Ah, another Saturday morning at the airport. I love the smell of 100LL in the morning!
More pattern work today — with the extra challenge of some crosswinds and turbulence to make things interesting.
I had my good moments and my bad moments today. On one hand, I felt like the steps of the pattern and landing sequence are slowly starting to stick and I am doing more things correctly (like watching my airspeed and adjusting as necessary). On the other hand, the wind still caused me to have sloppy turns and the turbulence made controlling the plane a bit of a challenge at times.
The worst part of the lesson came towards the end. I had just taken off and was climbing out when all of a sudden we were hit by a gust of wind and the plane veered sharply to the side. Before I even had time to react my CFI took control and told me to keep my hands off the controls while he got it sorted out. He stressed that it was vital to always keep the plane in coordinated flight, as not paying attention to that could lead to a (very dangerous) spin condition.
I was a bit taken aback — I didn’t think I had let the plane get out of coordinated flight, it felt like the wind had just gusted and kicked us to the side. Of course, it had also taken me by surprise and I hadn’t immediately taken corrective action. I was humbled by this quick turn of events — this was the first time I really felt like I had messed up during a flight.
I collected myself and we continued on with the lesson. I wound up logging 7 takeoffs and 7 landings before we packed it in. I was a little upset with myself on the ride home, but I have to remember that this is all part of the learning process. I can’t expect myself to know what to do in every situation when I only have 14 hours under my belt.
Flight time today: 1.5 hours
Total flight time to date: 15.8 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 28
Total landings to date: 24