Pattern Work

May 22, 2011

Today Matt and I had originally planned on going to Alton to get more practice with the tower, but we both agreed that it was too windy. Instead we stayed at our airport and focused on landings. What made this day so fun and challenging was the wind. The weather report indicated the winds were from the south gusting at 20-25 knots. I think the most I have ever flown in was 18 knots of gusts in the light sport airplane.

The first few landings were alright. Matt was still talking me through them. Then around the fifth landing, he helped me out with the controls and something clicked. I'm not sure why, but now everything made sense. We did about four more landings and they were all better than the first group. The winds definitely kept it interesting, but I didn't let it bother me. One thing I focused on too much was my airspeed on short final. I kept getting concerned that I was going to let my airspeed get too slow, when in reality I was just fine and should've been watching the runway to judge my landing. To help me out, Matt covered the airspeed indicator to force me to look at the runway. That made quite the difference and I'm glad he did that.

As we were taxiing back to the ramp, we came up on Runway 9. Shortly after crossing the hold short line, Matt asked me if I wanted to do a crosswind takeoff and landing. I jumped at the opportunity, especially since I've never done crosswind practice with winds that strong. The takeoff went pretty well. Once airborne, you could really see the wind trying to push us. After turning onto final, I had to crab into the wind pretty drastically in order to remain flying straight. Matt talked me through it but let me do most of the landing. It felt like a pretty decent landing, I was happy with it.

Matt and I plan on flying again a couple times this week. Our goal is to have me solo, then maybe have me fly to Alton myself to do my three solo landings at a towered airport. Hopefully the weather will cooperate!