Today was an absolutely beautiful day – about 40 degrees, with calm winds, almost clear skies, and great visibility. Rather than waste such a day on simulated instrument flying, we worked on take-offs and landings. Well, the hard part was the landings – the take-offs are easy at this point, but it’s hard to land without taking off first. Landings were on runway 17, which is 6500′ long, plenty of room for a long landing, roll-out, and take-off. I think we got 5, maybe 6 landings in during the hour we were in the air. I usually could get the plane lined up pretty well and on a decent glide path onto the runway. I had some trouble with the rollout to bring the plane out of the descent and onto the runway. I would start at about the right altitude but then get a little over eager and get into level flight too high. At that point, the plane isn’t going to glide until the runway quite as smooth as one might like. And since I was sitting in ground effect for so long, I’d have a tendency to let one wing drop a little bit and drift or yaw or such. I started feeling pretty comfortable with the whole thing, but need much more practice. I get my chance either Friday or Monday, depending on whether Friday gets allocated to instruments or not.

Hopefully I’ll get to the point where I’m ready to solo by early January. I need to schedule my physical and all that in the not too distant future… woo!