Looking To The Sky

Over The Trees

This last weekend I was supposed to fly with Rick on a cross-country flight from Twin Oaks (Hillsboro) to Corvallis, over to Salem, and then back home to Twin Oaks.  And to my dismay, it was another rained out weekend. L And even though I didn’t get to fly on Friday or Sunday (as scheduled), I did end up flying for a little under an hour this Monday.

For being a day with unfavorable weather conditions, the flight went very well.  I can’t say it was perfect, but on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give the day’s flight an 8.

I did four takeoffs and four landings.  One short field takeoff, two soft field takeoffs, one regular, and one aborted.  I felt very good about the fact that I was able to remember what was needed to be done for the most part on the short and soft field takeoffs.  Remembering to add my 10 degrees of flaps and either hold on the brakes till maxing out my power (short field) or rolling into the takeoff while pulling back slightly onto the yoke.  All three landings went quite well.  A little rough around the edges, but a success overall (as we can tell by the fact that I didn’t crash).

Landings this time around were over the trees onto Runway 20 instead of over the river onto Runway 02 which I am use to landing on.  The difference between flying into 20 and not 02 is that I have to make sure I am above the trees long enough before coming down for my landing.  Just like some of my takeoffs, my landings were rough around the edges, but as a whole, they all went great.  I just need to work on my rollout and make sure that I am flaring with a bit more impact.  If I get those down, then my landings will be SO much better.

For being quite a windy day and overcast, the flight couldn’t have gone much better.  I need to work on pitching out off the runway consistently and being sure that my pattern work gets me to my altitude soon enough and flying will go much better.

With the weather being such a hindrance and trying to save money, the next plan is to fly the cross-country flight on the next nice day.  Until this, I’ll be flying on Mondays, as long as the weather isn’t extremely awful, to keep up the skills.  Perhaps even be able to do my solo at Twin Oaks (which would be great to finally check off my list).

Until then, this is Jason, reminding you that you should always keep looking to the sky!

Logs:

Total Flight Time: 0.8 Hours
Landings: 4

Categories: Private Pilot Completion

Tags: Cessna 172, flying, K7S3, N2108Y, Rick, Training, VFR

Double Rainbow Short Flight