Friday, December 11, 2015

Flying Lesson #26 - Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy

So today we had a nice wind of 16-20 knots gusting. Luckily it was typically from 260 to 290 degrees and with Runway 27 being in use it wasn't all that bad, but it was there.

Of course I had been continually asking for a clear day with 4 miles minimum visibility, ceilings over 2000 and winds clam. Not asking for much, really, but I certainly didn't get all that I'd asked for.

So, pattern work and landings again.

They were doing some training in the tower so they had us cross runways 36 and 25R and then hold short of 27L. This was fun as I'd never received those taxi instructions before, normally they put small planes on 27R.

Then I got to line up and wait and then at takeoff was instructed to do a right pattern and setup for landing on 27R.

With the wind gusting 20 knots, I had a darn short takeoff run before we were airborne.

I was trying to change my sight picture and really try to see the runway expand at landing and then do the round-out. Didn't work.

I'm still having trouble with the round-out and flare. First I was rounding out to early. Then I wasn't rounding out enough. Then I was rounding out too much and did the floaty thing complete with a nice flat bounce. Can't win for losing. On top of that, I'm not flaring enough and not keeping it off the runway long enough, but when I try to flare or keep it off then it's too much and we frickin' bounce again.

All the fargin' while he's going "keep holding it off, don't let it touch", and of course it then touches or goes up too high and then bounces down.

I had all of one decent landing with a good flare. Yipee you-know-what. At least my approaches and pattern is getting more stable, except for a little too much climb and airspeed on the downwind this time, but there had to be just enough of a crosswind pushing me to make me have to fight it as well as land. Did I mention I had requested a calm day?

That's 11 more landings, 10 (1 good and 9 bouncy sucky ones) by me, and 1.2 more hours.

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