Airbourne again.

Had another flight today. Arrived 15 minutes early at the airfiled this
morning, as I was the first flight out, and the day was booked fairly
solid, so I wanted to get maximum air time.
Grabbed the keys, and opened the hangar, dragged out the Gazelle, and
did the pre-flight. She'd had her 100hourly this week, so I was
interested to see if I noticed anything different. Short answer to that
question was no.
The single screw that had been missing off the bottom of the cowling
had finally been replaced, and I was told that the left main tyre had a
puncture, which was now repaired. The only thing I noticed was that the
oil looked much cleaner. (Not that it looked all that dirty before.)

The sky was quite overcast, but the cloud was fairly high. There was
discussion about whether it would rain or not, (wooden prop issue
again!), and the decision was taken that it would be dry for long
enough. The forecast did not suggest rain, but the eyes suggested
different.
The wind was blowing from an unusual Westerly direction, putting it
more or less straight down runway 26. I'd not done any solo work from
26 to date, and it runs up-hill slightly, so I welcomed the
opportunity. Wind was about 8-10 knots. My instructor wanted to do 1
circuit with me to make sure the weather looked like behaving itself,
and to give me a running brief on the intricacies of landing on runway
26. (There is also a bit of a 'hill' in the middle of it!).
We did 1 circuit, and came in for a full stop. The air was quite
smooth, and I nailed the landing right where instructed, allowing for
the uphill aspect without trouble.
The instructor got out, and sent me on my way. Fuel was fairly low when
we first took off, with about 13 litres in each tank, so just over half
full. Enough for an hours flying, but not much more. She gave me the
option of doing a few circuits, or going out into the training area,
but as I'd not done any work on 26, I decided to do circuits.
As I taxiied back to 26, I realised I'd once again forgotten my
pre-landing checks, but as my instructor didn't pick me up on it
either, I didn't beat myself up over it. I did remember to do them on
every subsequent circuit, so I was happy.
I did make one other mistake today, and that was that for some supid
reason, I forgot completely about my base call, not realising until I
was about to turn onto finals. In my panic, I went to make a call
saying I was turning onto finals, but called base by mistake! Bit of a
brain fart there. Luckily, I was the only a/c in the circuit the whole
time.
2 mistakes is much better than last weeks effort, so I'm happy with how
I performed other than that.
I did a total of 7 solo circuits after dropping off the instructor, and
the wind seemed to increase with each one. The last 3 or 4 saw the
climb out get rather choppy from around 600ft to 1000ft, and the final
approach was also a bit hairy on the last 3 or so approaches, with
gusts trying to test my skills at keeping the wings level. There was
also a bit of downdraft as I came in over the (now dry) swamp area, but
my instructor had warned me about that.
I managed the wind and my landings well, in my opinion of course, and
landed where indicated to on each occaision, and again, as was
suggested, I managed to be back in the air again before reaching the
crossing runway, which has a bit of a rise to it, which can launch the
a/c somewhat if still in contact with the ground when taking off.
I mentioned the changing wind to the instructor when I got back, and
she checked the gauge. The winds had increased to about 15-20kts.
All in all, another good day. Only 1 runway I've never used now, so
looking forward to another unusual wind in the near future.
Total time now 15.9hrs (4.2 solo).

--
Oz Lander.
I'm not always right,
But I'm never wrong.