Flight 16, N14008, 1.6 hours (24.3 total), short field takeoff, soft field takeoff, normal landings

Another week went by without any flying, and this weekend looked like it'd be wet, too. But for this lesson we'd be staying in the pattern so as long as visibility and ceiling are OK we'd be able to fly. The first thing I did after getting up this morning was to check the weather and it's at 20 miles/4000 feet, not bad at all. Flying is on!

It looked quite different from what's on paper, though. The sky was all grey and it was drizzling. I had never taken off in the rain before, although I didn't think it'd be much of a problem. While I was doing my pre-flight Mark brought over another guy to check out the airplane. This guy was a pilot from Germany and was attending a conference here. Poor guy, good luck getting any sight-seeing in this weather. There is a plus side to the rain, though. During my pre-flight I only see one plane taking off.

Before we taxied off Marked talked to me about short-field takeoff. It's fairly simple: you start with 10 degrees of flaps, line up with the runway, then put full power in while holding the brakes (kind of like launching a car in a drag race), then release the brakes and start the takeoff roll, rotate at normal speed then pitch for Vx (62 kts), which gives a much steeper angle of climb than a normal takeoff, then after clearing 50 feet, push down for Vy and climb away as normal, take up the flaps when safe. It sounded quite simple, and I was just a little bit concerned about going full-power right off the line. In my very early lessons I tended to swirl a little on the runway with abrupt full-power. That concern turned out to be a completely non-issue, though. Apparently I'd got better at directional control during takeoff.

There was a pretty strong headwind today. It was 10 kts on the ground, but as soon as we were airborne it was over 20kts. Downwind went by fast with that kind of wind, and I had to use much more power than normal during final. At some point the headwind was at 28kts and it almost felt like I wasn't moving :P. The touchdown was a bit rough, but not too bad. We did a touch-and-go and tried another landing. The 2nd was OK but not great, either. I guess that's the current state of my landing: one or two small bounces. I did have one big bounce today during which Marked asked me to do a go-around. Other than that one I was consistently mediocre :P

We tried another short-field takeoff then Mark demonstrated a soft-field takeoff. Now this was more fun. The idea is that you are taking off from a soft field, like grass, or a field covered with snow or mud. You want to keep your landing gears from getting stuck to the ground and the key is to pull the elevator all the way back during taxiing, to keep weight off the nose gear, and not stop and try not to use brakes. Make a sweeping turn onto the runway and line up, then add full power, holding elevator all the way back the whole time. The nose gear leaves the ground soon so elevator pressure needs to be relieved gradually. The plane would takeoff on ground effect before reaching normal rotate speed, then you need to pitch down to keep the plan from climbing up, and keep building up speed. After the speed is up you can then pitch back and climb away. This is also done with 10 degrees of flap.

After I made the next landing it's my turn to try it. Before I turned off the runway we noticed a goose on the runway and decided to chase it away, so it's not an issue for my takeoff. There's no other planes flying or waiting so it's fine for us to fool around. We chased the goose away and began to turn off at the next taxiway, then it came back to the runway, so we had to chase it away a second time and turn off the runway at the end.

Soft-field takeoff was definitely more involved than the short-field one. But it was easier than I thought. Keeping the nose gear in the air wasn't hard at all and steering with the rudder only was quite effective once speed was up. Taking off in ground effect was fun. It happened at around 48 kts and I just flew down the runway at very low altitude while the speed built up, then pitched up and climbed away. Not bad at all!

While we were taxiing back to the runway to try anotherone, Mark said "Let's try it differently this time", and completely dimmed my display so it's black. I thought he wanted me to fly by the backup instruments, but then he blocked those with my check list, too. "Fly just by visual and let's see how you do". ah'oh... Taking off turned out OK, since the plane took off in ground effect by itself, it's just a matter of holding it close to the ground long enough to gain speed, then climb away. But I was way off judging my altitude. As I was turning crosswind, thinking I was at 500 feet, Mark peeked at the backup altimeter and told me I was at 1000. ouch! The rest of the pattern proved to be equally difficult, too. I wasn't confident in how fast I was flying (if I could misjudge my altitude by 100%, I could do so for speed, too), and wasn't sure when I should lower flaps as a result. The landing turned out to be OK, though. That was certainly an interesting experience.

I tried a couple more soft-field takeoff then did a couple normal ones just to practice my landing. The rain stopped briefly but then during the last one it came back harder so we decided to call it a day. The main problem with my landing is not flaring enough, which is evident in my first solo video, too. I did make some adjustment for my last landing and it was a lot nicer. I did a total of 11 landings today, most I'd done in any lesson :)