With my pre-solo checkride taken care of, I just need a signoff from my CFI and a good weather day and I’ll be flying by myself! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, so I wasn’t too upset when my CFI told me today wasn’t the day (it was a bit too windy).
I don’t have an appropriate picture for today, so instead here’s a shot I took of some cool flying machines in the hangar:
We went up for some pattern work and landing practice. My CFI “failed” my airspeed and attitude indicators — surprisingly, I think I flew my best patterns to date without them! I felt ahead of the plane and was really working to make sure I could do this alone without input from my instructor. He threw in a simulated engine out to keep me on my toes — I handled it pretty well (we got on the ground in one piece at least!)
My landings are slowly getting better as well — I feel like my timing on the roundout and flare are improving, but today I developed this annoying habit of twisting the yoke as I pulled aft in the flare. It caused the plane to go off the centerline and my instructor was not happy with this turn of events (no pun intended).
Next time we’ll be doing more of the same and trying to get to the bottom of this new yoke-twist thing I’ve got going on.
Click the image below for the CloudAhoy track of today’s flight.
Flight time today: 1.4 hours
Total flight time to date: 33.2 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 111
Total landings to date: 107