The big hope for today’s flight was to get in a solo at PDK, but alas, that didn’t happen. Conditions weren’t all that great to begin with- winds had been gusty in the morning, and were originally forecast to calm down in the afternoon. But come 4:00 and my arrival at PDK, they were still gusting decently. Still, thanks to PDK’s runway 34, it was still possible to fly in this and at least give it a college try.
Before heading out into the brisk January chill, Scott and I discussed generally the state of my training, things we had to cover, so forth and so on. High on the list are short/soft-field takeoffs and landings; I’ve become fairly proficient at the standard variety, so it’s time to be thinking about and practicing the variations. We moved to the whiteboard and briefly discussed the reasons and procedures for short/soft-field operations. Most of this I was at least passingly familiar with, so it was in a way a review for me. I just need to go put in into practice.
Out on the ramp, I ran my preflight, hopped in, and 546 fired up surprisingly easily considering the temperature. After a brief battle between my headset cable and the seatbelt, plus some additional time to get the oil temp up, we were taxiing over to 34. First order of the day: perform a short-field takeoff. No problem- get lined up, come to a full stop, go up with the throttle while holding the brakes, brakes off, rotate about 10 knots later, and immediately get stuck on Vx. Scott had already gotten me in the habit of climbing at Vx initially, so this was in my comfort zone.
Unfortunately, immediately after this, things got squirrelly and stayed that way. On the climbout, I was twitching the plane all over the place; too much right rudder, let it off, unintentional left turn, level the wings, not enough right rudder… so on through the climb. Continuing the theme, I cut my crosswind leg short and then drifted a bit towards the runway on downwind. My pattern didn’t really have a base leg- just one continuous turn to final. Then my speed control was iffy on final, and as I recall, I took a big bounce on landing. Whatever it was, it was not pretty. On the climb back up, I silently cursed my regression. I’d essentially spent the entire pattern way behind the airplane. Not good.
Things did get better from there, but never really great. I had a few more bouncers, plenty more trouble with speed control in the pattern, and I topped it off by mostly clamming up on the radio- a really essential part to flying at PDK, given the frequent special instructions in the pattern. While I don’t think I really crossed the boundary into unsafe territory, nobody needed to tell me that this wasn’t a pre-solo performance by any means. In the end, it was just an hour or so of pattern work… which, in fairness, I could have used. I hadn’t done any since mid-December, several weeks ago.
Once the plane was tied down, I had time to evaluate myself. The primary problem, really, was a mental one. From the moment I started overcontrolling the airplane in that first climbout, I was behind the airplane either a little or a lot. That’s a tough hole to dig out of in the air, especially when you start on a low note. I simply wasn’t mentally prepared before going in the air. I can’t point to any particular source of distraction, but there was definitely something. Perhaps I had visions of coming out, sticking three landings, tossing Scott out, sticking three more, returning to the ramp amid cheering onlookers, scoring a date with the supermodel who’d just happened to be watching from the observation park… you know, the usual perks that student pilots enjoy. 
In any case, it gives me something personally to work on in the future- mental preparation. I actually used to do this before going to work on busy weekend nights- spend a few minutes clearing my mind and getting things lined up- and I found then that it made a marked difference in my performance. Seems like this is a habit I ought to get into again.
In the meantime, I’m focused on surviving the blizzard conditions forecast for tomorrow night, and then getting back in the swing of things with a good flight this weekend.
