4th lesson - slow flight/first landings

Time - 1 hr
Total time - 2 hrs

Finally got in a lesson on Friday with almost perfect weather. Skies were completely clear, but there was a strong wind, 15-25 knots to be specific. It felt great to get up in the air again, especially after this disheartening weather.

It was a very busy day at the airport, with constant activity on ATC and jets and props coming in all around us. My instructor and I even heard an ATC controller notify a jet that he had to wait four and a half hours before taking off because he was flying through congested airspace! Definitely the busiest day I've been there.

Today we flew the older Skyhawks with the steam gauges, which was fine with me. After doing the whole preflight myself, we got in the plane and I asked for clearance to taxi. I talked to the tower this whole time, and I'm quickly finding that talking to ATC is one of the most fun activities I have in the airplane (besides flying it of course).

Once in the air, we flew out to the northwest and just did some general climbs, turns, descents, etc. We then practiced some slow flight, and because of the super strong winds that day, we got to the point where we were hardly moving, almost hovering above the ground. It was a very strange feeling, and it must have looked even more strange from the ground. I didn't find the slow flight too hard to maintain, although there were a lot of things to monitor at once (heading, airspeed, altitude, vertical speed, engine RPM...).

We then headed back towards the airport and I flew the approach to landing under careful instruction and flew the Skyhawk to about 15 feet over the runway when we applied full power and went around (this was the intention from the beginning). After going around, we flew left traffic and made another approach for landing. Because of the strong crosswind, we were flying the typical sideslipping "sideways" approach, which I found a little difficult and went against my instinct to keep the plane aligned perfectly with the runway.

"I" then landed the plane, although I didn't really do it myself, the instructor was doing a lot of rudder work and occasionally grabbed the yoke, but it was still quite an experience landing for the first time! A great and informative day of flying.