Flight to Easton

May 29th brought us good weather and not too much wind. We were going to work on some more maneuvers in addition to landings. The landing part was still elusive but my pattern work was getting a little better. After we got up and climbed out over the Chesapeake Bay we worked on more slow flight and stalls. Power off stalls have become easier. We started more on the power on stalls. They are a bit more aggressive and can really wake you up. After going over some emergency engine out procedures and some turns we were just about over Easton. We overflew the airport and then turned back around. My instructor decided that we would land. This was my first landing on any airport other than Tipton. We picked it because the active runway had a standard left traffic pattern. When we took off from Tipton we used runway One Zero. That runway has a right hand pattern and since I'm still learning my instructor didn't want this to lead to confusion. Once we determined that runway Four was the active runway we decided to set up for a landing. My instructor, always ahead of me, didn't have me descend to the pattern altitude and consequently, we were too high.

This was so he could demonstrate and have me perform a Forward Slip.

My instructor entered the slip and said that it usually causes your passengers to become "excited." Excited in this case meant scared. While the Forward Slip is the way to rapidly decrease you altitude without increasing you speed, it is a little scary. If it's done well your airplane is flying nose down, one wing dipped, and the nose sideways opposite the dipped wing. It feels unnatural and unstable. I am not usually a nervous flyer but I must say it made me uncomfortable. It is however, a perfectly safe and desirable maneuver to get you down. I tried it out, but rather timidly. My instructor showed me how and really "cranked it in."

My landings are still lacking. We had a few go arounds and when I would get lined up properly I would have problems with the round out and flare. The round out would start OK and then I would balloon up. Since the runway was long I could save it. But them a late flare would put me down hard. I want to get a handle on what's causing it. More practice will no doubt solve the problem. Either that or I bend the airplane.