Winging It

Lesson 88 – Solo Maneuvers Yet Again

July 30, 2007
/ flying
/ By tom
/ 2 COMMENTS

I went out to the practice area solo again yesterday. Another Cessna was also doing high work in the area so, I started out with some ground reference practice. My S-turns, rectangular patterns and turns around a point were all fine. With those done, I climbed back up to 3200 feet and didn’t see any […]

Lesson 87 – Some More Landings

July 27, 2007
/ flying
/ By tom
/ 2 COMMENTS

There was a line of thunderstorms to the west of the airport again yesterday but, they didn’t get close enough to interfere with our pattern work. We did get a couple very light showers while we were up, nothing more. We did seven take-offs and full stop landings working on crosswind correction and flaring. It […]

Lesson 86 – Turf and Asphalt

July 25, 2007
/ flying
/ By tom

We had planned a dual session to work on crosswinds so, naturally, the winds were very light all day yesterday. As a plan B, we decided to go to Burlington for some soft and short field practice. I haven’t done maximum performance landings for months. Since BUU has both turf and hard surfaced runways, it […]

Lesson 85 – Another Checkride Prep Solo

July 23, 2007
/ flying
/ By tom

This flight was a short solo to go through all the maneuvers. I started out with the high work – slow flight, steep turns and stalls. Those all went fine. I pulled the power to idle for a simulated engine out. Once down to 1700 feet, I stopped the descent and used my chosen emergency […]

Lesson 84 – Review Again

July 20, 2007
/ flying
/ By tom

I had another dual session with Sandy yesterday. We did ground reference maneuvers, hood work, unusual attitude, VOR tracking, a go around and a power off accuracy landing. All of those went fine. We also did three cross wind landing that were just so-so. The wind was blowing at 14 knots with gusts to 22 […]

Lesson 83 – It’s My Call

July 19, 2007
/ flying
/ By tom

I had to cancel Tuesday’s flight because of work. The weather wasn’t very good so, I probably couldn’t have flown solo anyway. I rescheduled for Wednesday but, since Sandy was already booked for the whole day, it was going to be solo or nothing. The day started out with low ceilings, rain and scattered thunderstorms. […]

Lesson 82 – Using My Feet

July 13, 2007
/ flying
/ By tom

With the winds at 14 knots gusting to 20, yesterday was a good day to practice rudder use with some ground reference maneuvers and crosswind landings. By the end of the lesson, I was getting a feel for how using the rudder properly improved just about every phase of flight. We started with a couple […]

Lesson 81 – Practice Checkride

July 9, 2007
/ flying
/ By tom
/ 3 COMMENTS

I had a practice checkride with CFI Travis on Thursday of last week. I’m slow getting this posted because Georgia and I drove up to northern Wisconsin Friday morning for a family get together. The oral portion of the practice test went fine. The only items that I need to work on are to get […]

Lesson 80 – A Sunday Solo

July 2, 2007
/ flying
/ By tom
/ 1 COMMENT

The weather was just about perfect yesterday. I went out by myself to work on ground reference maneuvers and VOR tracking. Overall, it went pretty well. After some rectangular patterns and turns around a point to the left, I switched it up and did a few to the right. They weren’t quite as good but […]

Lesson 79 – More Review

June 29, 2007
/ flying
/ By tom

Tuesday was just too hot for me so, rather than flying, we finished the oral exam review. Yesterday was much cooler so, we did go flying. After a quick review of slow flight, steep turns, power off and power on stall, we went down low for some turns around a point. We missed those on […]