What a bummer!

Well – on the basis that I know that I learn more from my mistakes than from what I do well – todays taildragging lesson ranks as one of my most ‘successful’ learning session yet! Yep – what a b*tch of a session!

To be fair(and to make excuses), the weather was not ideal (when is it ever) with the wind at 40 degrees from the runway and varying between 4kts and 16kts in the space of a few seconds – not ideal for taildragging but the sort of experience I need (and yes, I would laugh at such conditions in the Arrow – ‘that’s not a crosswind – it’s just a bit of a giggle!’).

This is now my third instructor (in less than 5 hours) and this time it was the club CFI. He had some quite different ground handling ‘learning points’ for me and my taxy speed was now reduced to a ‘fast crawl’.

On my first circuit, the take-off run wasn’t wonderful, but I managed. I followed the ‘tight and low’ circuit my original instructor had shown me, which was commented on by the CFI saying that I must climb straight ahead to 600’ before turning crosswind, avoid this village etc. to the new 1000’ circuit height. OK – none of this is a problem, but by the time he had finished, I missed my normal turning point and had to extend downwind to avoid overflying a NIMBY village. By the time I had done this I had ‘lost’ the airfield and had to have it gently pointed out to me! The approach was OK but not great and the landing was not great but I made it.

The second take-off was better, but still not good. The circuit was a far more normal ‘spamcan’ circuit which gave me loads more time to settle. The approach was much better, but I obviously mucked up the landing as I bounced it pretty big-time and the CFI initiated a go-around.

Next circuit was the same and the approach was actually very nice. My landing was acceptable and I controlled the run.

The evening gloom was closing in, but time for one more. The take-off was actually quite good this time and I started to settle in, thinking ‘let’s make this a good one’. A nice circuit and a good approach – all the right ingredients. But the landing was horrible as again I bounced it in and the CFI initiated a go-around. This time he flew a low level circuit to land as a few minutes later would mean a night landing on the other runway.

He was very kind and said it was coming (yeah – so’s Christmas!) and I needed more practice and that the crosswind was not particularly easy. All very nice, but it did dent my confidence.

Basically I did not relax into it, was gripping the stick pretty hard on the approach and I think I was trying too hard and not ‘feeling’ the plane. I honest did learn a lot this time. Next time I will forget about trying to impress anyone or whether and if I might get signed-off and simply enjoy it for what it is – oh, and book an earlier slot so I am not trying to land in gloom – so yes, I have booked 16:00 on Friday the 13th October – strangely, not many bookings on that day – wonder why?

I’ll get there, but I have to be far more ‘Zen’ like and ‘feel the force’.