Pilot Life: Back on the Saddle

After yesterday's flight got cut short, I found an opening for a late-morning/early-afternoon flight and I took it. And better yet, I got to fly in my preferred DA-20 Katana! I definitely wanted to end this week's flying on a good note so I felt it was important to get back on the horse after experiencing yesterday's disconcerting mishap that I had with a runaway trim control.

Back flying on N802CT!

I briefly met with my flight instructor; he was informed about my little runaway trim misadventure that I had yesterday. Afterwards, I headed out to the airplane and got the pre-flight done. I started up the engine, performed run-ups, and got in the air. Since weather was great and I was out for redemption after yesterday's little scare, I decided (with encouragement from my flight instructor!) to leave the pattern and practice up on the maneuvers I've been learning.

I initially stayed low after leaving the pattern and I headed towards Payson so I could do some ground reference maneuvers. Using the Payson LDS Temple as my point, I did some turns around a point and made several laps there. Afterwards, I sought out a straight stretch of road and performed S-turns across them. Once I was done with ground reference maneuvers, I climbed in altitude and decided to do some steep turns and I did several of them to practice.

After doing several steep turns, I headed back to the Spanish Fork pattern and did several touch-and-goes and stop-and-goes to practice my short-field and soft-field takeoffs and landings. After logging four landings total during this flight, I called it quits and returned the plane to the ramp. One thing's for sure, I love having all these opportunities to go out fly solo!