The Perfect Landing? Not Quite!

Lesson 14
6-1-12
1.0 hours logged
15.5 hours total recorded in logbook

Though the day dawned cloudy, the clouds eventually broke up a bit allowing the sun to shine through. A great day to fly so down to Hartford I went for another lesson. Or perhaps I should say Miles Field for that is the real name of the airport. Or I could just call it HXF which is the three letter designation for this airport. For the sake of brevity, I think I'll go with this last one when I'm referring to the airport in future.

Coming in on final approach

I flew with Steve today and worked on--can you guess? Landings! I did ten in one hour and out of those No. 2 was probably the best. "Are you showing off or what?" Steve asked me as we rolled out after the landing.

Seconds before touchdown

Again, though, the moment he let me do one alone without any coaching I really bounced it. I guess I flared a little late. So around we went to try again. As we approached on final, Steve told me, "Okay, just take a deep breath, relax, think ahead of the airplane. Think through your landing before you make it."
I made some really good approaches and just when I thought I had it made, I'd bounce the landing again! Then other times when I could tell I was way too high on final approach and thought I'd never get down, I'd find that by reducing the power significantly, I could still get it down all right.

The view down runway 18

As I flew the pattern for my second to last landing Steve was having a friendly conversation over the radio with another pilot from the airport (obviously someone he knows) who was just taxiing out for a flight. He was waiting off to one side of the runway as I flew my approach. Then Steve told him, "Make sure you keep an eye on the Cub. This young lady is going to make a perfect landing!" I groaned. "Now the pressure's on!" Steve said with mischief in his voice. I had little confidence that the landing would be perfect but went at it, doing everything like he'd told me. "Okay, level the airplane...now work that flare...work it...work it...eyes down the runway as far as you can see." And the Cub settled to the ground with only a slight bump. Not bad! "You only bounced about this much," Steve said indicating about four inches. Well that's good to know, I thought. If I haven't totally eliminated the bounces at least they're getting smaller.

I took off again before the plane had even stopped rolling and around we went once more. I worked on improving takeoffs also by fixing my eyes on a point far down the runway and not letting the airplane stray to the right or left.

It was my last landing of the day and I don't know if I'd quite say I greased it but it was pretty close. Two good landings in a row! Amazing!

View of the CubAir hangar from the runway with
a Hartford water tower  in the background

Back in the office Steve told me "You're so close to
having it. Pretty soon you'll be doing three good landings in a row, then four, then five, then six, then I'm going to get out of the plane and let you do it by yourself 'cause I'll be bored!"

I hit 15.5 hours today and I hope he's right!