Double Digits

11/13/12

    Finally! I made it to the double-digits for hours. After todays lesson, I now have 11 hours. We began the lesson by preflighting the airplane and calling for fuel. Then, we had a short ground lesson for 0.7 hours. During the ground lesson, we discussed the topics of airspace, special use airspace, segmented circles, ground reference maneuvers, and traffic patterns. 

    Then, it was time to hop in the plane and begin the flight portion of the lesson. We were cleared to taxi to runway 32 for departure. The wind was a straight headwind so there was no need to worry about control placement. Instead of climbing out to the south, we turned to the north. Craig wanted to show me a segmented circle so we flew to the Mason Airport (KTEW). On the way there, Craig discussed pilotage. Pilotage is the way of navigation used back in the day when there was not a GPS in the airplane. You pick out references on a chart and find them on the ground to get you to your destination. 

    We did 3 landings at the Mason airport. Craig also demonstrated a soft-field takeoff.

    We went to a practice area to practice two of our newly-learned ground reference maneuvers: Turns Around a Point and S-Turns. They were better than last lesson but still have much improvement that could be done. 

    Then, we decided to head back to Jackson. We also completed to landings at Jackson. In between them, Craig performed a short-field takeoff. The lesson was over. I was pleased to found out I had reached the double digits for flight hours!