Monthly Archives: November 2015

Another second solo

Aviation, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Perfect weather today with calm winds. We headed to Byron first. An airport vehicle was performing runway field inspection at Byron on the 23/05 runway, but only after radioing to confirm nobody will be headed that way. We announced our intention to land on 30.

We did a regular landing and takeoff at Byron followed by a soft field landing and takeoff at Tracy and a no flap landing at New J. On the last one, I significantly overshot the runway (because we were faster than usual) before correcting for the landing. On the next landing, used a slip to slow down and drop altitude. Balked landing next – “there is a cow on the runway”. Final landing was a bit rough, after which Steve asked me to fly a solo completing three patterns around the airport.

There was a pickup truck beside the runway at New J which we had spotted on the first approach. It was apparently owned by a CFI who happened to be there that day to fly a paraglider (which was tucked into his trunk). After the solo, Steve told me that that CFI complimented me on all three landings and takeoffs.

 

Soft field takeoffs and landings

Aviation, , , , , ,

Ceiling at Livermore was 1500’ broken so our pattern today was lower than usual. A storm was about to roll in. When we see seagulls in the airport vicinity, Steve forecasts that a storm is impending. There were lots of birds today and once we had to bank sharply to the left on the upwind after takeoff to avoid some of them.

Today we focused on soft field takeoffs and landings. We did the landings with only 20 degrees of flaps and with a little bit of power (65kts instead of the usual 60kts) to hold the plane off the rough runway. If this was a real soft field, then the extra speed will help touch down gently and also in not letting the wheels dig into the muck.

Winds picked up after a few touch and go’s, turning into 240@10. On one of the patterns, a twin Diamond was departing ahead of us so tower asked us to extend downwind and called our base turn.