Aileron

Landings. Let's do this.

My response to screwing up is usually to have at it again, and have at it again soon. I've found that if I give myself time to dwell on my mistakes, my self-confidence drops and drags my motivation down with it, which begets more mistakes, and that's never good. Though I'm not sure I would call landing practice on Friday a screw-up, it wasn't successful and it felt frustrating.

Citing tiredness late in the day as a contributing factor to said frustration, I scheduled an early afternoon flight for today. We flew a right Dumbarton departure over the bay and headed over to Hayward Executive (KHWD) for practice. This was nice in that it gave me a couple minutes to get used to the plane in straight level flight before the more precise landing maneuvers, and also because Hayward has a bigger runway than KPAO, which makes all airplane occupants breathe a little easier.

KPAO tends to be the busiest little airport around on the weekends and landing practice there can be a chore because planes end up waiting in long sequences for takeoff and landing clearances. I don't know why the other airports nearby like Hayward have so much less traffic, but if it means I can circle around and do my thing unmolested, that's fine with me.

We did six or seven touch-n-gos at KHWD before heading back for a full stop landing at KPAO. Although not quite there yet, the landings felt much better than Friday. It will take me some while more for the concept of sideslips to sink into my muscle memory, but it's getting there. I still find myself thinking, okay now the rudder works backwards, sometimes during slips, but if I concentrate there are some brief moments where I can decouple the rudder from the ailerons and understand what each needs to do independently.

• Flight Hours: Δ1.2   Σ18.9
• KHWD 211954Z AUTO 27007KT 10SM CLR 28/07 A2991 RMK AO2 SLP138 T02780072