Flying today was a learning experience to say the least. Rick and I were planning to solo me at Troutdale, but the wind was blowing SO hard that it wasn’t going to happen. Wind went from around 15 knots to 25+ knots.
I was shocked at how difficult it was to fly in such strong winds. Not that I didn’t do a decent job for never flying in such strong winds, but there is a lot to consider. Mainly, just how different it is to get the plane down. Rather than using full flaps, you only can really use around 10-20 degrees of flaps at the most. And rather than a nice smooth approach, the angle at which you land is quite a strong angle.
Though I didn’t solo today at Troutdale which I really wanted to do so that I could fly on my own from the airport, I did learn quite a lot about flying in the area and feel confident that I’ll be able to solo their shortly. Also confident that lower speeds of wind will be a cake walk.