Lesson 63 – Flying Again

After two months off, I got back in the air yesterday. The lesson went very well and I wasn’t as rusty as I expected to be.

We took off about 3:30pm and went out to the practice area west of Waukegan for some basic airwork review. Slow flight and power off stalls went fine. I had a little trouble holding altitude in steep turns but, I improved on the second try.

Sandy pulled the power for a simulated engine out while we were right over the Bong Recreation Area. I just circled down and set up for a landing along side the old runway there. I remembered all of the restart procedure except turning on the electric fuel pump. We both agreed that I would have made my landing spot with no problem.

Now that we we down low, she had me do some turns around a point. My path was more egg shaped than circular because I started too close to the point. I did a total of four turns and they did get better toward the end.

We flew back to the airport so we would have time for a few landing before our lesson time was up. On my first approach, the tower controller asked me to keep my speed up for following traffic. I didn’t get slowed down enough before the flare so I floated a little before bouncing the landing. I was a gentle bounce though so I just held my flare and made the touchdown. Not too bad considering the layoff. We did one more full stop then two touch and gos. All of them were acceptable and the last two were actually pretty good.

Overall, I was happy with how this refresher lesson went. My assignment for next time is to plan a cross country to Morris.