9-10-12
1.0 hours logged
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| Gorgeous day for flying in spite of the wind! |
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| Taxiing out for another hour of flying |
Today was a day not too much unlike the day I soloed in terms of blue skies and sunshine but with considerably stronger winds. (Actually, it turns out that the day I soloed was sandwiched between two days of not such good flying weather. Terrible wind shear on Wednesday forced them to cancel all lessons that day and it rained on Friday. What perfect timing Thursday was!)
Joanna was able to come along with me for probably the last time because of school starting but Uncle Lenny also came to see me fly for the first time! I was as excited to see him there as he was to be there! Because of the wind, I wasn't able to do any solo flying and, beside that, I had a new instructor--Steve McGill, the newest instructor at the flight school.
You might think it would be rather intimidating to fly with a new instructor for the first time in such a wind as there was today and a crosswind at that but it didn't take long for me to adjust and soon I felt quite as comfortable as I would have with Joe or Steve K. Different instructors have different styles of teaching and use different methods to get concepts across and this is a good thing. Something you might not have understood before suddenly makes sense and things that were not clear, when explained in a different way, now become much clearer.
As far as the winds? Well in spite of the wind and a plane I hadn't flown in a while (9721Y), I ended up making some of the best landings I've ever made and certainly the best I've ever made in a crosswind! It gives you such a thrill! Today, I can, without hesitation, say that all except perhaps one of my landings were good and if you haven't figured it out by now, I am pretty tough with myself when it comes to my judgement of what makes up a good landing.
So even though Uncle Lenny didn't get to see me fly solo, at least he got to see me make some beautiful crosswind landings. He was glad he was able to come and seemed impressed with my flying. He told me as much when, after 10 landings, we taxied back to the hangar and cut the engine. Steve M. (as I'll call him to differentiate from Steve Krog) told me I have beautiful stick and rudder coordination. He said he's flown with lots of students who have many more hours than I do and still do not have this down. I don't mean to boast--not at all. I'm sure any good in my flying abilities is mostly due to the great instructors I've had and, let me add, the Cub is a wonderful plane to learn these skills in. His words really do mean a lot to me though. I rate myself pretty strictly when it comes to flying and it's easy to become discouraged if I feel I'm not making progress in an area so to hear words such as these from my instructor--well, it's wonderful to know I'm on the right track.
The following sequence of pictures shows a landing in "slow motion."
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| Just crossing the airport threshold |
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| Beginning the flare |
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| The nose comes up putting the Cub in a 3-point attitude preparatory to touchdown. |
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| Seconds before touchdown |
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| The Cub has met its shadow and is on rollout. |
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| Steve and I wave to Uncle Lenny and Joanna |
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