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| First page of my logbook filled out! I just have to total up the hours. |
Today's flight was more or less a review on a few things from past flights, which included ground reference maneuvers, a simulated emergency, performance maneuvers, and some pattern work. I'll will admit however that today's flight was not my best day flying as a lot of things just didn't click. My instructor did tell me early on that there will be days where nothing is going to work out for me, so I guess today was one of those days... Hopefully I have better days ahead. After pre-flight, we hopped in, picked up taxi clearance from the ground controller and taxied out to the run-up area. Following run-ups, we taxied out to the runway, got our takeoff clearance and we were off to the south practice areas.
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| Today's flight was on N208NH, "Wolf 02." |
Once in the practice area, my instructor put me through the paces, switching control of the aircraft between the two of us frequently. My instructor handed me a pair of foggles again and had me do some maneuvers while focused solely on my instruments turning to the headings he wanted me to go to and even adjusting altitude. This time, things were a little rough on the edges... Afterwards, my instructor took the controls and had me remove the foggles and then we got into simulated emergency operations with a simulated engine failure which means a simulated emergency landing (without landing of course!). Again, it wasn't my best performance so I required a little coaching from my instructor. I will need to brush up on my ABCs of emergency operations for next time... After that, we went straight to ground reference maneuvers consisting of S-turns and turns around a point. Again, I don't think I did a good job so I'll be setting some goals to improve myself.
Once we were done with that, it was time to head back to Provo and we had some time to do some touch-and-goes; we got three landings in total. My first landing wasn't that great. It's been a few flights since we had time to do some pattern work as the past few flights ended with full-stop landings only. My instructor then took the controls again and showed me how it's done as a bit of a refresher. I then took the controls again and I performed the full-stop landing. Things were going okay but I then realized that I was a little high coming in on final approach to the runway. My instructor took the opportunity and walked me through a forward-slip, a technique used to changed the heading of the aircraft away from the down wing, while retaining the original track (flight path over the ground) of the aircraft. To accomplish the forward-slip, I banked the aircraft with the stick towards the wind while applying the opposite rudder of the bank, which results in the airplane flying at a crooked angle. Placing the airplane in a forward-slip helps to steepen an approach and reduce the airplane's altitude without gaining much airspeed; the technique also benefits from the increased drag. As a result of executing a forward-slip, I came in over the runway okay, but my touchdown was still a little sloppy! Hopefully some landing practices in future.
There's a saying that goes along the lines of: "Takeoffs are optional. Landings are mandatory." (That's supposed to be half-joke and half-serious, so you should be laughing at this point!)
A quick taxi back to the UVU flight ramp and my seventh flight was in the books. My instructor said I was going to have good luck in the future because when I shut the engine down, the propeller blades stopped in a perfect horizontal position. I could use a little aviation superstition after today's flight so here's hoping that it's true!
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