16th Lesson

My Dad met me at the airport for my 16th lesson yesterday. He got to see the plane and we went through the preflight inspection together. Then he joined us for the lesson, and flew along in the back seat. He took some pics and posted them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/to.bobs/FlightSchool. Jim warned me that the plane would handle a little differently and it sure did. The nose wheel would pop up a lot quicker on the soft field takeoff because the CG was further back. I also noticed that it took a lot longer of a roll to get off the ground, and the plane climbed slower as well. Trim settings and required power settings were different also. I now have a log entry with a remark of "Passenger Experience - Bob". The winds were fairly light - 5 to 7kt, but direct crosswinds in Forest Lake. We were doing landing practice again. We did a few laps through the pattern in Forest lake. I came in too high on a couple of the laps and had to do go-arounds. Good practice though since I haven't done many of those. After a few landings at Forest Lake, we decided to fly out and see my Dad's house so he could take some pictures. After this, we flew along the sunrise river leaving Comfort lake, and had a good opportunity to observe the kayaking conditions from the air. Plenty of water down there - I think a trip is in store soon... Then, since we were up in the area, we headed over to Osceola to do some landing practice. I had a few bouncers, and a few nice touchdowns. The area also became busy with other traffic, with a few pilots not following the rules, and Jim got upset about the "yahoos" again. This was a good chance to practice on a narrower runway. The KOEO runway is 75ft wide, whereas it's 150ft wide in Forest Lake. I also came in high for one of my landings and got to practice using a slip to help descend for landing without picking up airspeed. After this, we departed to the west and headed back towards Forest Lake. Along the way, we did another power loss simulation, which went well. We would likely have landed safely in a farm field. Finally, we went back to Forest Lake and practiced a couple more landings, both of which went pretty well. No solo yet, but I'm betting it might be Friday. At the end of the lesson, Jim asked if I had bought renter's insurance yet (which I have), and said that soloing is very close, and that I should start wearing old t-shirts to my lessons. Next lesson is on Friday.