May 12th day #5 Blog

 May 12th 2023



    Today was incredible! I gained so much more experience and comfort while flying today. I arrived at the airport around 8:50 am and headed right out to do preflight. I took off completely by myself. It was the most perfect wind for take-offs, landings, and maneuvers so we didn't waste a minute and started power-on stalls. Power-on stalls are mimicking an over-pitched take-off at over 30 degrees pitch which is close to straight up in the air. The stall horn sounds and you have to drop the nose quickly back to wings level. Terrifying to say the least and reminded me of a rollercoaster ride but unlike a rollercoaster we weren't held down to anything. My flight instructor walked me through it once then I took over the controls to give it a try myself. Despite my fears, I did surprisingly well and needed less support than expected. After power-on stalls, we headed back into the Laconia airport traffic pattern and started touch-and-goes for about an hour. Touch-and-go's are basically landing and then immediately taking off again so I got so much practice with landings, takeoffs, and most of all the regulations and rules of the traffic pattern. I had so much fun. We did about two loops and I said to Karen, my flight instructor, "Wow, everything we've learned is clicking with me." I was applying the countless steps, small and large to a landing without many reminders which was so rewarding. We did six landings and takeoffs and I was so thrilled and felt so accomplished. Although landing is still very challenging for me, I feel I have improved so much in such a little amount of time. Today was my favorite day for senior project by far. I learned an incredible amount and look forward to more!

Total hours today: 5 hours

Total hours: 23 Hours

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

May 9th day #2 blog

Image
  May 9th 2023 Another beautiful day in Laconia. I got to the airport bright and early and did preflight without my instructor there for support which was a big accomplishment. I did most of the take off by myself, and got us into the air at around 10am. It was another bumpy day but we were still able to do power off stalls. Highlight of my day was flying over Proctor (pictures above)!! I feel a lot more comfortable take offs and flight patterns. Something I want to work on tomorrow is landings and how to land without perfect winds. Karen and I did about an hour of ground work and then I made it back to Proctor for my 3:30 lacrosse practice. It's crazy that in about a week and a half until I start thinking about planning my solo flight! Thanks for reading! Total hours today: 5 hours Total Hours: 10 hours
Read more

May 23rd day #14 blog

Image
May 23rd 2023 Today I worked more on my online flight school. I watched 5 videos and completed the quizzes with 100%. One video was on airspeeds and what wing angles correspond with them. The next video was on emergency lands which was super interesting. The third one was on yaw and how to land with strong crosswinds. I watched two more videos both about cross country planning. I learned a lot from these videos and was really focused because it was exact aspects of flying I need to know and work on. I am looking forward to putting more time into these videos and they are very accessible and can complete them from wherever. Not much else I did today. Thank you for reading!  Total hours today: 3 Hours Total hours: 63 Hours
Read more

May 18th day #10 blog

Image
 May 18th 2023 My Mom joined me today for a quick 10 minute loop around the traffic pattern 8:30 am. After the loop we dropped her off so I could work on landings and master my last day before my solo! As we taxied to the runway, the wind had shifted a bit and my instructor said "I think we should head to Concord and practice on their runway." I was so excited. After a smooth take off, she taught me how to put a track to concord into the Garmin because soon enough, I will be doing my own solo cross-countries. We got to concord within 15 minutes. We joined the traffic pattern where I was able to listen to Henry Krehbiel and Jack Parisian make radio calls. We passed them on the taxi way and gave them a wave. It was fun to listen to them and say hi to them through the radio. We continued to make about 6 loops in the concord traffic pattern. It was a challenge adapting to the new radio calls and the new traffic patterns. I was pretty comfortable by the last two loops in Concord a...
Read more