Flight 20

February 6, 2011

Today was a great day. It's been two weeks since I've been able to fly. The weather kept causing me to cancel lessons. I also flew with a different instructor today. My normal instructor Matt was unavailable, so I went with Eric. I really enjoyed learning from him and had a lot of fun.

We departed Runway 18 with a soft field takeoff and headed west to a different practice area that I've never been too. We started off doing steep turns. I must say, the more I do these, the more fun they get. After steep turns, we practiced slow flight. Afterward we headed back to the airport because the clouds were getting too low to practice stalls. We came in to land on 18 again, but at the last minute he told me to add full power and do a go-around. There was nothing that caused us to do a go-around, it was just something that I asked him if we could do. There was a bit of excitement during the procedure too... my seatbelt got stuck between the trim tab and the flaps lever, which kept me from retracting the flaps. So I kept the nose of the airplane up to keep my airspeed from getting too fast. Eric then freed the seatbelt and we could finally retract the flaps.

The second time around we did a normal landing but with a forward slip, then did another soft field takeoff. The last landing was a soft field. Once we got back inside, Eric and I talked for a bit. He said I did great today and that I'm basically ready to take the checkride. He recommends that I go up again and just polish up some things, and maybe do another short mock oral exam. It was also pretty neat that there were 4-5 people inside listening too, and they were giving me all sorts of advice for the checkride. I really feel like a part of the aviation community. Everyone is so friendly and helpful, and we seem to enjoy each others company.

Later this week I will be flying with Matt again. We are going to fly out to Greensfield (M71) to get me to the required amount of dual cross country hours. During the flight though, we are going to do the mock checkride. If everything goes well, he may endorse me to take the real checkride. I'm excited!

Flight Log to Date
Hours flown: 25.3