Ground shy

It had been three weeks since my last flight for various reasons. Today’s aim was simple, throw out a couple of circuits with Bob on board, let him get out and then head out to Claremont to practice some airwork type stuff.

We took advantage of the relative lull in traffic to practice some short field takeoffs and landings.  There is nothing fundamentally hard about these but they take both practice and nerve. I don’t like forcing the nose down on takeoff, it really isn’t right you know. Bob calls me “ground shy” and he’s not far wrong to be honest. There’s a fine line between holding it in ground effect and dinging the prop on the runway. I tend to fight Bob’s insistence that I keep the nose down because I’m scared of doing the latter. Probably doesn’t help that we have a pretty long runway to play with at CYTZ. If the runway was a bit shorter I’d probably have a bit more of an incentive to get the technique right.

Landings are much easier, full flaps and a slightly slower approach speed. Despite having a not-so-quiet bitch at myself on the way down, I managed a very acceptable short field landing where I could have easily got it off at 33.

Then it was back to the apron to drop Bob off and head back out on my own. Circuit flying has become so routine now, almost carried out automatically. A long way from this time last year where I was bemoaning how much you had to cram in. The Claremont run is rapidly approaching that level too. I had a good idea of what I needed to do out there, a solid plan.

You know what they say about the best laid plans? Well they’re right. It didn’t work out at all as planned.

More next time.