Lesson 12 - First Unassisted Landing
August 15, 2022
I was waiting for this day for long time. Since past few weeks, I have been chair-flying my traffic patterns - one addition at a time, and I was eager to find out how it would translate in the actual flying. One major gap between chair-flying and actual flying is that, in chair flying, I never fail, I never make any mistakes, I am always taking off perfectly; I am always climbing and turning correctly; I am always handling the controls accurately; and I am landing just so perfect. I AM THE MAN when I chair-fly. Actual flying is stranger than that though. There is always something that changes when you are up in the air, and one small parameter can change the entire course of your traffic pattern. I was determined to cross that bridge today, and
I DID IT.
Today I had my first unassisted landing. It took about an hour or so and TEN traffic patterns to get there, but I did it, and with every single iteration, it kept getting better and better. I will describe today's progression in two distinct phases - Hero in retreat phase and Hero in victory phase.
Hero in Retreat
As I said before, I was ready for today's lesson. I was prepared to take-off, complete the traffic pattern, get to the final leg, and then land, get on the ground. I had taken care of every single adjustment there needed to be, and hit my airspeed marks in each leg - in my mind. Downwind - BOOM, Base - BOOM, Final - BOOM, Landing - BOOM, I was back on the ground successfully.
Except, I didn't.
As soon as I got on the final leg and I saw the runway in front of me, something turned in my stomach. I thought to myself,
“This can't be right. I am definitely way too high…”
At that moment I went back to the basics, to what I knew, and I announced -
“We are way too high. I am going around”
and I put full throttle in, flaps up in increament, and went around….
For 5 times. I went around for 5 times.
One time Drew just said
“There is no rush, but eventually we have to land”.
I just smiled thinking to myself - “fifth time is the charm.”
On the fifth attempt, Drew suggested on the downwind and base legs, I should pull out more throttle. I did exactly that and voila, my airspeed started to get in control much better. I was still messing around with flaps, but for most past my airspeed got in control and allowed me to have desired Base and Final leg.
Hero in Victory
Now that I had my airspeed in check, it all started to come together. My marks on Downwind, Base and Final legs were excellent and by the time I entered Final leg, my airspeed was 72 knots. That was perfect. I continued my descent with captains bars - the thick wide stripes on the runway - in the center of the windshield, put in another notch of flaps, and patiently waited for airplane to cross the threshold line. As the runway approached, making sure that the captains bars remain in their position was a little challenging. I think Drew had his hand on yoke, slightly, but I didn't notice it. All I was focused on was maintaining my airspeed, and maintaining my captains bars. All this time I heard Drew saying -
They [captains bars] creeping up... get them back...
……. Now they are in the center again
……..Now they are in the center
……….Center
…There you go... F*** YEAH.
That was mostly YOU. All I did was make sure you put them in the center. Planted it.
THAT WAS MY FIRST UNASSISTED LANDING.
I wanted more, I was already at an hour mark; but what the heck, I did few more traffic patterns. The last one, my 10th traffic pattern was HANDS DOWN MY BEST TRAFFIC PATTERN SO FAR. On that traffic pattern I managed my airspeed, my altitude, turns, climbs and descents so well, that by the time I was over the runway threshold, I was at 67 knots, which made my landing into a short field landing, albeit unintentional, it was my FIRST hands-on short field landing experience. I experienced the other side of the “Power Curve” on that landing, which was necessary. Now that I have experienced it, I can use it to work on perfecting the normal landing.
That was it. Extremely happy after today's lesson. Now this has to become my new normal so that we can proceed with other important lessons.
A good day indeed !
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