Lesson 22 + 23: Short field take-off and soft field landing

Today I learned how to take off on a short field as well as how to execute a soft field landing. The short field take-off is necessary if you have an obstacle to clear at the end of a runway, or if you need to establish a best angle of climb to gain altitude quickly. For starters, I had to align the plane with the end of the runway to establish the largest field possible for take-off. I held in the brakes as far as they could go and I pushed the throttle forward until I read 4,900rpms and I released the brakes. The plane lurched forward and began the ground roll. With 10 degrees of flaps and full throttle the plane popped off the runway and I established a 55knot climb. Once above the tree line I pushed the nose down slightly and established a 65knot climb and finally removed the 10 degrees of flaps. After flying the downwind I began to set-up for final approach. On the base leg I deployed 20 degrees of flaps with a 60knot decent. Upon final approach I put in the last notch of flaps and the plane slowed down to 55knots. On final approach my flight instructor asked me to land on the first centerline stripe after the numbers on the runway. I had to then pick a landing spot and aim for it so that during my flare over that spot I would eventually land over the first stripe. The first couple of attempts I passed up my mark. I had to figure out how to judge my landing and the amount of flare so that I could land on my required stripe on the centerline. Each time I attempted this landing I was able to practice my short field landing. It was tough working on the landings and I needed to knock the rust off due to the lack of flight time I had in the past couple of weeks. This was especially true for my feet. I needed to work on controlling the plane in the crosswinds. It was time for me to land and work on crosswinds for another day.