Crashnburn
Pattern Altitude
Here's a quick recap of my 3 most recent lessons at Aerodynamic Aviation. The first lesson was stage 2 air work. Did a couple of steep turns. It was bumpy so it was hard to hold altitude, airspeed and bank angle but I wasn't far off. Next were slow flight and stalls with 20 and 30 degrees of flaps. It was a good introduction; except I use flaps most of the time when I land.
The next lesson was at San Martin. I only got three landings there in, plus the landing back at KRHV. I mostly worked on bringing the nose up high enough when I flare. I did a no-flap landing at the home drome. I was a little high on very short final, so I did a forward slip to get on the glide path and made a good landing. I'd been told before that the airplane will be more sensitive in pitch with no flaps, and it was. I was able to adjust my inputs enough to make a good landing but offset from the center line.
The most recent lesson was closed traffic at KRHV. I got 9 landings in. We started with normal landings, and it took me a while to get used to pitching enough on the flare, again. One landing I bounced pretty good (but not dangerously). I had a good pitch attitude, so I just let the plane settle back to the runway and flared. Noah said that that second landing qualified for a landing all by itself. I don't know if my nine landings included the second landing.
After that, I worked on no flap landings, and short approaches. Those are commercial requirements, but Aerodynamic Aviation requires them for solo. Noah didn't say anything about landing on the numbers, but that will come in time.
We were taxiing down Yankee for the last takeoff and landing of the day and there was a plane stopped on Yankee facing us. It seemed like we waited 15 minutes until the pilot got his radio working. ATC had us turn around on Yankee and hold short of 31L on Bravo. Eventually, he cleared us to back taxi on 31L and to take off. That got us ahead of a long line of planes wanting to take off.
I had my choice of short approach or no-flap for the final landing, so I chose no flap. That was what I needed the most work on, mostly because recently I've pretty much mostly been attempting to do short approaches ever since I passed stage 1. Anyway, everything clicked. I flared at the right time, and enough. I kept the plane over the center line and pointed down the runway. As I flared, the stall horn started mewing, as Sergey (another CFI) would say. I felt a few small bumps as the plane touched down. As the nose went down on its own, I couldn't help myself and I said "And that's how it's done!" Noah said it was a very good landing.
That was a great landing to end the lesson, and lessons at Aerodynamic Aviation, at least for the foreseeable future.
The next lesson was at San Martin. I only got three landings there in, plus the landing back at KRHV. I mostly worked on bringing the nose up high enough when I flare. I did a no-flap landing at the home drome. I was a little high on very short final, so I did a forward slip to get on the glide path and made a good landing. I'd been told before that the airplane will be more sensitive in pitch with no flaps, and it was. I was able to adjust my inputs enough to make a good landing but offset from the center line.
The most recent lesson was closed traffic at KRHV. I got 9 landings in. We started with normal landings, and it took me a while to get used to pitching enough on the flare, again. One landing I bounced pretty good (but not dangerously). I had a good pitch attitude, so I just let the plane settle back to the runway and flared. Noah said that that second landing qualified for a landing all by itself. I don't know if my nine landings included the second landing.
After that, I worked on no flap landings, and short approaches. Those are commercial requirements, but Aerodynamic Aviation requires them for solo. Noah didn't say anything about landing on the numbers, but that will come in time.
We were taxiing down Yankee for the last takeoff and landing of the day and there was a plane stopped on Yankee facing us. It seemed like we waited 15 minutes until the pilot got his radio working. ATC had us turn around on Yankee and hold short of 31L on Bravo. Eventually, he cleared us to back taxi on 31L and to take off. That got us ahead of a long line of planes wanting to take off.
I had my choice of short approach or no-flap for the final landing, so I chose no flap. That was what I needed the most work on, mostly because recently I've pretty much mostly been attempting to do short approaches ever since I passed stage 1. Anyway, everything clicked. I flared at the right time, and enough. I kept the plane over the center line and pointed down the runway. As I flared, the stall horn started mewing, as Sergey (another CFI) would say. I felt a few small bumps as the plane touched down. As the nose went down on its own, I couldn't help myself and I said "And that's how it's done!" Noah said it was a very good landing.
That was a great landing to end the lesson, and lessons at Aerodynamic Aviation, at least for the foreseeable future.
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