Seventh Lesson

Today was my seventh flight lesson at Schlemeyer Field in Odessa, TX.  It was the most stressful and least fun so far.  Takes-offs, pattern, and landing.  Brisk wind from the east.  Runway 11.  Take-off is ok, I still have trouble steering (feet -- rudders) and putting correct back-pressure on elevator.  If you try to take off too soon (slow), you can stall and crash back into the runway.  ODO is a left-hand pattern so we turn left, left, left and do on the downwind leg past the airport.  I can see it off to my left.  Past the end of the runway a way, turn left (base), then left again.  "Schlemeyer traffic, 497 Papa Alpha final for runway one-one."  Full flaps, judge how high, full flaps in.  Today we came in a little slow most of the time.  Strong headwind makes for a steep descent to the runway.  I have trouble with the last 20 vertical feet.  So much is going on, and so much can go wrong.  I flare too early -- that is, I point the nose up too soon to slow down and descend to the runway.  Flaring slows the plane down a lot, and eventually it will crash down to the runway vertically - not good.  I had some ok landings but I'm trying to bring everything together and it isn't "automatic" yet.  It takes too much brain power and one thing going awry takes away my attention from everything else -- not good.  A frustrating lesson, but that makes me think I'm learning and it might be better next time.  Discussed a cross-country trip with my instructor down to Laquitas and over my Big Bend property.

This was my first flight (piloting) in over a week - lots going on this week.  I did get to fly (as a passenger) to Carlsbad on the company's Beechcraft King Air 350.

This cute little plane was parked outside the airport office.  It's an Encoupe or something like that.  A 2-seater that is pretty cheap to buy.  Like ~$10-15k.