Altitude is Key

01/01/2013

    Happy New Year! There's no better way to begin the year than by flying. When I arrived at the airport today, there was snow on the ground. I had to shovel some snow away to be able to pull the airplane onto the plowed taxiway. I completed the preflight and everything checked out to be okay so we got in and taxied to runway 32. Before our runup I was a little nervous. Last time we tried to fly this plane we had a faulty magneto. I wasn't sure if the problem was fixed or not. But the mag check looked great and we were cleared for takeoff.

    Once in the air, we flew to the practice area for some ground reference maneuvers. First, we practiced some S-Turns. My first one was not very good. I was not far enough away from the road I was referencing. I also was not comfortable with my altitude. During the set, I wasn't paying attention to the altimeter. I was all over the place with altitude. So, we decided to get back down to 2,000 feet MSL. We found an intersection and I picked out some landmarks that were about 1/2 mile from it and circled. It wasn't bad. Since we were back to 2,000 feet I practiced some more S-Turns. These ones turned out much better so we decided to return to JXN for some landing practice. 

    All together I got 9 landings today. On my first one, I flared a little too early. The rest, however, were pretty good with minor flaws here and there. 

    Glad I got to spend the first day of the year in my favorite place: the sky!

Check out this video of my takeoff from runway 32 at JXN! :www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUh8fnXMCq0