Lesson 10: More Rough Landings

Another visit to Menomonie, Ugly Landings

Well, it has been a week since I was able to last fly. Weather had deterred me from getting back in the air despite aggressive rescheduling, but the winds just wouldn't cooperate. Winds today were quite interesting, 170 @ 9 kts. My mother-in-law, Carol, accompanied me to the airport, she was flying back to Rochester from a weekend visit. She took a peek inside the plane and got to watch me preflight the plane. I know she was a bit worried for me, but I was hoping her witnessing how much attention we paid during preflight might help. As we climbed in and got it started, and started to taxi, I looked back and gave Carol a little wave goodbye, and we headed for runway 22 for departure. There was a Menards jet in front of us, so we had to pay extra careful attention for wake turbulence. Upon takeoff, shortly off the ground, I would say 100 ft, we hit some very interesting winds, threw the little plane around quite a bit, actually needed Jack's help to stabilize it. I asked Jack if that was the wake turbulence, he said no, it was the winds aloft that was being blocked by the buildings and other ground obstructions, once we ascended high enough, the plane got the full brunt of the winds. So, that was interesting, today's flight was bumpy, but not ridiculous. Since there was so much activity in Eau Claire, we headed to Menomonie for some pattern work, but as we started our jaunt, we were facing a very strong southern wind, and we had to make a very significant wind correction angle (crab), relative to highway 29 below, we were flying pretty sideways, probably about 25* degrees or so.

So, on arrival into Menomonie, I got the wind direction all confused, and wanted to land on runway 27, that would have been bad. Jack corrected me, since we got a southern wind, runway 18 is far more appropriate. We did 4 takeoffs and landings, they were not great, nuff said. Some of it might have been getting a little rust knocked off, but I think I just need to learn so much more. I was forgetting stuff, and constantly behind the plane. I don't know what my problem was today, but I just couldn't get things to click. I also might be expecting more of myself, but my patterns are bit oval-ish in shape instead of rectangular because I am failing to account for wind. My "flare" was too late one time, and we came down all 4 wheels rather roughly. The next time, I flared too much, and we ballooned and floated for a bit. Meanwhile, I am concentrating so much on the flare, I am forgetting the crosswind components and landing off centerline nearly always. Jack did one for me to watch again, how does he do that!? So, on our way back to Menomonie, checked weather and reset radios. Call up tower, have us coming for runway 22, they then offered runway 14. I said sure, why not. Well, Jack later advised, all things being equal, runway 22 is longer, he'd gone for that instead. Good safety tip, I proceeded to have a pretty crappy landing there. We did a quick touch and go for a final landing, and I did probably my worst landing yet. Thanks to Jack, we got it down, but I was completely lined up wrong, came in low all the way, and proceeded to bounce. Man, overall, this was probably my worst performing flight yet, I learned a lot of ways how not to land a plane, but I am not sure if that is impressing on me the correct way to land.

Anyway, despite the frustration, 1.2 hours in the logbook. The light at the end of the tunnel dimmed a bit today, but I will get back at it later this week!