Bill
Touchdown! Greaser!
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2005
- Messages
- 15,105
- Location
- Southeast Tennessee
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Well, as some of you know from my "Go, No Go Questions" thread, we didn't fly to Hilton Head, so that was the bummage. But, we had a good weekend Saturday, with us and another family taking the kids to see the Nina, as she has been docked in Chattanooga on her tour.
http://www.thenina.com/
Sunday, a pilot buddy and I left Chattanooga in the 182 for the short hop over to Decatur, AL, to hit Big Bob Gibson's for some fabulous pork BBQ. If you'all are ever in the area, stop in, grab a crew car, and take the short drive in to Bob's, great food.
The excitement was the flight over. I got about 0.8 of actual, and had a great time. In the brief periods in the sun, it was about 6C OAT, but deep into the clouds, it dropped to 2C. There was good moisture content, as we got water on the windshield and wing struts. We kept a good eye on the struts to make sure the droplets kept dancing. Luckily, we could have dropped to 4 or climbed to 8 and been free of the clouds. But, I elected to stay at 6000 and get some actual.
Then the landing. Let me say this, I'm a crappy crosswind lander. Not only that, but cross wind landings have always scared the whee out of me, and I've been know to sometimes avoid flying when I know I'll have to do a crosswind landing.
So we listen to the Decatur ASOS, and it is 29010G20. So, we pick 36 for the landing, and I ask the other pilot what he thinks. "Go for it, if you don't like what you see on short final, we'll go around." And he was right, we still had 4+20 in the tanks, so we could go find a more suitable runway if we needed to.
So I enter downwind, and I'm crabbing 25-30 degrees at 85kts to hold my seperation from the runway. Turning base, I pull back to 70kia, but the GPS shows us 95kts over the ground. I barely rolled out of the turn and then started the base turn.
Up until now, every xwind landing attempt has been a torture session. Do I push the rudder first, then turn the yoke, do the opposite? I was always thinking way to hard, and not flying well.
Something happened this time. I can't explain it, but I just did it. The nose was aligned with the runway, and we had a pretty big bank in to the left. I eyed up the windsock, and it was pretty much direct xwind, and was straight out stiff. Fought the gusts with the aileron, and somehow magically kept the nose aligned on the runway. Some of the gusts caused me to use nearly all of the right rudder.
We came in with 10 degrees flaps, and about 60kts. I got the left tire about 1ft above the runway, cancelled the drift, and pulled the power. Plop plop plop! Not a full stall landing, but I did make the airplane stop flying where I wanted to, and the landing wasn't hard at all. I didn't have to loose much airspeed before I had to have the aileron full into the wind to help steer the airplane.
And that was it! A landing I thought I never would be able to do, but I did it, and it wasn't even that bad of a landing. Pretty sweet. As you can see, I'm still excited. I love when hard fought for skills finally click.
And the meal at Big Bob's http://www.bigbobgibsonbbq.com/main.htm was all the tastier.
My buddy Brent flew home, he got some actual as well (not as much), and also had a real job working for his xwind landing back at home.
Great day!
http://www.thenina.com/
Sunday, a pilot buddy and I left Chattanooga in the 182 for the short hop over to Decatur, AL, to hit Big Bob Gibson's for some fabulous pork BBQ. If you'all are ever in the area, stop in, grab a crew car, and take the short drive in to Bob's, great food.
The excitement was the flight over. I got about 0.8 of actual, and had a great time. In the brief periods in the sun, it was about 6C OAT, but deep into the clouds, it dropped to 2C. There was good moisture content, as we got water on the windshield and wing struts. We kept a good eye on the struts to make sure the droplets kept dancing. Luckily, we could have dropped to 4 or climbed to 8 and been free of the clouds. But, I elected to stay at 6000 and get some actual.
Then the landing. Let me say this, I'm a crappy crosswind lander. Not only that, but cross wind landings have always scared the whee out of me, and I've been know to sometimes avoid flying when I know I'll have to do a crosswind landing.
So we listen to the Decatur ASOS, and it is 29010G20. So, we pick 36 for the landing, and I ask the other pilot what he thinks. "Go for it, if you don't like what you see on short final, we'll go around." And he was right, we still had 4+20 in the tanks, so we could go find a more suitable runway if we needed to.
So I enter downwind, and I'm crabbing 25-30 degrees at 85kts to hold my seperation from the runway. Turning base, I pull back to 70kia, but the GPS shows us 95kts over the ground. I barely rolled out of the turn and then started the base turn.
Up until now, every xwind landing attempt has been a torture session. Do I push the rudder first, then turn the yoke, do the opposite? I was always thinking way to hard, and not flying well.
Something happened this time. I can't explain it, but I just did it. The nose was aligned with the runway, and we had a pretty big bank in to the left. I eyed up the windsock, and it was pretty much direct xwind, and was straight out stiff. Fought the gusts with the aileron, and somehow magically kept the nose aligned on the runway. Some of the gusts caused me to use nearly all of the right rudder.
We came in with 10 degrees flaps, and about 60kts. I got the left tire about 1ft above the runway, cancelled the drift, and pulled the power. Plop plop plop! Not a full stall landing, but I did make the airplane stop flying where I wanted to, and the landing wasn't hard at all. I didn't have to loose much airspeed before I had to have the aileron full into the wind to help steer the airplane.
And that was it! A landing I thought I never would be able to do, but I did it, and it wasn't even that bad of a landing. Pretty sweet. As you can see, I'm still excited. I love when hard fought for skills finally click.
And the meal at Big Bob's http://www.bigbobgibsonbbq.com/main.htm was all the tastier.
My buddy Brent flew home, he got some actual as well (not as much), and also had a real job working for his xwind landing back at home.
Great day!
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(um, which is waaay damn different than me actually BEING a "natural", unfortunately!)
