Flying Lesson #9 - More Landings

Today was a beautiful day for a flying lesson.

Sky clear, winds calm and everything nice.

So I did the pre-flight, and the tanks had been thoughtfully topped off just prior to my arrival. Everything was good but the oil read a quart low, so I added a quart to get it up to the appropriate level and we were ready to fly.

A good start up, and I took down the ATIS info and it turned out Runway 27R was off limits today, so we would be using 27L, which is a much wider and longer runway. First time for that.

I called Ground, got permission to cross Runway 18 and 27R, and taxi to 27L.

Yes, it was going to be a play with lots of traffic kind of day.

So I pulled up to the run up area, did a good run-up and moved to the hold short line and called Tower that we were ready to depart for pattern work as it was going to be a work on landings kind of day.

First we were told to hold short, which I confirmed.

Then I was told to line up and wait, which was my first time for that command (this used to be known as position and hold), so I confirmed, then I lined up on the runway and held. Then we got clearance to takeoff and to fly a right pattern.

Good takeoff with a little creep left that I need to work on, and work on it I did as It got better and more straight out with each takeoff.

Then a right pattern which was feeling a bit elongated compared to 27R, but not a problem. I again did too tight a base which ended up on a high approach but I got it in and landed. Then a touch and go and off again. Sean then demonstrated a pattern and landing for me to work on some of the spacing issues and to see how to properly elongate the turn from downwind to the base leg so I didn't cut it so short. And I then did the go part of that touch n go.

We did this a bit more and then the wind shifted so we landed on 27L and turned around and took off from 9R (same runway, opposite side).

Talk about a different point of view. 9R with a left pattern gives you a nice final over a lake which felt very weird considering I was used to the 27 side, and the lake apparently makes every first time pilot think they are too low and I was no exception.

And for fun the tower after first a right pattern on 9R then made it a left pattern for 9R and would on occasion have us lengthen the downwind or tighten the base due to traffic. There was lots of traffic today from helicopters, Pipers, Cessnas and a cool-looking Velocity airplane out and flying around. On one occasion Tower had us do a left outbound turn from final instead of landing as a plane had dallied and not taken off in time so we curved back to a long final for that landing.

There was lots of traffic and lots of practice spotting traffic.

These were all good things as I can now do a left pattern, a right pattern, and land on both ends of the runways as directed and as needs be.

I got plenty of radio work in talking with the tower and all went pretty well.

We did the left patterns with landings and touch and gos a few more times and got some very annoying crosswinds which I really need to learn to figure out as I was tending to crab my landings due to them.

Overall, I did some pretty good landings with a couple "Oh, heck!" moments thrown in. No need to worry about me getting overconfident at this point, that's for sure.

That's 8 more Landings, with 7 made mainly or completely by me, and 1.1 more hours in the book.