Aileron

At one point I thought it would be a great job to be a flight instructor – flying all the time, building hours, all while getting paid – but after tonight's lesson, I am reconsidering. The job description amounts to "wait until the student does something catastrophic, then try to fix it before you crash".

Okay, tonight's lesson was not that bad. It was one of the more difficult lessons, but difficult as in indicative of progress. First, let me get some excuses out of the way, and then maybe I'll say something constructive:

• It was damn-humid (I'm certain there's a METAR code for that). A lot of the lesson was either flying slow or taxiing on the ground and the air vents don't scoop much air into the cockpit those times.
• I hadn't really eaten anything today. Sometimes when I work from home, I forget.
• The plane we were assigned had a problem with its left seat positioning so my feet didn't reach the pedals as well as they usually do. I had to slouch a bit and my site picture was off and things were slightly in the wrong place.
• Crosswinds (more on that later).
• It was dark. I know most of my other lessons have had a portion in the dark and I consciously decided a while ago that this was a good thing since I'm required to have night-flying experience anyway, and flying in daylight will then seem easier (kind of a Batman thing going here), but tonight I wished it wasn't dark so that I could see the landmarks and read my instruments better because I wanted something that wasn't fighting against me.

Anyway, enough of that. Get on with it.

It's been really hot and humid here the past couple of days and today a cold front finally started making its way through, generating small, but strong thunderstorms here and there. We didn't get any direct hits at N51 and all that cloud action makes for really nice sunsets, but it also means there is wind, both horizontal and vertical. I've never really experienced crosswinds before, where the wind tends to push the plane sideways off the runway, and tonight we were doing more landing training, where keeping the plane smooth and straight is critical.

I did three landings. The first one I didn't quite have a feel for how much crosswind correction was needed and I was all over the place. The tricky bit is that the wind isn't constant; it gusts and also changes as you descend into where ground obstructions begin to factor in. A continual feel of the wind and flight control adjustment is required. The second landing, I was set up better and had the plane lined up until the last couple of feet where a gust blew me off to the right and I got kind of nervous correcting so low to the ground because correcting means banking the wings. My third landing was decent; I held the correction all the way down and put the plane down without my CFI having to save it. It feels so good to put the wheels on the ground and remain right-side up.

At that point I figured that I'd crossed a personal threshold of diminishing returns, where my nerves had gotten so high and my energy levels so low, that further practice wouldn't benefit me much, so I called it quits and we parked the plane. In retrospect, I kind of wish I'd tried another one to see if I would've continued improving. Also in retrospect, from the comfort of my home, I think crosswind days really are an opportunity to put my skills through their paces, and I should fly them as much as possible, but one thing at a time.

• Flight Hours: 8.3
• METAR N51 092330Z 16007KT 10SM CLR 27/22 A2983

Sunset at the airport: sweet. If you live in populated areas and want unobstructed views of the sky for cloud pictures (or meteor showers or whatever), you can't beat your local airport.

Labels: Flight Lessons