Two Planes, Two Runways and Fifteen Landings!

Lessons 12 & 13
5-31-12
1.8 hours logged
14.2 hours total recorded in logbook

Joe promised he'd wear me out today and he was sure right about that! I didn't feel it too much but he said he could tell I was tiring out by the time we made the last few landings. 1.8 hours, 15 landings! That's the most yet!

We started with a takeoff on concrete runway 11 which wasn't the best. I haven't done many takeoffs on concrete and that one showed it. Concrete has a whole different feel. For one thing the tires have better traction and thus the airplane accelerates more quickly and responds immediately to rudder inputs.

We did eight landings in the first lesson. There was definite improvement over last time and throughout the lesson. I made some fairly decent ones this time. I guess having a couple weeks since my last lesson to really let the idea of getting the stick back sink in, paid off.

Downwind leg for 11

Base leg for 11

After a short break to fill out the usual paperwork, we prepared to head out again. The plane we'd used earlier needed an oil change so I pre-flighted the other and we got in. Also we found that the wind had shifted and consequently we'd be using runway 36 instead of 11. New plane, new runway, a whole new setup. I'd flown both planes before, of course, but not both on the same day. Having just flown the other, I could really feel the differences keenly. (See if you can spot the differences--and there are at least a couple--between the two different planes in the pictures. The upper three pictures are taken from the first one, the lower three from the second.)*

Downwind for 36

As for that traffic pattern, it was brand new to me. Much of my pattern work up this point had been done using 18. Joe was right when he told me it's important to always use the runway as your reference point and not other objects on the ground (roads, fields, farms, etc.) when doing pattern work because every time you use a different runway all those reference points change and everything looks a whole lot different!

Preparing to turn to base

Add to all of that my first real crosswind landing experience and it's obvious I had my plate full! It wasn't too much of a crosswind but enough so that dividing my attention between cross controlling for the first time ever (to compensate for the crosswind) and still trying to remember to get that nose up, stick back, made it difficult to make a decent landing. I did maybe one or two but the rest bounced or were wheel landings. Even on the ground I noticed the airplane is more difficult to control in a crosswind as it is continually trying to weathervane into the wind. You must stay right with it at all times or you might find the tail where the nose was a second ago!

Airport at center of picture

Challenges are good--it's good to stretch yourself but I think seven landings for that flight was quite enough. After all, I had to save a little concentration and focus for my harp lesson in a couple hours!

We made the last landing, taxied back, shut down the engine, completed the paperwork and I left with 14. 5 hours in my logbook! You know, soloing doesn't seem quite so far off and frightening anymore. I can do this--I know I can!














*Answers:
1. There is a cover built onto the pitot tube (the little tiny tube sticking forward off the foremost jury strut and easier to see on the lower pictures than the upper) on the first plane.
2. There are numbers on the wing of the second plane, none on the first.