I went out to the airport after work yesterday to put in some touch and gos. I haven't been flying in a week or two so it really was meant to be just 20 or 30 minutes flying. It turned out to be a little longer since I was flying with different instructor. He wanted to sit in for one full circuit. He got a little more than that.
It was quiet out there last night. I'm continually astounded by how few people fly in the evenings out there - there were only two aeroplanes in the circuit and not a lot of activity around the place. I digress. So we got off the ground and into the less familiar right hand circuit for 07. Trying not to infringe Baldonnel's airspace I think I flew the circuit a little too tightly, was late making a turn to base, generally "behind" the aeroplane and overshot the centreline for final approach. I got a landing out of it but it was well below my par. The next one though.!
The next one was to be a full stop to let the instructor out and I widened the circuit a bit to give myself more time and I was a little more settled, still late on the turn and still a little behind the aeroplane. On finals, I was low and "driving" it with more power to check any further descent. As a consequence, the 'plane had plenty of inertia and when I finally cut the power I was too high, she hit the ground and she bounced - not something I normally do. Conscious that a couple of weeks ago my instructor told me that if she bounced twice, the next one would be a prop strike, I firewalled everything and went around. I know had a second bounce to go but it's never worth the risk. It was good though; I was already advancing the throttle when my instructor told me to go around. Reassuring for me, reassuring for him. As I've always said, flying is only partially about doing things right - it's just as much about, taking the correct course of action when you get it wrong. And you will get it wrong - even the great Chuck Yeager said "there's no such thing as a natural-born pilot".
I went around, landed safely, deposited my instructor back at the apron and went off on my own to see if I could scare myself some more. Well the first solo landing was good, not quite greased on but pretty smooth followed by poor directional control on the ground. I really need to work on that if I want to fly taildraggers - and I do. "Full power, take-off flaps" and I was up in the air again. Even a poor day's flying is better than a good day longing skyward. Again, good position on the downwind leg and then something happened, I lost track of my position in the down wind, made the power reduction, deployed first stage flaps and made the right-hand turn to base leg - all too early!! I realised it in the turn, eased off the turn, then realised I was setting myself up badly for a subsequent turn to finals, so I reapplied the turn and made the whole manoeuvre a sloppy turn from downwind to finals. With all of that going on I hadn't really established a nice stable approach. Again, it was beginning to look like I was going to be driving myself in for another bounce.
I decided that there was going to be a different outcome this time. I flew it all the way down and resisted the temptation to flare to early and drop myself into a bounce. In the end it was a respectable landing but with more of that landing to the left side of the runway. I wonder if I'd learnt to fly before I'd leaned to drive would I drive down the centreline of the road. Any road, I was happy to call it an evening and hand the keys to the next flight.
I walked back to the office : "So how did that go?" my instructor asked. Knowing that there's much better flying in me than that performance, I said so. "Hmm, not great now. Not really up to standard". He made some comments about flying a few more and trying to nail the centreline precisely but overall he felt I was flying safely all the time. Even when the approaches weren't the ideal approach they were well controlled and overall if that was a bad day's flying for me, there was nothing wrong with my flying.
So, maybe I'll make a pilot after all.
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