Flights 12-14

We did these kind of out of order, so I'll write about them all together.

On Tuesday we did Flights 13 and 14, which is mostly centered on the different types of landings and some navigation. For a soft-field takeoff, you're basically pretending that you're taking off from grass or dirt. So the basic idea is to keep as much pressure off of the wheels as possible, so they don't dig into the ground. So you taxi out onto the runway more quickly than you would for a normal takeoff. You give it 10 degrees of flaps for extra lift, and keep the nosewheel off the ground through the entire takeoff. As soon as the plane lifts up, you have to hover above the ground for a few seconds so you can gain enough speed to climb away. Landing is much the same principle. Keep pressure off of the nosewheel so it doesn't dig in.

After the takeoff, we used some VOR navigation to make our way out to Greeley. Jory had me under the blindy-hood thing so I couldn't see, but I managed to put the plane straight over the top of the navigation beacon, so I was quite proud of that. We then made a circle around the Greeley/Weld County airport and did a stop and go landing. We took back off and came straight back to FNL where we did a couple of touch and go landings.

So that was flights 13 and 14.

Today I did flight 12, which consisted of doing some of the basic things that we've done already, only I did it solo. I took off and headed out to the NE over Windsor, then realized that I didn't really know what to do. So I did a few laps around this tank on the ground, then some S-turns around a nearby road. I flew out toward Greeley just because I didn't have a lot going on. The wind was starting to pick up, and I'm currently restricted to flying when the wind is less than 10 kts, so I headed back toward the airport. I made a pass over Fort Collins to race the cars because it's fun to beat them. I think that's the most fun part of flying: Getting from Mulberry to Trilby in about 3 minutes. Or possibly the ability to be flying over campus, looking out one side and seeing Old Town, and the other side to see Loveland, 10 miles away.

I did 3 landings, each one slightly worse than the one before it. The first one was perfect (should have stopped there). The second one was a little flat, but still alright. The third one I believe I had too much airspeed when I hit the ground, which caused me to bounce a couple of times. But I held it on the runway and got out of the way a couple of minutes before the Allegiant Air plane from Las Vegas came in right behind me.

All in all, a good few days. Next time we're doing a little more navigation stuff, and then the flight after that is finally time to go cross-country.