My instructor told me I had to have a checkride with another CFI at the school prior to being signed off to solo. Before doing that, I wanted to go up with my regular CFI once more to practice some of the maneuvers I was going to be quizzed on.
We took off and headed to the practice area to work on steep turns. I haven’t done steep turns in a long time and I had forgotten just how much back pressure you have to put on the yoke to keep from losing altitude. We worked on these for a little bit and I did an OK job — nothing great, but it wasn’t complete crap either. I understand the procedures, I just need to work on my sight picture and control feel to keep from losing altitude in the turns. It should look something like this:
Next we moved on to stall recoveries. This was something I definitely needed a refresher on, since I had pretty much forgotten the procedures. We did some power on stalls (simulating a stall on takeoff) and power off stalls (simulating a stall on approach to landing). Once I had practiced them a little bit I felt more comfortable with them and I think I handled these pretty well.
We headed back to the airport and I got into the pattern. We were cleared for the option and my CFI pulled the power on approach. I practiced a simulated engine out approach and then he called for a go-around at the last minute. I hit full power and off we went! One more trip around the pattern and I came in for a landing with a bit of a crosswind. I think this landing was pretty good — it was a more gentle touchdown than some of my other attempts, although my instructor said I came in a bit flat. I still need to work on flaring properly.
All in all, a pretty good lesson. I definitely feel more ready for my pre-solo checkride (which should happen next week!)
Flight time today: 1.4 hours
Total flight time to date: 30.7 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 102
Total landings to date: 98