Back In the Saddle Again

After taking a month off from flying because of the holidays and a quick ski trip out to Mt. Bachelor with my brother, I went back to my weekend flight lessons. My instructor has a little saying, "The rudders never lie." That is, the amount of finesse used to operate the rudders and length of time since last flight are inversely proportional. In my case, that relationship is true.

On Saturday, I got to have a little fun before my lesson. When I started taking lessons a few month ago, a good friend of mine kept talking about how he always wanted to learn how to fly. A few years ago, he even went to ground school, but never followed through and took the actual flight lessons. (Why would someone go through all the trouble of all that book learning and not go and do the fun part !?!?!) I asked him what he was waiting for and he couldn't answer me, so he signed up for flight lessons. Since the weather has been so poor around here since mid-December, it was a month between the time he actually signed up and when a finally was able to fly. He is taking lessons in a Cessna 172, which seats 4 people (unlike the Cessna 150s that I fly in, which seat 1.75 people). I asked him if it was okay to tag along and he and my flight instructor had no problem with it.

My flight instructor took the plane up and when we got over the Columbia River, let my friend take control and do some simple turns, climbs, and descents. Then, in what I am sure was a surprise to him, we went over to Scappoose for some touch and go's. It was a lot of fun flying with him, seeing him realize a lifelong dream. It was also fun sitting in the back seat. I noticed so many things I had not seen before because I'm usually too busy flying the plane. Hopefully, he and I will both get our private pilot certificates and I can talk him into going halvesies on a plane with me.

I went up right after him in the trusty Creamsicle. Fortunately, the door didn't open on my flight. I could tell I was rusty during my pre-flight check. I had started memorizing the checklist so I could use it as a "done list" and review it after I completed the pre-flight. But I had to take the checklist around with me so I didn't forget anything. I had forgotten simple things like Vx and Vy (different speeds for climbs). We practiced slow flight and stalls, and my reaction time was slow because I was having a hard time remembering what to do. It was a little frustrating because I knew I knew better. Not that I didn't expect anything else. Okay, maybe there was this teeny tiny part of me that thought that I was one of those pilots that doesn't "rust"...that it's in my blood. Survey says: X (Insert game show buzzer sound here.)

Sunday was much, much better. I was still a little rough in the beginning of the flight, but smoothed out as we went along. There was a lot of cloud cover and we couldn't get much higher than 1000 feet. So we went over to Scappoose for some touch and go's. It was great practice for crosswind takeoffs and landings. Normally, you want to land directly into the wind. It's easier to control the plane at slow speeds in a headwind because you have a little bit of lift provided by the wind going over the wings, in addition to the wind naturally going over your wings as the plane moves forward through the air. Unfortunately, the runway isn't always lined up with the wind direction (that is, until they start building runways on gigantic lazy-susans, so the runway will always line up with the wind). When the wind is blowing at an angle to the runways, it is called a crosswind. Crosswind landlings are trickier than normal landings because the wind has a tendency to blow the plane away from the runway. So you need to compensate using the ailerons and rudders. How much you need to compensate is based upon how much of a crosswind you have. I'm probably oversimplifying the issue because it is hard to do a good crosswind landing. Even commercial pilots have trouble from time to time. Here's an extreme example.

I can only assume that the pilot landed safely the second time around. And getting the plane and its passengers safely on the ground is all that matters.

Anyway, we did 6 crosswind touch and go's. I am *so* close to doing landings on my own. I'm in no particular rush to get my certificate, but, in my mind, it would be my first great piloting accomplishment. Hopefully, the weather in the next few weeks will be good enough for me to get a lot of hours in.