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Chris Hoffmann · Guest

Woke up early (for me) Tuesday morning and got bit by the "go fly!" bug.
Nice sunny day out, and some good strong winds. I call up the school and
sure enough, there's a plane availiable at a good time. Turns out my
instructor has off that day, but there is someone else availiable, just got
back from another lesson. We speak on the phone and set up the time. I head
out to the airport.

This is my first time flying with another instructor, not counting phase
checks, but it's someone I've seen around and am at least somewhat familiar
with. I do the preflight and we sit down for a little bit to get him
familiar with where I'm at in training and what my goals are for the day.
He's very accomodating and offers some suggestions and options for what we
could do. The plan is basically to start off at Waukesha and see how my
landings go there, since the winds aren't too far off runway heading. If
those go pretty well, we'll head out to some other field where the crosswind
components are a bit higher.

The first thing we do is forget the keys to the airplane - luckily we
realize this before we're both completely buckled in. He explains that
there's some students from a military academy he has who consider having the
keys in hand part of the preflight, so he forgets now and then that everyone
doesn't do this. :)

First pattern goes so-so. I'm still getting used to the increased
performance in the winter, plus the airplane just got a new engine. Pattern
altitude comes up very quickly, and I begin levelling off late, so I end up
pushing forward hard on the yoke to quit climbing.

There's some confusion about the direction of the wind. UES has both a
tetrahedron and a wind sock, and today they differ enough that one shows a
left crosswind while the other shows a right crosswind. I go with the
instructor's logic that the cone is higher up in the air, and probably more
representative of how it will be on final, but be prepared for a shear close
to the runway. And in fact, that's pretty much how it goes - crabbed to the
right while on final, but then closer to the ground very difficult for me to
tell what inputs I need.

Touch and go after touch and go, the same result. I fight, I wrestle, I
struggle. I land drifting, I land crooked, I balloon, I float, I drop hard
to the runway. In 4 landings I managed to abuse the main gear more than the
sum of the previous 100. We try and do one with him helping on the controls,
and of course this goes well, and then I go right back to wrestling and
struggling with it. Ever so gently, he suggests I watch as he works the
controls. I know what I'm going to see, but I do enjoy watching it done
right. Well, this is one of the best landings I think I've seen anyone do.
It was like watching Yoda raise the X-wing out of the swamp. Two fingers on
the yoke, no wild motions, just "la la la", a smooth round out and flare
inches over the runway and settle down gently on the mains. To my viewpoint,
it was all one smooth input.

Luke - "I don't believe it....."
Yoda - *sigh* "THAT is why you fail."

Now, I don't mean to imply that all this time I'd been wrestling and
struggling aimlessly. As he pointed out to me, my takeoffs are very good - I
start out slow and with a lot of correction for the wind, and then slowly
bring the correction out as I gain speed until finally I lift off - landing
in a crosswind is just reversing this process. So, part of the problem was
not having a good sense of which wind direction I needed to be correcting
for, but you just add the corrections as you need. The other problem is I
tend to make a correction and then take it out, and then add it back in,
take it out, etc...Overcorrecting and undercorrecting as I go. It's just a
matter of working on it until I'm experienced enough to recognize these
things sooner, and develop a better feel for the airplane.

I don't know if I looked fatigued, but when he suggested we stop for the day
I didn't hesitate to take him up on it. It WAS fatiguing. But a nice lesson.
He offered advice and criticism here and there, but for the most part let me
do the flying (and wrestling and struggling).

1.1 hours, 8 landings, 1 airplane that doesn't want to see me again for a
while. :)

Harry Gordon · Guest

Chris,

Winds can be tricky sometimes Smile

. Your landings sounded like some of the
ones I have done. When I first soloed, I porpoised my 172 so many times on a
single landing that I think I broke a new record. And I am not even going to
talk about my hard landings, crooked landings, floating, etc. Smile

. Hang in
there, keep working at it and you'll do fine.

On an another related note, you indicated you flew out of UES. My daughter,
son-in-law, and granddaughter live in Waukesha. Back in Oct. we were up
there visiting them and I rented a 172 from Waukesha Flying Services FBO. If
you happen to see Kris Wright, tell him I said hi. He checked me out on
their 172. I really enjoyed flying at UES. It is a beautiful airport.

Stay warm with all of the snow you have there.

Harry
PP-ASEL
San Antonio, TX

"Chris Hoffmann" <choffmann460 (AT) wi (DOT) rr.com> wrote

Jim · Guest

Hey Chris,
What's your impression of this instructor compared with the woman instructor
you flew with before? Better? Worse? Easier to learn from? Better
teacher? Somebody you'll fly with again?
--
Jim Burns III
[email]jburns3 (AT) nospamuniontel (DOT) net[/email]
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Chris Hoffmann · Guest

It was a good first impression.

"Jim" <jburns3 (AT) uniontel (DOT) net> wrote

Jim · Guest

Glad to hear it. And glad to see you up in the air again!! Good luck!
--
Jim Burns III
[email]jburns3 (AT) nospamuniontel (DOT) net[/email]
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"Chris Hoffmann" <choffmann460 (AT) wi (DOT) rr.com> wrote

Chris Hoffmann · Guest

Thanks Jim!

Sorry to be so brief before, but it was only one lesson. He wasn't really in
"instructor mode" that day. But it went well, and I had fun, even if the
landing gear didn't. :)

I am still flying with my first instructor. There's lots I could say about
that, but after three months away I just decided to clean slate it. So far
things are going alright.

Your private messages to me back then helped a lot. Thanks again for lending
me an ear. :)

(And thanks to anyone else who might be reading this. You know who you are.)

~Chris

"Jim" <jburns3 (AT) uniontel (DOT) net> wrote