) to keep from drifting off course. It was also a slight crosswind to the runway so I had to put in a little right aileron and left rudder making the landing feel rather awkward but it turned out better than I thought it might and I didn't bounce! Nor did I on the next! Just as I was beginning to think I was through with the bounces once and for all, I made my third landing, flared a bit to early, ballooned then sank rather rapidly. It wasn't a bad bounce but I groaned. Oh well, it still happens to even the best of pilots once in a while. Joe showed me how to cushion bounces with a quick burst of throttle. I had the opportunity to try this on my last landing and it does help. Out of the four or five landings we had time for, one bounced one isn't so bad especially in a crosswind. Harder almost than the actual landings today just seemed to be keeping the airplane going straight on the ground. That crosswind really wants to weathervane the plane around! I really had to fight it!

As we taxied up the hangar at the end of the lesson I gave a happy sigh. "It feels so good to be back in the air," I said. "I know the feeling," Joe replied.