Oh gee!

Today was the day. Everything worked great from start to end. Well if we don’t count one go around as I was so high on first approach that there was no way to put this bird down without some advanced magic. Other than that – all 9 landings correct, no problems with approach, stabilization of pattern, flare and touch downs. Few of them could probably be even called ‘greased’.

I got the feeling that this maybe the day. While back taxiing after ninth landing Terry said to stop by the taxi way and let him out. And you know what? I was surprised that I had no feelings. Well there was certain amount of anxiety but it was mostly related to the fact ‘how the plane will behave with 200 pounds less load’. Other than that – nothing.

And you know what? Flying by myself is easier!. Cherokee (mostly thanks to it’s 180HP engine) accelerates and climbs like crazy (well in comparison to what it did before). I had no problem hitting 500ft AGL before the end of our runway. It also needs more trim then – looks like front seats are in front of GC so leaving one passenger on the ground makes it more tail heavy. But all those are details. Approach and landings are also a little bit easier. You just need to take out a tad more power than usual, watch your airspeed closely and everything will be fine.

I did three landings all by myself, and now my logbook has new column “deflorated” – 0.4h solo Nice feeling.

This doesn’t mean I’m a pilot, yet. But today I finally can say:

“Oh gee this is easy!”

1.3h/0.0h inst : 11 to/ldg logged
23.3h/0.8h inst : 117 to/ldg total