Meanwhile...48 Days Later

June 22th was my last flight. Now it's August 8th and I've started flying again.

I really hoped that I hadn't lost very much of my skills. With only 16.9Hrs. flight time I wasn't sure how I would do. Today was so far the hottest day of the year. Not only did I have heat to contend with but wind. 8-10knots gusting to 16 or so. I told my instructor that I wanted to do some maneuvers for a little to see where I was. Once we started up the airplane I checked the outside air temp from the planes sensor, 105F. The density altitude was 3,000 ft. The field altitude is only 150 ft. MSL. We used 10 degrees of flaps to get in the air. Once we were up we flew east towards the Bay Bridge and started our refresher. It was actually some new stuff I hadn't tried before. I trimmed the airplane for straight and level flight and then was told to take my hand off of the yoke and put it on my knee. Now I was flying with only rudder, throttle, and trim control, no ailerons. I was now tasked to use only the rudder to make turns. It felt kind of weird but I was actually able to do it. After that we tried some stick and rudder drills. Using a combination of rudder with opposite aileron along with pitch, I was able to move the plane's nose in all sorts of directions while still flying straight. After that we tried some slips to get a feel for the rudder controls. Steep turns came next. They proved tricky and I ended up in some steep spirals.

We turned back to Tipton and entered the pattern from the 45 degree to the downwind leg. Before the day was over I had set up for four landings and get down on three. Because of the crosswinds and the gusts it was a little tricky. On one of my landings I managed to keep the plane straight on the runway but it after I landed I was way over to the right side and almost ran off of it. On another landing I executed a go around. I thought that I was in the groove for a good landing despite the gusts. I also thought that I had good control of the crosswind. As we approached the runway I reduced power. All was going well until I throttled the engine a little more. Then we started dropping quickly. Too quickly. Full throttle arrested the sink. My instructor was very pleased that I knew how to get out of trouble. After a go around we managed to get down with a little bit of a bounce. For my final landing of the day...a hard drop, not the hardest but not really smooth either. By the time we taxied off of the runway the wind sock had started pointing across the runway. Between the heat and the wind we called it a day. Besides, I was satisfied and happy to be back in the air. My next flight is in two weeks. I can hardly wait.