Zippin' Around The Pattern

After wussin' out Saturday, I was determined to get back into the plane as soon as possible, even though I was kinda sleepy and not feeling at the top of my game.

The wind was calm and the visibility was good, so I preflighted the plane, taxied out, did the run up, and set out to do some touch and goes. I was doing everything perfectly right up until I hit the throttle and got ready to take off.

At which point I appeared to forget everything that J. had taught me, and proceeded to spend 48 minutes flailing around in the pattern, making a bunch of sloppy, hard landings, and one really nice one. After about the third takeoff, I remembered that I was supposed to be using right rudder to keep it flying smoothly on takeoff, and I caught myself slipping up to 1,600 feet instead of the appropriate 1,400 feet, as I listened to traffic on the radio.

Argh, all in all, a not particularly wonderful day, but I guess I showed that I didn't mind flying by myself, and I managed to get in a little practice. And, hopefully, I'll get better with more practice. As my pilot buddy from work, T., pointed out, things coulda gone a lot worse...