Back in the Saddle.....
Well, well well....WELL, WELL WELL.......[sigh]
Well, today, I had my first lesson in over a month. With the holidays, the crappy weather and an insane amount of work to do at my real job, I just haven't been able to get to the airport. Several days have passed with perfect weather, but I couldn't get away. Then in a lull at work, the wind would be blowing (ala monsoon) and the ceilings were more like floors.
Anyway, I scheduled with Kary to fly yesterday morning, but woke up with light winds and predictions of 15kt quartering crosswinds by 9:00 (about mid-lesson). I called him up and we pushed it back till this morning when the isobars were supposed to be farther apart (that's pilot talk for less wind ;) ). So, this morning I popped out of bed at 6:00am and headed for LUG.
I got to the airport about 20 minutes ahead of Kary, so after the plane was out, I decided to go ahead and preflight it. It took about 30 seconds for me to realize that 1 month, 2 days, 23 hours and 34 minutes on the ground was NOT a good thing this early in my flying career.
I started by unlocking my steed and then stood there in the 23 degree wind (that wasn't supposed to be there) thinking "What the heck am I supposed to do now?". Luckily it all started coming back to me and the preflight was done in no time......I think.
Kary drove up as I was wrapping up and was just trying to get warm again. I reintroduced myself to him, just in case the lapse of time had purged me from his memory. And before long we were saddled up and ready to go.
I still haven't gotten the hang of starting the plane when it's cold. Warm days are a breeze, but starting an airplane engine is much like starting your grandfathers 46 Chevy truck. You have to wiggle and jiggle and prime and poke and do all sorts of things just to get it going. Oh well, I guess I need to keep Kary around for something.
Once we got it started we ran the checklists and slowly taxied out to runway 2. Things were going pretty good up until this point. Then I had to fly....and WOW did I suck.
It all started with the take-off. I added power for a normal take-off and lo and behold....my feet didn't move a bit. And then when I realized what was missing (the dreaded "RUDDER"), I was back into overcompensating mode. We get off the ground, track somewhere around 45 deg of runway heading and attempt to climb out. Crosswind turn at 500ft agl, little left aileron and whadda you know...that freaking ball goes sliding all the way over into Kary's lap.
So, at this point the frustration level is at maximum. I'm 2 minutes into this lesson and I'm ticked. At the end of my last lesson (5 weeks ago), I was ready to solo. Both by Kary's standards and my own confidence level. I had figured this thing out. I wasn't concentrating on any one thing about flying the plane, I was just flying the plane.
Now here we are 5 weeks later and I feel like I'm on lesson #1. I'm having to make myself think about the rudder again. I got past this hours ago! But now, it's back and I'm thinking "downwind turn...less right rudder, but not left rudder". So, as I'm concentrating on that, I blow the pattern altitude by 200 ft. I level off, pull the power and now I'm all screwed up. Out of coordination, flying the pattern 1200 ft up, moving through the air at 100mph and not tracking parallel to the runway. Oh, brother.
At this point I make up my mind that I either had to cool off or quit for the day. It was too pretty to quit, so I decided I might as well do this thing. I was able to lose my extra altitude on downwind and slow down the plane so that by my base turn, I was in fairly good shape. Turned final, struggled to get the runway centerline under me and landed. It was a fair landing. I've definitely had better, but the fight I put on it in the last 10 seconds frustrated me even further. "Dang!" I thought "I've forgotten everything".
So, we do a few more circuits and come back to do a couple of Short and Soft Field Takeoff's and landings. They were fun to do again and it broke up the routine so that I might get the "feel" again.
To be completely fair, the wind was around 5kts and moving from 040 to 070 and back during the hour. There was some very light turbulance all the way down to short final, but nothing natural was causing my over corrections and bad foot work. That was all me and it was pissing me off.
By the time we did our last circuit, I was sloooowly getting it right. I was still having to think about my feet, but the feeling of being overwhelmed had gone. We did a few slips (one during a simulated engine out), which is always fun and I did enjoy the lesson. It was both funny and sad when Kary mentioned during my last landing that I should look around and enjoy this thing I'm doing. I glanced away from the runway for a couple of seconds and for the first time in this lesson, I noticed how completely clear the sky was. I could see all the way to the horizon and above us was a deep blue. Beautiful.
"Oh yea", I thought. That is why I'm doing this. I'm not making a career out of flying. I'm doing it for "fun", so ease up the Type A streak a bit and enjoy the fact that your doing something that people 105 years ago thought was impossible.
It was a breath of fresh air. I had gotten into such a mindset of conquering this thing that I forgot to enjoy it. Screw it, if I don't solo for another 6 months, I'm gonna have fun.
Then I commenced to slam the airplane in for one more "arrival", but hey..........I laughed it off.
jf
posted by Jeff Franks @ 8:13 PM
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