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Jerry's 52nd LessonMy instructor came back from a trip Back East on Sunday. I contacted him on Monday, arranged for a lesson Tuesday morning. Went out to PAO. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping....everywhere but over the field, which enjoyed a cloud cover at 700 feet. Not quite VFR :-(. I considered calling the instructor, but decided to just preflight the A/C and let him come out on the probability that the clouds would burn off. They did. He showed up at 9:30 right on the dot. Was on the attack even before we started moving. I listened to the ATIS, turned to Ground Control, he quizzed me on it: We stayed in the pattern at PAO to do our touch and goes. I did a flawless takeoff. First problem was when I turned downwind. There was a pregnant pause. I stared at him like a deer caught in the headlights. Truly it was a quandary. As a contact pilot, I am not allowed to fly into clouds. And there was the frilly remains of a cloud, hanging out at around TPA. After a moment, he told me to stop climbing, and explained (sternly!) that it was more important to stay out of the cloud than to achieve pattern altitude. A couple circuits later, the cloud was gone. Whew! The lesson filled with admonitions: The first landing was slicker'n snot.... The other landings were all pretty good too. Still having trouble with those right quartering headwinds on final; as I've mentioned in previous posts, all the 300 landings at HWD were with a LEFT quartering headwind. The theory is the same; the problem is to get hands and feet to obey that theory :-). On one final, he took the controls to show me the sight picture. Then, on the second-to-last circuit, I finally - GOT it, and DID it. It FELT GOOD. Landings: they're like going to Vegas. Addicting, just like a slot machine. Any every swing of the arm could bring a marvellous greaser, with the coins cascading out of the machine, and that light on top going off like a K-mart blue light special. Or it might be one of those bouncing, sliding wonders that makes you wish the airport had a handy hole to crawl into. Except, of course, in THIS game, the longer you play, the less chance is involved. Dammit, I wish I was out there now, doing some more! My CFI took a double-take when he say my logbook, and saw that other CFI's chop in it. He asked about that other lesson; I told him. Didn't mention actually *switching* to that other CFI; I'm sure he can read between the lines.... - Jerry "70.6 hours" Kaidor |