ARGH! Today’s flying lesson was brutal! I had spent the day very happy because I was finally going to get some crosswind landing practice. But by the end of my lesson, I was SUPER bummed out.
When I got to the club I could see it was very windy. Went inside and checked the Nav Canada site. It was saying 16 gusting 23 Kts at nearly 90 degrees to the runway we normally use.
Brad came up with an alternate plan, we’d fly out to Gatineau and practice on that runway, since the heading of that one is slightly different than the one at the Ottawa Airport. Cool.
We took off from one of the big runways and turned right to head towards Gatineau. We passed over Rockcliff and into Gatineau. The circuit height for the Gatineau strip is only 1200 feet as opposed to the 1500 foot circuit altitude for the Ottawa airport. That was a little freaky, it always felt like we were so low!
Anyways, we did a bunch of touch and go’s on runway 27 out in Gatineau. The freakin’ crosswind was strong (in my opinion) and I was having trouble. One time we came in quite low and just barely missed some lights. :O
After 4 or 5 touch and go’s we headed back towards home. On our way in they asked us what runway we wanted and since 22 was an option, we took that one. Big mistake! I got off to the left of the runway and never really got back where I wanted to be. That meant we weren’t even over the runway when we came down and Brad had to take control and put the plane down. I think it scared him pretty good. If it had of been me…I would have overshot and landed into the wind on 32.
As I mentioned earlier…I was pretty bummed out after this particular lesson. Brad told me not to worry about it, especially since the plane has only been tested to a 13 Kts 90 degree crosswind. He also reminded me that everyone else was landing on 32.
I’m still rather bummed out, but hopefully on Sunday the winds will be a little more manageable for me. I did learn some stuff though, so I guess I should be happy about that. Brad noticed that I’d be coming in a little slow (due to the nose getting pushed up by gusts and whatnot) and when I went to correct by pushing the nose down, I’d level the control column, rather than holding the turn into the wind. Of course after I level the control column, the plane gets blown over to the left and well…all hell breaks loose. I really need to concentrate on holding the controls where they need to be.
Anyways, I’m hoping for lighter winds on Sunday…