Since hopes are high that my medical issues will resolve themselves (or be resolvable), I decided not to cancel today’s flight lesson. Today was bitterly cold (22 degrees) with winds out of the south/southwest at a bit under 20 knots. In other words, blowing like mad. Took off on 24 for the first time in a while, headed out to the south to practice some slips. Slips aren’t anything too difficult – bank one direction, full rudder in the other direction, use bank to control direction. The point is to cause the airplane to go slightly sideways, greatly increasing drag (and therefore rate of sink). Slips are generally used on approach to lose altitude if flaps aren’t available (either because they’ve gone inoperative or the plane doesn’t have them). Actually slipping to lose altitude on the approach was pretty easy. For some reason, my final approach (after coming out of the slip) onto 24 was a bit tougher than I expected. I don’t know if I was just improperly compensating for the nice head wind or what, but I don’t think it was a big deal.

The second half of the flight was cross wind landings. I did better than the last time — I actually put the plane on the runway once. I decided to go-around once and needed help on the last approach of the day. The last one was really nasty, with winds at about 22. We were right at the max of what one can do in a Cessna 150 — in order to slip to wind correct, we were using nearly all the rudder to correct for the bank necessary to compensate for the wind. For slips to lose altitude, one uses full rudder all the time and does not point in the direction of travel. When slipping to compensate for a cross wind, the airplane is always aligned heading down the runway, bank is altered to compensate for the wind by controlling direction of travel, and rudder is altered to keep alignment. So yeah, you land on one wheel – it’s great fun.

Next up, sorting out the medical mess. And when I get back to Bloomington from winter break, a lesson on short field / soft field takeoffs and landings. For soft field takeoffs, the idea is to get off the ground below stall speed by taking advantage of ground effect, build up airspeed in ground effect, then begin the climb. Should be interesting.