Ah yes, another long silence brought to you by your favorite procrastinator. Fear not, I haven’t given up, though it has been over a week since I flew. Most recently, I passed my written exam (last Saturday) and scheduled my checkride for what is now only six days away. Overall, I feel ready, though I do need to notch in another 1.2 hours of solo time to officially meet the requirements. The last week has been a lovely conglomeration of sickness for me, followed by four days of nasty weather when I actually got to feeling well again.
I did get in a few short flights recently; the Friday before last, Scott and I went up to Dahlonega (1A0) to get in some short-field practice. That’s pretty much a requirement at 1A0, which is nestled in the foothills just south of the Chattahoochee National Forest, up near the North Carolina border. I still don’t feel like I have the hang of making the steeper descent while effectively managing my airspeed, but I still managed to put the DA-20 down on the numbers a time or two. Some more practice in this area is going to be called for prior to taking the big ride, one of the thing I intend to work on during my remaining solo time. (and probably some dual as well) That flight also saw some soft-field practice back at PDK- I do much better at these, though I still feel I could put some work into setting the airplane down gently.
A few days later, I met Scott for a review session prior to my written exam. Winds were up and gusty that day, so we took a break from the bookwork to head to LZU and expose me to a bit more of a challenge. The wind played havoc with my pattern and approach, and I never did really get a good feel for putting the plane in a sideslip for a good final and touchdown- still, I got some much-needed experience, as well as a small slice of humble pie. I’m hoping to get out on a day with a bit of crosswind just so I can work at getting a good feel for the fundamentals of sideslipping without the additional stakes of gusts to make things hairy. This approach worked for me earlier, when I was working on coordinating my turns- some time over Lanier just banking the plane left and right got me doing well at that.
As of today, I met with Scott again and went through a mock oral exam, which also served the purpose of reviewing the items I missed on the written. That was a bit of an eye-opener; there’s nothing quite as humbling as being asked a question and performing the “uhh…err..welllll…” routine. Luckily, those didn’t happen a lot, and gave me some guidance as to areas that I can stand to shore up over the next few days.
So far, the weather is looking like it may cooperate next weekend, and the weather this week is mostly good, allowing ample opportunity to squeeze in a polish-up flight or two. In the meantime, I’ve got information to gather and a cross-country to plan for inspection by The Man.
