Monday, September 22, 2008

The flying anvil.


I'd Like My 152 Please

I hate to brag (no really) but I was pretty good at landing the Cessna 152. Occasionally, I greased a landing or two. But I tell you, this Warrior II is challenging my patience. It really is slowing down my training and I'm getting grumpy about being forced to switch. I've accepted the fact that I do have to finish my training with the Warrior but I really hope I can smooth out the landings. Here is a play-by-play of my typical landing:

Set up approach
Going too fast, pitch up
Uh oh, going too slow, pitch down
Too low! Throttle up!
Whoa, too high! Cut throttle.
Whoops, too slow, pitch down!
There's the runway, start your flare...hold it...
Why is it so hard to pull the yoke back on flare?!?!?!?
SPLAT.

Oh yeah, I had a dual night cross country on Sunday night and I pretty much suck at cross country and night flying. I came close to a stall turning base to final at STC and jacked up the landing. Also, I was way behind the airplane in terms of setting radio frequencies, and my checklists took forever because of the darkness and I don't have them all the way memorized yet. So, I wasn't thrilled with the flight at all. However, I did manage to get us to our destinations using VOR navigation just fine. There's your silver lining I guess. At least the weather was great for flying.

Wednesday i get checked out for solo flight in the Warrior (more $$$ - whoopdee do). I'll post more when I'm in a better mood.

Google Earth Track: Flying Cloud to Saint Cloud
Logbook: Logshare

2 comments:

Steve said...

So what's the main thing with the Warrior... does it just feel like it wants to float and then all of a sudden it's slamming down to Earth? Switching planes can sure take some getting used to - I'm still not totally "right" with the 150 on landings myself.

Even if you were all over the place on the X-C, you did indeed make it there and back. So regardless of how it felt, you did more than a couple things right! I'm sure once you get to solo X-C work it'll all come together.

Keith K. said...

Yeah I think I just need to get out in some good daytime weather and fly the pattern solo until I figure it out. But to answer your question, yeah, it flares ok, but then drops like a rock. I think I need to pull the yoke back a bit quicker to slow down and drop more gently.

When you figure out the 150 you'll be greasing all your landings, if it's anything like the venerable 152.