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My 19th lesson - More landings.I see a few more people are posting their journals. So there's no confusion, I'm calling mine "Jerry's Nth Lesson" from now on. Last week my instructor called me: "No lessons this weekend, they're sending me to Denver". Then this Monday he called again: "Weather looks real crappy today". So there was no lesson for a week and a half. For some reason, I got nervous last night looking forward to the lesson. Couldn't get to sleep - lay in bed flying a pattern: takeoff - 70MPH climb - climbing turn to crosswind - simultaneous level-off and turn to downwind - 2000RPM/80MPH on downwind - 1500RPM/70MPH abeam the numbers - turn to base - down onto that runway at 70MPH/one-wing-low - flare-flare-flare - bounce-squawk! Round and round I went, laying there in bed. Then when I finally got to sleep, I had the weirdest dream; I dreamt that I flew up to San Francisco, landed on 9th Avenue, hopped out of the airplane to go to the store. The store was really crowded, so I went back to the airplane, and just then realized I'd landed on a city street! Oops. So I looked down the street - nobody there! Started up the airplane before getting into the cabin. Airplane started down the street, me running alongside and hopping up and down trying to get in. Finally got in the plane, punched up full engine, left the street. Realized there were wires overhead. Flew down the street, around the corner looking for a hole in the wires. Found the hole, nearly pulled a departure stall zooming out, woke up :-). Left for PAO around 1545, stopped at the store and got my anti-airsickness remedy: two rye bagels. Munch - munch - burp - ahhhh. There goes the diet! Got to the airport, preflighted the plane. Instructor arrived. He was snuffling with a cold. I offered to put the lesson off til Friday.... He said "no, let's give it a try". I agreed, even though I figured the lesson would be a fiasco: instructor sick, student hasn't seen an airplane in a week and a half, student ragged out from lack of sleep.... I did the engine-start checklist, pulled the starter... It made a noise like an injured cow. He jumped out of the plane and hand-propped it....this lesson was absolutely going to be a fiasco. To my surprise, the lesson went extremely well! I had clearly ascended to a new level in the landing exercise. My legs attended to high speed taxi like they were made for it. While the airplane did not stay glued to the centerline, at no point did it feel like it was veering wildly, out of control. He did the throttle and the radios, I did the yoke and rudder pedals. I had clearly gotten better at both speed and attitude control, and at the one-wing-low wind correction. I even managed to touch down tailwheel-first once! My instructor must have said "well done" or "good job" at least four or five times. The worst landing was probably the one where I put us on the left main and we drove a good hundred feet with the airplane balanced on it :-). Toward the end of the lesson, he said "OK, now let's start using just the *rightmost half* of the runway. Don't let the plane come left of that centerline." Well, I tried. My crosswind corrections still need work for me to be able to do that :-). We went back to PAO, he let me land there for the first time. Oy, what a tiny runway! - Jerry "26.6 Hours" Kaidor |