Flying Lesson #110 - Crosswinds And Practice Of The Things

For Lesson 110 I pre-flighted the Archer all by myself without supervision, then did the start and run up and headed out to Runway 9L for takeoff to head out to the practice area. My run up flow was a lot smoother so there's that.

The wind started at 10 knots from 140, ending up at 15 knots from 140 by near the end of the lesson, making for a 11.5 knot crosswind factor right when I started doing some patterns. But before the patterns we headed to the practice area.

I did a very nice slow flight, a good power off stall, an ok power on stall, as I needed to pull back a lot more to get it to stall, and then on to steep turns which are my current bugbear. Steep turns to the left that is, the right steep turn was fine. However, for the left, every single time the nose would drop just enough even though I was hauling back on the yoke and I'd lose 200-300 feet in altitude doing it every damn time. Finally I put in a ton more of trim and did it only losing 150 feet, which still sucks. And to think steep turns used to be my best maneuver.

Then we headed in to do patterns on Runway 9L with a left pattern and over the water and tree line for bumpy finals every time. With a right quartering headwind on base the plane wanted to drop a lot on final so I had to adjust power quite a bit. landings were a bit on the solid side but ok with the last one using only 25 degrees of flap instead of the typical 40 due to the wind. Ray suggested that in such situations I bring it in a bit tighter on base so I don't lose as much altitude and have to add power on short final and I'll try that next time.

Then a long roll to the end of the runway and taxi off back to the flight school.

Overall not a bad lesson at 1.6 and 4 landings.