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My 62nd LessonMy teacher called me on the phone yesterday: "Jerry, I'm at the airport. Where are you?" "Gaak!" "Just kidding...." ;-). It reminded me of this recurring dream I used to have when I was a college student: I'd dream that I'd signed up for some course and then forgotten all about it, until a week before finals....then I'd wake up in a sweat. We met at SJC at 11:30. I was fresh as a daisy - got 10 hours sleep the night before. It was hot and clear - "Temperature 24, dew point zero-seven" according to Information Lima. The plan was to stay in the pattern at SJC, do a regular landing, a short field one, and a soft-field one. Then he would demonstrate a wheel landing. And that's what we did. I got us from parking to the runup area, then to the hold-short line without any major foulups. Took off - what with the heat and full tanks, we climbed lazily, not making pattern altitude till past the tower. Then I slid us down base and final - "Whups, watch that airspeed!", and brought it in for a nice three-pointer. In fact, as I remember it, all my landings were pretty nice today - by the time I fought it down to the flare. The second landing was short-field. I trimmed for really low airspeeds on base and final, holding the airplane up pretty high to clear the imaginary tree. Well, way too high, as it turned out. Forward slip to the rescue! Followed by a nice three-pointer. About this point my radio connection got intermittant - apparently the yoke-mounted PTT switch was giving up the ghost. So I had him take the radios. Third landing was soft-field. I trimmed for the same low airspeeds as the short-field one, but brought the engine down farther sooner. I still wasn't as low as I would have liked, but didn't have to slip. Well, it was a good landing, but not really what I would have called "soft field". After this, he took the plane to demonstrate a wheel landing. The wheel landing was a little bouncy, and he apologized for it all the way back to parking. Hey, wait a second - why such a short lesson? "I'm going to get off here, you take her around a few times". As in SECOND SUPERVISED SOLO?!? Yessir... I pulled into parking, shut down the engine, let him off, started everything up over again from the prestart checklist. Even copied down the ATIS. Yup, it'd gone from Lima to Mike while we were flying. Rolled back out to the runup area - got the direction right this time - did the runup - wound up, for the second time, sitting at the end of the runway, ALL ALONE, waiting to take off. Tower warned me that there was an MD80 taking off next door, I should watch for wake turbulance. "82Victor is watching out, clear for takeoff". Pushed in the power, sped down the runway, up,up, and away! The MD-80 was well ahead of me. I took care to do the steepest climb possible, sidled off over the taxiway away from the jet runway, and turned an early crosswind. Then the airplane started making a funny noise. "Tap-tap" "tap-taptap" Oh oh. I looked down, and the seat belt strap was exiting out the door. Pulled it back in enough so the tapping stopped and then ignored it. The first landing came out way high on final. A single, large forward slip took care of it. This was followed by a gentle three-point landing. Yay! After taking off, the tower called me. "Mumble-shmumble-dumble-82Victor". I asked them to repeat: "Mumble-shmumble-dumble-82Victor" again. So I asked them to repeat yet again, feeling a bit embarrassed by this time. "Eight-two Victor, caution another airplane with similar callsign" "OK, 82Victor is watching out". Second landing was also high. Another big slip, another smooth three-point landing. On the third one, I pulled the power to 15 past the tower on downwind, 12 on crosswind, and idle on final. Even so, I was above the glide slope. But not so high as to have to slip it. Another squeaker followed. "San Jose Tower, 82Victor is terminating". Went back to the Jet Center, picked up my instructor, taxied back to parking with a big stupid grin on my face. - Jerry "80.4 Hours" Kaidor |