Lesson 4: Rectangular Course

Flight #3. My log book reads: "One normal take off & landing. Four fundamentals slow clean. Rectangular Course."

So this is beginning to become somewhat routine (ok, not really... but I can see this becoming so soon). I preflighted (on my own this time -- Betsy apparently trusts me enough). Radio check, pre-taxi checklist, taxi, pre-takeoff checklist, takeoff checklist, take off, depart the area for the West Practice Area. Got that down pretty well now.

We repeated the Four Fundamentals: turns, climbs, descents, level flight. We then went to the "old Sanford airport" which is now closed. This made it good to practice a "rectangular course". We flew the four legs of a standard pattern at pattern altitude (1,000 feet above ground). This helped me begin to appreciate the effects of wind on the plane as I tried to keep the runway 1/2 mile away at all times. To do this I had to change my rate of turn to compensate for the differing relative wind direction. Likewise, I had to alter my course to "crab" into the wind to maintain a steady ground course. This is, in a nutshell, really challenging.

Three things made this particularly nerve wracking:

1) The air was a little turbulent, plenty of bouncing up and down. I had enough to think about trying to keep the rectangle rectangular, so maintaining a steady altitude was really hard and frankly I kept messing up. I'd be 100 feet out of position before Betsy gently chided me.

2) The land that this airport is on was repurposed and is now used for Fire/EMS. To support their mission there's a 232 foot radio antenna right next to the old runway. Betsy continually reminded me that it would not make a good hood ornament. It was 700 feet below me but when I dropped too low it was suddenly 600 feet away and that makes folks nervous -- especially me.

3) There was inbound traffic for runway 3 at our airport. This abandoned airport was just 6 miles south of our airport. Inbound traffic was passing overhead at 1,500 AGL. Let me tell you, the first time I saw another plane pass me in the opposite direction just 500 feet above me, I thought, wow... that's really close... and he's going really fast. And I realized, hey I'm up here in "slow flight" doing 80 kts or 92 mph. The other guy's doing about the same. So yeah, a 180mph closing speed is something that I'm just not that used to seeing. I guess I'll get used to it. :-)

Finally, we headed home and Betsy landed us again. The landing seemed smooth and easy and I think I could take a crack at it. Hopefully next time.