We'd scheduled landing practice - Nothing but patterns and landings. Winds were within the safety limits, and I imagine Kelly was thinking I'd have to learn to do this sooner or later, and so now's as good a time as any. We got the aircraft ready, taxied and got in the air. I'm feeling more and more comfortable with the whole process each time, and "ground flying" the airplane helps. Taxiing and turning the plane on the ground is a lot easier now than it was the first day, for sure.
Once in the air I could tell right away it was going to be a different flying experience. It was bumpy and a little gusty. Holding turns at the right bank angle was noticeably more challenging than on previous flights and our speed over the ground with the wind behind us was pretty quick. Gusts tossed the plane around a bit and I had to level the wings pretty much constantly for the first part of the flight. Before departing, we'd checked the weather for the local area. Aurora, our original destination, had winds sustained at 16 miles per hour and gusts up to around 25, so we clearly weren't going there. We checked McMinneville (which was the same story as Aurora), and then Hillsboro, which was calmer with winds at 11 miles per hour and gusting a bit higher.
Hillsboro is a tower-controlled airport, and this was my first time flying into one. I didn't have to worry about radio communication, Kelly was handling that. Granted, I only have five hours under my belt and I should not expect much of myself, but I'm allowed to be nervous. Fortunately for us, this normally busy airport has only a few student pilots flying at the flight school there right now, so it was not as busy today as it often is.
Compared to Twin Oaks, which has one 50-foot-wide runway, Hillsboro (HIO) is freakin' huge. Two ultra-long runways as wide as a large freeway can be spotted easily from only 1,000 feet above the ground from several miles away. I had no problem locating it, that's for sure. I was able to look around and recognize a bunch of buildings, roads and locations I recognized, which was good. The places we've been flying over up until now have been relatively unfamiliar to me.
As I said, today was all about landings. It was clear as we flew that the winds were pretty quick aloft, since our ground track in a crosswind required me to "crab" into the wind in order to maintain a good line over the ground while in the landing pattern. Think of it as pointing off to the side, into the wind a bit so you don't get blown away and off track. From the outside it looks like you're sliding a bit sideways down your flight path. I think I got the hang of that pretty well, and after being caught off-guard in a couple turns and figuring out I needed to adjust more for the crosswinds while turning, I felt a bit more comfortable.
Landings were another story. The winds at HIO were coming toward us and somewhat from the left on runway 20, and seemed (at least to me) to shift direction quite a bit closer to the surface. The strong headwind on approach meant applying more power to maintain our altitude into the wind at a distance. I got the hang of that pretty well and found myself adjusting power on my own several times while flying today without being prompted. But getting down onto the runway was still pretty uncomfortable and as we got closer to the surface the shifting winds threw me off. Now, keep in mind this whole "landing" thing is pretty much greek to me so far, so these added wind components are a real mind-meld.
We ended up doing four landings before heading back, plus one go-around per the tower when we didn't execute a short approach fast enough for the controller. I guess that Lear jet coming in behind us was more important or something, heh.
I became slightly more comfortable with each landing attempt. Slightly is an operative word in that sentence, by the way. Kelly was on the controls with me for all of them and helped keep the plane straight as we touched down - I was just not getting it too well myself. After just those few landings my brain had pretty much turned to oatmeal - I was past my ability to go any further at the time, as far as landings were concerned. So we climbed out from HIO and headed back south, and I located the hangars at Twin Oaks, where the windsock was standing straight out and shifting between a headwind and a left crosswind for runway 20. After a slightly bumpy approach and a little extra power to compensate for the wind, Kelly helped me put the airplane on the ground and we got it parked.
It was a humbling hour. Not that I have a shortage of humility or anything, but I think it was very useful, even though it was complicated and right on the edge of overwhelming. I got to see what it's like in a good wind, which is important. I spent a little time while we completed our log books chatting with Kelly, and he told me I am doing fine and that I'll be okay, it takes time and everyone has to figure out how it feels. No one's an accomplished pilot at five hours, heh.
I need to eat a better meal before I fly. By the time I was done, I was pretty wiped out. I plan to take a PowerBar or something with me, too from now on.
I have a busy week on the calendar. Our next lesson and flight is set for Wednesday, with another on Friday, followed by one more on Saturday. Looking forward to it.
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No Wednesday flight this week? :)
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