Lesson 10: Crosswind traffic pattern and landings, go arounds, and pilotage

Today I did some practice landings at Ridgely airport. I successfully piloted the plane to the airport using both the GPS and basic pilotage. There was a nice 7 knot crosswind which made my day of practice landing a bit difficult. The first step I needed to master was trimming the plane for a 60-65 knot airspeed. If you increase the engine power you must pitch the nose up and if you decrease the engine power you must pitch the nose of the plane down in order to maintain airspeed. It took me awhile to master this and my flight instructor suggested changing the title of my blog from "Trim for Level Flight" to "Trim for the APPROPRIATE AIRSPEED!!!" The next step was to master my geometry at 1,100 feet. The traffic pattern "should" be rectangular. Now, with the crosswind my rectangle began to look like a trapezoid, then a parallelogram/ellipse, and finally the traffic pattern became rectangular. Hint - crab into the crosswind and reference the runway so you know when to enter each leg of the traffic pattern. After that I needed to remind myself to maintain a 60 knot airspeed during the base and final approach legs of the traffic pattern. Airspeed is your lifeline! If you pull the nose up in an attempt to gain altitude (because the houses and power lines are looking awfully close) you will only go down faster. You must add power to gain altitude. This took me a few go arounds to get down before I finally had a sufficient final approach and landed.

After a few more landings I was physically and mentally tired so I suggested we head back to Bay Bridge airport. There were many snow geese out today. It is amazing to watch migratory birds flocking together. There were hundreds of these white snow geese flying below us above the Chesapeake Bay. It was an awesome site.

After much landing practice at Ridgely I was ready to put my knowledge to the test at Bay Bridge. Guess what? I forgot all that I learned about maintaining airspeed and decided to pull up on the nose to gain altitude but that only slowed me down more. I remembered to add power but forgot to pull up on the nose. Again....another lesson I had just learned. My flight instructor reminded me to roll the plane into the crosswind as we came into the landing and finally touchdown back at Bay Bridge. Practice, practice, practice and I soon will have mastered the landing of an airplane!