Today was a full day of training, and we each got 2 flights in. Although the weather was forecast to be better in the afternoon, it was actually worse with some really low clouds through the hills that we need to fly over between Vernonia and Scappoose. Fortunately, Mike knows the terrain like the back of his hand, so we were able to scud run between the hills and the low-level clouds and get through. We did have to try a couple of valleys before we found one where we could make it through though.
The first flight in the morning was mostly takeoff and landing practice like yesterday with stop and go, three-point landings. I still bounced a few, but I’m quickly getting the hang of landing the plane. During the second flight, we moved on to wheel landings and power off approaches. The wheel landings are a little more sensitive than the Decathlon I’ve been flying, but two out of the three I tried were pretty good. Power off approaches were interesting as the descent angle is very steep at 85 MPH, full flaps, and no power. We started our base turn abeam the touchdown point and that worked out well. I was able to nail all of those without a problem.
Tomorrow, weather permitting, we’ll wrap up with short and soft field takeoffs and landings and maybe a bit more air work.