Crashnburn
Pattern Altitude
Saturday, I attempted to practice tower comms at KFNL. I got a little bit in, but the weather wasn't cooperating. It was bumpy flying there from KLMO, and bumpy with a bit of a cross wind on the tower advised straight in approach. I was transitioning from round out to flare and a gust of wind got under the right wing and it felt like it banked the plane 30 degrees to the left. Aaron reached for the controls but before he could grab the yoke, I had the plane level and made a nice, smooth landing. I didn't want to tempt fate so we tried KEIK. We didn't check KGXY because it's a bit of a ways away and the winds there are usually worse than KFNL.
I landed twice at KEIK. On the second landing it felt like there was some wind shear because on final I had to add power to stay at 65 knots and 500'-minute descent and the ground speed seemed faster than it should be in calm or a headwind. Maybe I was feeling a hazardous attitude, but I felt like I was out of my comfort zone but still in my competent zone. Anyway, Aaron pulled the plug and we headed for KLMO. He said the winds at KBDU were worse than KFNL.
The conditions at KLMO were just about ideal, with no traffic to contend with. I worked on my landings a lot. The last landing was a short approach. I made the runway but was short of the 1K markers. Next time, I'll turn to the runway earlier, and as I was only using 10 degrees of flaps, if I need to lose a lot of altitude fast, 734EQ has 40 degrees of flaps.
I was supposed to fly yesterday, but there was a Tango SigMet for KLMO. I looked at the schedule later, and almost all the flights for the day had been cancelled. My next flight is tomorrow at noon. Who knows what the weather will be then.
My contractor says that CO is the only state where you can get 4 seasons in a day. From what I've heard about WY, and MT is probably worse, you can get 6 or 8 seasons a day there.
I landed twice at KEIK. On the second landing it felt like there was some wind shear because on final I had to add power to stay at 65 knots and 500'-minute descent and the ground speed seemed faster than it should be in calm or a headwind. Maybe I was feeling a hazardous attitude, but I felt like I was out of my comfort zone but still in my competent zone. Anyway, Aaron pulled the plug and we headed for KLMO. He said the winds at KBDU were worse than KFNL.
The conditions at KLMO were just about ideal, with no traffic to contend with. I worked on my landings a lot. The last landing was a short approach. I made the runway but was short of the 1K markers. Next time, I'll turn to the runway earlier, and as I was only using 10 degrees of flaps, if I need to lose a lot of altitude fast, 734EQ has 40 degrees of flaps.
I was supposed to fly yesterday, but there was a Tango SigMet for KLMO. I looked at the schedule later, and almost all the flights for the day had been cancelled. My next flight is tomorrow at noon. Who knows what the weather will be then.
My contractor says that CO is the only state where you can get 4 seasons in a day. From what I've heard about WY, and MT is probably worse, you can get 6 or 8 seasons a day there.
