[ Home ] [ jerry/aviation/student-links.html ] [ jerry/aviation/lessons/index.html ]

My 13th lesson: Landings!

Went out to PAO for my lesson this morning. Promised topic of instruction: Landings! I was all anticipation :-).

For my first session of touch and goes, my instructor decided on a "kinder, gentler" runway: Frazier Lake, a grass strip ( and seaplane strip ) some 43 nautical miles south of PAO. On the way, we had Radio Practice and Chart Quiz. "What kind of airspace is it here?" Why do we need to stay under 2500 here? OK, call Bay Approach and tell them...." We came upon a hill: Me: "Are we going to hit that hill?" Him: "Do you see the stuff beyond the hill?" "Yes" "As we go along, do you see more stuff or less stuff?" "If you see more stuff, we're above the hill".

Frazier Lake seemed to be misnamed: there was no lake. But there were beautiful, hazy, springtime fields. There was a quiet peace, no traffic. We taxied up to the "terminal" and parked the C120. A man met us by the building. "Wow, a C120! I used to have one of those! I put a Lycoming 150HP in it, it jumped like a rabbit!"

After a talk about C120 painting and disassembly techniques, we proceeded to do our touch and goes.

I couldn't do anything right :-(. The 10-knot cross wind blew me about like a leaf in the park. When my instructor wasn't saying "Be aggressive! Don't let the airplane fly you around!", He was saying "Be gentle! Don't be so abrupt on the controls! I couldn't even take off right :-(.

We flew back to civilization. He had me practice holdning my heading as accurately as possible, regardless of wind. And holding my altitude, too. I did my best.

Can I really learn to land this thing? He says I can. He says it takes most people a hundred landings before they even figure out what they're doing wrong. Hmm, 100 landings... If we do 10 per lesson, that's ten lessons.

I asked him what to study for next time. He said there was nothing to study, learning how to land was a physical thing, like learning to ride a bicycle... you just have to do it til it comes to you. You can read about riding a bicycle all you want - doesn't mean a thing.

Today's lesson was the longest I ever had: 1.7 hours. Yes, I got a little queasy toward the end, but not too bad.