Strange Day

I had one of those days again. Nothing went as planned. It was my intention to finish my simulated instrument time today, but that hope was dashed when Rob called and told me he couldn't make it today. No problem, I still need some more solo time, and I wanted to work on my maneuvers. So, I preflighted N54159, not my favorite plane, and off I went.

I had the standard drill in mind. Slow flight, stalls, steep turns, emergency landings and ground reference maneuvers. Well, the slow flight and stalls were sort of weird. It was very cool this morning with a 14 knot breeze out of the northeast. The altimeter setting was 30.45, the highest I can recall. I'm hoping it was these conditions that screwed up my stalls, or lack thereof. The plane didn't want to stall at all today. I preformed a power-on stall, the more violent kind, where the plane mushed through a very gentle stall. Tried it again with the same result. For slow flight, I had the plane under 40 knots and the stall horn barely whined. Did I mention that the plane climbed like rocket. Trimmed for a 76 knot climb, the plane was pitched so high it scared me and the VSI was pegged out. I went to an 85 knot climb which felt a lot more comfortable.

Too strange for me, so I moved on to maneuvers. Those went well. I went through several simulated emergency landing with no problems. The high winds made it an ideal day for ground reference. I flew low over Fort Desoto Park and flew turns around the water tower. Once again I forgot to turn on my GPS logger, so I can't check to see that I made nice circles, but they looked good from the sky. After a few steep turns it was time to head back to Whitted for some pattern work.

At Bay Air, students aren't allowed to do touch and goes, so I land and taxi back for take off and the controller tells me that I'm cleared to take off, runway 7, left traffic??? We always fly right traffic from runway 7, so I asked ATC to repeat the instructions. Left traffic. There's a reason for the right traffic pattern on 7. Left traffic would take me over downtown St. Petersburg, where there's nothing in the way of emergency landing sites and plenty of tall buildings. Someone in a helicopter was practicing something south of runway 36, hence the left traffic. I make one trip around the pattern and felt uncomfortable enough to call it a day. When I got back to Bay Air, even the CFIs said they didn't much care for the left traffic patten.

My medical flight test is definitely scheduled for Friday the 23rd. I'll be glad to get that behind me. The FAA inspector that is going with me sounds like a nice guy. I can't imagine that I will have trouble with it, but because it could put an end to my flying days, I am a bit nervous about it. I plan on practicing again early next week, especially the emergency landing procedure and pattern work that will comprise the flight test.

Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 23.3 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 17.0 Hours

Landings: 132