I had hoped to fly between my trip to Hawaii and my trip to Korea, but due to work and weather, that didn’t work out. Then just before I returned from Korea, I came down with a sinus infection that also infected my ears, so flying was put off until I was feeling better, which was about a week after I returned from Korea. I was going to go the saturday after Thanksgiving, but had stayed up too late Friday night, and getting out of bed early to go have breakfast with the Evergreen Pilots, took its toll, and I was tired and went home and took a nap thinking I could go the next day, but then the weather didn’t cooperate. I was wanting to take my instructor, Tom, along as sort of "insurance", although he is not allowed to instruct in the Evergreen planes, this is nothing that says we can’t split time, and he wasn’t going to be instructing anyway.
About Wednesday I looked at the forecast for the weekend, and it looked pretty good. I then sent mail to Tom to see if he wanted to go fly on Saturday, and we made arrangements, and I booked the plane. 🙂 We would go after the Evergreen breakfast. It turned out to be foggy Saturday morning, and Renton was actually reporting "freezing fog". 😦 Showed up for breakfast. After breakfast still foggy, so Tom, Mai, and myself, headed over the Aviator’s Store to look around. The Aviator’s Store is located at Boeing Field, which it was nice and sunny at Boeing Field. We then went over the Museum of Flight to look around the gift shop, as apparently Maia was looking for x-mas decorations for the their tree. While there Tom had called to see what fog at Renton was doing, and it was 100′ Overcast… 😦 Hung out at the Museum a little longer and Tom and I decided we would stop by the Renton airport on the way back since they drive right by it anyway. It was clear, good enough to go play around in the traffic pattern, which is all I was really wanting to do anyway.
I preflighted the plane, while Tom fought with the scheduling system to ensure that we would have the plane until about 2:15pm. Got in the plane, started it up, and had foggy windows… The fog was on the inside of the windscreen. Wiped off the moisture on the inside of the windscreen, which was reminiscent of driving my Bug. We could see enough to taxi, and once the engine go warmed up and air moving through the vents it would clear off. Side windows were a little slower to clear. Taxied to the run up area, did the runup, and ready to go.
Pulled out on to Rwy 33, full power, rotate at 55 kts and giving some right rudder to keep the ball centered. Great Takeoff. Takeoffs are easy, it is the landings that are more of an "art." Ended up following another Cessna around the pattern. First time around the pattern, turn from base to final, right on the centerline and a touch high, but not much. Roundout, flare, and touchdown were great, got a nice little blast from the stall horn right before the wheels touched and nose wheel definitely off the ground. Second time around the Cessna that we were following around the pattern sort of caught me by surprise and I was like "Where the hell did he come from??? :-)" On the downwind leg the controller told us "Cleared #3 Touch and Go, Follow the Cessna in front of you, he will be there every time around… :-)" This time around the pattern, I overshot the base to final turn and if I had rolled out parallel to the runway I would have been way left of the centerline, but I had plenty of room and just commented about what I was doing by saying "Oooppps… Bit of an overshoot, have lots of room so I will just continue the turn and not rush it, and get lined up…" Got lined up, and was always pretty much on the glide path, and the roudout, flare, and touchdown were good. As we were rolling down the runway asked Tom if he wanted to do a couple, and his response was "Yeah!!!! My turn… You got to do two, now I get to do two… :-)"
First time around for Tom was pretty normal. After touchdown he did a sort of soft field take off so that he could do a "wheelie" down the runway. On the downwind on the second time around, about when I said "aren’t we getting a little close to the guy in front of us?" the controller told us to do a left 360 for spacing, and Tom was like "Yeah, we were nibbling at his tail a little… :-)" This time when he turned base to final and rolled out, I looked at the VASI, and I was like "Wow… imagine that… your high…. :-)" I knew Tom had done it on purpose so that he could do slips, and his response with glee in his voice was "Hmmm… I wonder how that happened???" and he commenced a slip, after which he said "Oh! Still high…." and slip in the other direction, and couple more slips. About 30′ above runway and being on the glideslope, Tom was like "Oh!!!! And we’re still gonna be high…" and as he said that the one red VASI light turned white and Tom did another couple slips, during which I told him, "I think you’re just trying to impress the controller… :-)" and he was like "Why? He isn’t a pilot. :-)", as I had remembered a Piper Cub we saw do a big slip to landing at Boeing the Tom and I were going to Hoquiam, and the controller had made a comment to the Cub pilot like "Hey! that was pretty good. :-)" Tom took the plane off and after establishing the climb gave me the plane back, as I said I wanted to make one more trip around as I wanted to do better on my base to final turn.
This trip around pretty normal. Controller did have us basically do a big turn from upwind to downwind, basically eliminating the crosswind leg. This base to final turn was pretty good, very minor overshoot, and dead-on the glide path. Roundout, flare, and touchdown were good. I noticed I wasn’t "pumping for asphalt" as much as I used to and got the plane in flare attitude and held it there keeping the nose high and not landing flat. I was very happy with my landings. With 6 weeks since my last flight, I thought I would be rustier than what I was, and I wasn’t really rusty. It sure felt nice to get out. Would have ventured over to Bremerton (PWT) but it was still pretty foggy to the south and had no idea what the weather was doing over there, so we just staying in the pattern was fine for me. 🙂
Doodlespace 