Looking To The Sky

Today’s flight consisted of a number of landings over at Mulino State Airpark.  These landings consisted of the usual: normal, short, and soft field.  On top of this however, I got to practice and do a great job at some short approach landings including and a “power-off 180.” The “power-off 180” is a commercial maneuver which requires landing without the throttle.  I nailed my last one after just one practice landing.  Check this video for more info on the maneuver.

On the way back from Mulino, I worked on:

• Diversions to an alternate airport
• Steep 45s
• Slow flight vs MCA
• Some time under the hood (can’t see outside the plane)
• Recover from flight into clouds

Overall I did pretty well on most everything we covered.  My return to Troutdale went great as well.  That is until I actually attempted my landing.  Steve was having me do a no-flap landing.  This requires configuring the plane well before getting to Troutdale.  I had everything setup and my descending rate was great.  It wasn’t until I was on a long final that instead of pitching up, I increased my throttle causing me to descend while increasing my airspeed which I needed to be decreasing.  When I finally got slow enough and ready to land, I messed up my soft-field landing I wanted to do by increasing my throttle before I leveled off.  Oh well, things to work on for next time!

After discussing the flight with Steve, I was gifted with looking at one beautiful plane: