onwards
Pattern Altitude
Last time I took myself out there was in early November.
So a couple days ago I had an unexpected free morning - no clients, no calls, nothing pressing to finalize and submit to anyone. Beautiful norcal day. And suddenly the thought hit me - there's this plane sitting there in a hangar...
I didn't have tons of time, but figured even taking it up and down a few times would be good to refresh muscle memory, not to mention become current.
This is by far the longest stretch of time I've gone without flying, and as I turned base towards my first touch-n-go, I started remembering all those warnings about how this is a deteriorating skill... holy batman, people, I was landing in a 182 on a 2770x75 runway, and it felt like a friggin postage stamp. I swear I must have looked drunk to any outside observer. Center line? what's that again? how about landing on one wheel with the nose pointing, ah, back towards the center line? yes, it was a fairly calm day, winds were under 5kn. And I have to say, yet again, that my primary instructor's insistence that the most important thing is airspeed management proved right - if I were coming in hot with that crazy of a touchdown, it would not have ended up well.
At least I didn't forget to turn off carb heat, put flaps up and pick up ground speed for the next go.
Second round was rough but more or less centered. Third and fourth rounds were probably good enough to pass a checkride, but I was determined to hit my own standards, and finally did it on the fifth go - a smooth, soft and centered touchdown right past the numbers.
Great, huh? except it was the FIFTH attempt.
Oh, how I missed flying.
So a couple days ago I had an unexpected free morning - no clients, no calls, nothing pressing to finalize and submit to anyone. Beautiful norcal day. And suddenly the thought hit me - there's this plane sitting there in a hangar...
I didn't have tons of time, but figured even taking it up and down a few times would be good to refresh muscle memory, not to mention become current.
This is by far the longest stretch of time I've gone without flying, and as I turned base towards my first touch-n-go, I started remembering all those warnings about how this is a deteriorating skill... holy batman, people, I was landing in a 182 on a 2770x75 runway, and it felt like a friggin postage stamp. I swear I must have looked drunk to any outside observer. Center line? what's that again? how about landing on one wheel with the nose pointing, ah, back towards the center line? yes, it was a fairly calm day, winds were under 5kn. And I have to say, yet again, that my primary instructor's insistence that the most important thing is airspeed management proved right - if I were coming in hot with that crazy of a touchdown, it would not have ended up well.
At least I didn't forget to turn off carb heat, put flaps up and pick up ground speed for the next go.
Second round was rough but more or less centered. Third and fourth rounds were probably good enough to pass a checkride, but I was determined to hit my own standards, and finally did it on the fifth go - a smooth, soft and centered touchdown right past the numbers.
Great, huh? except it was the FIFTH attempt.
Oh, how I missed flying.
