We traveled to see the Grand Canyon NP right after the previous flying lesson. By the time we came back, Steve was on vacation for a week. The following week he was in town but we couldn’t arrange a suitable time with him. Then he went to the EAA’s OshKosh Airventure for a week. We finally managed to fly again today after just over a month since the last lesson.

First for some refresher on the charts (Section and TAC). The plan was to fly to New Jerusalem and practice landings. Steve told us how to find New Jerusalem based on the charts and then he pointed out a restricted area R-2531 just to the southwest of Tracy airport. The landmarks were a tall tower on the east side of the restricted area and a road that runs to the south of the area. They didn’t operate the restricted area on weekends so it was OK if we inadvertently few over it – well, OK we did it on purpose, not inadvertently.

Steve didn’t want me getting too comfortable with right downwind departures from KLVK so this time we decided to take off from 25R on a left downwind departure. A few minutes into the flight, the controller announced there was another airplane at 11 O’clock heading towards us at 3800′. We were at around 3000′. By the time we spotted, it was a couple of hundred feet above us. Since we were climbing, I temporarily leveled the plane until we crossed each other before resuming the climb.

There was nobody at the New Jerusalem airport where we headed for touch and go’s. I did 8 landings of which I pulled off one of them without Steve having to touch the controls. In general, the landings were hard because I haven’t figured out how high I’m above the runway. When I thought I was inches above, I turned out to be about 10 feet above. We then returned to Livermore for the 9th landing of the day which was a straight-in approach.