More of the same...

I tried to get a bit of practice in yesterday, but my streak of bad luck with machinery was still intact. The oil seal on the nose gear strut gave out on the flight before mine, so N54666 was out for the day. N54058 was still getting it's new engine, and the other two 172s were taken. After rescheduling for today, I drove home.

Things were better today. No problems with N54666 were discovered during my thorough preflight inspection, so off I went. Same routine as my last few practice sessions. Out to the beach for maneuvers, then back to Whitted for pattern work. Nothing remarkable to report, except for the goofy winds.

I radioed Whitted tower as I crossed the beach on my way back to the airport, and as always he gave me the winds or "numbers "in pilot lingo. 080 at 4. Easy, a slight breeze almost directly down runway 7. Funny thing was, I was having to crab about 20 degrees to the south to avoid drifting north of the runway center line. It sure did not feel like any 4 knot breeze. Well, I would like to practice my crosswind landing, so I'm thinking about this: I'll crab until I cross the blast fence, then transition to a slip, right wing down, left rudder... Then the crosswind just went away. I straightened the plane and landed with almost no rudder input.

Same thing during my pattern work. I was seriously crabbed on the downwind leg, and overshot my turn to final several times due the southerly wind at pattern altitude. On the field the wind was calm. It was pretty weird as far as I was concerned, but at Bay Air, they said it have been like that yesterday.

I plan on flying cross country this Thursday, but the weather man is saying it may not happen. We'll see.

lesson 19

You'll need google earth to view the lesson 19 flight track.

Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 17.9 hours

Solo/PIC Time: 10.2 hours

Landings: 100