Flying Lesson #18 - Pilot Controlled Fields

For this lesson we took off and headed northeast. Winds were gusting from 9-19 knots from 200 degrees, so I took off from 25R.

Then we headed to Lapeer via my naviguessing. I got to visit Lapeer for the first time by air.

Lapeer is a pilot controlled field, meaning it doesn't have a control tower. It does have it's own ATIS however which was helpful, and you communication with other aircraft that may be in the vicinity by using the common traffic advisory frequency.

I found the field after searching a bit (learning how and where to look is not the easiest thing) and entered the downwind at a 45 degree angle and setup for landing after making standard radio calls.

We did 4 cross-wind landings there, one to a full stop and three touch and goes and one go-round.

Then I naviguessed us back to Pontiac using the sectional, had a bit of a bother finding the runway in the haze but eventually found it.

Sean had me request a landing on Runway 18, which at 2,582 feet by 75 feet and with a displaced threshold looks darn tiny compared to the standard runways at 6,521 and 5,676. We were given a straight in approach and Sean demonstrated a slip to drop our altitude and then gave me the controls to do the landing, and I did apparently a pretty decent landing.

So far it seems my main problems are not taking enough power out to control the altitude and I need to adjust puling back on the final descent a bit more consistently in a continuous fashion and adjust as I continue to transition to landing. Aside from that I'm apparently doing good, and I'll eventually figure this out.

That's 1.4 more hours in the books.