Air work and strong winds

After reviewing audio from the previous flight’s recording, we determined that the intercom was not working on the rear inputs. We can only hear the radio come through so unfortunately none of the cockpit chatter was recorded. While I squawked about this issue, since the plane is owned by Five Rivers Aviation it is really up to them to fix it.

Departed Livermore in the evening into a headwind. We flew our regular course towards Byron but the ASOS reported winds were too strong from 220 at 15 gusting to 21. Steve decided we should head towards New Jerusalem instead so we banked right over Fore Bay and did two sets of steep turns to the left then to the right. Followed by slow flight with shallow turns, power-off stall, a stall on right turn and a power-on stall. Then we did an engine out simulation.

By now the Byron area winds have increased to 20kts@220. We shot a straight in landing on Rwy 23. It was really bumpy over Fore Bay and more so as we approached the runway. We ended up being too high so the first approach and a landing wasn’t salvageable. We did a go-around and gave it one more try (good landing this time) before heading back to Livermore.

Leave a comment