It was just cloudy enough that it would have been difficult to find space to fly simulated instruments, so instead we had hour 2 of take-off and landing. Flight was at 8:00am, and it was very cold (under 20 degrees) when we started. Thankfully, the plane was in the BMG maintenance hanger overnight, which is heated. So preflight and all that was done in the hanger, where it was not toasty but not so cold that your fingers went numb trying to get the oil cap off. We were taking off and landing on 35 today (1), which was the opposite end of the runway from last time. There was a 7-10 knot cross wind out of the west. I managed to get relatively comfortable with the cross wind approach. You end up in a cross-control situation when making a cross wind approach. The plane is banked into the wind to stay on course directly down the runway and the rudder is used to put the plane into a slip so that the nose continues to point directly down the runway (2).

Once again, had trouble rolling out at the proper altitude or rolling out too quickly, leading to slight ballooning and a harder landing than I would like. I still didn’t feel like I was in control of the craft to the extent that I would like – I was letting the plane get away from me as we got closer to the ground. My approaches weren’t as clean as I might like, but I think I was getting more comfortable during the lesson. One thing I need to work on is the accuracy of my adjustments. I tend to over-adjust, leading to me chasing the plane. For example, I would take off too much bank when I noticed that I was overslipping against the cross wind and end up on the downwind side of the runway, then have to bring it back. At least the oscillation was dampened, I suppose.

(1) If you ever wondered how runways got their designations, it’s the magnetic compass reading, rounded to the nearest 10 degrees, with the last digit (obviously always a zero once rounded) removed. So if you are pointed down runway 35, you should have a compass heading of 350 degrees. Obviously, runway 17 is the other end of runway 35. If there are two parallel runways, you end up with 35 L and 35 R, for Left and RIght. Left and right are in reference to the position you would be when looking down runway 35 from the 35 end.

(2) Normally, if you want to follow a course with a cross-wind, you do what is called crabbing. You have a heading slightly into the cross wind such that the cross wind is cancelled out and you follow your intended heading. So if you want to go due north and there is a cross wind out of the west, you might hold a heading anywhere from 1-30 degrees west of due north.

Wow – footnotes in a log entry…