Night Flight

11/9/12

    After signing my first page of my logbook, I finally feel like I'm becoming a pilot. I'm finally living the dream. I'm becoming more and more excited because I know I'm getting closer to taking my checkride and becoming a private pilot. This lesson was a great start to my weekend. I got out of school around 3 and had my lesson around 4:30. I went out to the plane early as usual. After checking the fuel level and making sure the correct documents were in the plane, I began the walkaround of the airplane. Everything looked flyable so Craig and I pushed the airplane out of the hangar. We ran through the usual checklists and before we knew it we were holding short of runway 14. 

    We took off and climbed straight out to the practice area. I was instructed to climb to 4,000 feet. I had the GoPro on board so we wanted to make sure it captured a spin. We performed the spin and descended back down to about 2,000 feet for ground reference maneuvers. First, we found a straight road and practiced S-Turns. Craig did one as I paid close attention. Then, it was my turn. I had never done them before so it surely wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad for the first time. My biggest issue for S-Turns is maintaining a constant altitude.    

    The next maneuver to be performed was Turns Around a Point. Like S-Turns, Craig performed one first while I paid attention. The goal it to pick a point on the ground such as an intersection of roads. The goal is to maintain 1/4-1/2 mile away from that point compensating for the wind. At some point in this "circle" the bank angle will be much greater than that on the other side due to the wind. Again, I wasn't perfect but I'll get the hang of it.

    Next we found a rectangle of roads. Like TAP above, the goal is to maintain the same distance away from the roads while compensating for the wind pushing you toward or away from the roads. This is called rectangular course. Every time the traffic pattern is completed, so is rectangular course. 

    As the lights of Jackson country became brighter and the sky over Michigan got darker, it was time to begin our return back to the Jackson County Airport. Entering right traffic for runway 14, Craig helped me with my landing because of the combination of wind, darkness, and our first power-off landing. We touched down and made a 180 on the runway for another go. This time we entered left traffic for runway 14 and I tried this new concept of a power-off landing. It wasn't bad but it has room to get better. 

    And that was that, 1.1 hours down in the logbook. Now, it's time to prepare for next week's lesson.