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My Twenty-Fourth Lesson: Slips are Not Spins....Today we did....can you guess? More pattern work. This time, my instructor said, "From now on, if you come in, and the airplane's not nice and straight and centered, I want you to go around." And a couple of times, I did decide to go around. He was very happy :-). There was a light and shifting breeze. Every flare was different. Once I thought I had it absolutely perfect: airspeed nailed, centerline right between my legs.... and just as we sailed over the numbers, a sudden breeze came up and swatted us across the runway like a fly. Grrr! On the way back, he taught me to do forward slips. They were fun. Not too subtle, just mash the rudder over one way, turn the yoke the other way, and watch that altitude just boil away! Yee-ha! Well, mashing the rudder over isn't such a comfortable thing to do: Too much like what you do to spin :-). After the lesson, we went through plans for the next few ones: a couple more at HWD, and then we will start doing pattern work at PAO's, tiny 2500x50 runway. I think I better start making sure not to wear my favorite T-shirts to lessons :-). - Jerry "34.2 hours" Kaidor |