Lesson 3 10/26/08

.5hrs of ground instruction covering steep turns, slow flight, rectangular courses, S-turns across a road, intro to radio and transponder, and review of lesson 2.

1.4 hrs of dual.

My taxi skill have now improved quite a bit. My first shot at communicating on Unicom was pretty choppy - the mike button seemed to be more useful as a reset button for my brain than to communicate. My take off is still terrible, and requires intervention. We worked on some slow flight including maintaining altitude, and gentle turns. I was reminded now and again to loosen the grip on the yoke. Descended and found a field to practice a rectangular course. This I did pretty well at, even for a first try I thought. My S-turns over a road were a bit sloppy, and my altitude varied a bit, but I felt pretty good about this as well for a first try.

We put off steep 360 and 720 turns due to haze, and we flew to MMV (McMinnville) for some more pattern/take off/landing work. My one landing at MMV was terrible. I was over controlling some on approach but still okay, then it fell apart in the round out and flare. I felt like we were suddenly ballooning, and stopped increasing back pressure, causing our arrival to be a bit (a lot) harsh. Anyway, we quickly cleaned up the aircraft to make it a departure on the remaining runway, and was again all over the place. Once on climb out I was solid again, and we turned towards 7S3. I flew the pattern back at 7S3, but on base to final seemed to lose my mental picture of where we were in the turn, and my instructor took over and completed final and landing.

In addition to the previously mentioned things to work on, I have trouble identifying landmarks from the air, even figuring out where we are. I’ve lived here most of my life, and get around well on the ground, but things sure look different from above!

Still, so much fun!