I was anxious to get to my flying lesson today, mostly because I wanted to test out my new headset and see how it worked. I got out of work a little later than I wanted to (because of a call I decided to answer against my better judgement) but I still managed to make it to the club before 5.
When I got there, the first person I saw was Shane, so I had a little chat with him. Showed off my new headset. :) Shane introduced me to Bruce Dwyer who is a member of the Board Of Directors and the Treasurer for the club. I went into a little bit of a rant about the sign up for the ground school and how it should be readily available. They pretty much agreed with me and Shane mentioned he’s been trying to gets dates out of someone for ground schools so they can advertise them. I STILL haven’t managed to get my name on any sort of sign up list. :(
Anyways, on to the flying. We took out XAM. The basic plan was to fly the circuit over and over and over again. After getting clearance, etc, we taxied out to the runway and took off. At around 800 feet (on the altimeter) we made our turn onto the crosswind leg. Once the runway was at about a 45% angle to us we turned onto the downwind leg. At that point I had to radio the tower to let them know that I was on downwind for a ‘touch and go’. Immediately after that I did my pre-landing checks and then waited to make my turn onto the base leg. Once the runway was at about a 45% angle to the plane I turned onto the base leg. Shortly after that (runway about even with my shoulder) I turned onto final. Now came the tricky part…trying to keep the plane going where I wanted to while trying to land. I have to say I didn’t do a fantastic job, but we landed, or rather touched down. Right after that I gave ‘er full power and proceeded to do another take off.
That is the circuit. We flew it about 6 times I think. One of them was a really huge circuit since we had to wait for the tower to tell us to turn downwind. I think he was landing a big plane on one of the big runways and wanted to make sure he had enough room. In my opinion, my landings need A LOT of work. I didn’t feel like they were getting any better as we went on. Brad assures me that it’ll come with practice. I’m sure he’s right, but that didn’t stop me from feeling a bit frustrated after the lesson.
Next lesson is scheduled for Friday after work. If it doesn’t rain then I’ll be flying the circuit again. I think I’ll be flying the circuit for at least the next 6 or 7 lessons…
Oh and by the way, the new headset worked beautifully! :D