So what is in double digits you ask? My flight time. After today’s lesson I am at 11.4 hours and moving closer to my solo.
Today was the first time I have flown in the morning and the first time I have flown without any wind. The winds have always been blowing when I have flown in the afternoon/evening but this morning it was calm. I think I actually prefer to fly with some wind.
There are some great advantages to training out of Chino, nice wide long runways, plenty of planes so I have never had a problem getting a plane to fly, plenty of VFR days, learning at a towered field with some great controllers, and this morning I found another advantage to learning at Chino. Chino is a very busy airport at times…
This morning after we were given clearance to cross 26R and hold short at 26L we were told to switch frequencies. The airport was so busy this morning that the split up the runways onto separate channels because there were too many planes to be on one channel. There were often 3-4 planes in the pattern on 26L the whole time as well as the ones taking off and arriving.
With so many planes in the pattern and coming and going I got the chance to handle some different instructions from ATC. They had me extending out my upwind and downwind certain distances. They had me extending out and waiting for them to call my turns. I had to pay attention to the other planes in the pattern and who I was following so I knew when to make my base turns. All in all, some great experience on the radio and in the pattern that I would not have at a slower airport.
Today we worked on short field take offs and landings as well as soft field take offs and landings. The short field take off was fine but on the soft field take off I came up through the ground effect too quickly and almost stalled it, that is going to take some more practice. The landings were okay, but they need some more work too. There is nothing off the end of the runway in Chino so you have to pretend there is an imaginary 50′ obstacle there that you have to clear which in my mind is more difficult than actually having something to look at.
We landed and got our taxi instructions back to the hanger. As we turned off ‘Delta’ onto ‘Mike’ there was another plane coming towards us.
Me: “What the heck?” (As I pull the power, put on the brakes, and steer to the left side of the taxiway, he was on the right side of the center line.)
CFI: “He sees us” (The guy in the right seat had the door open a little and was waving us forward as they rolled off the taxiway onto the ramp area.)
ATC: “85Romeo, be aware of the Archer on the taxiway who IS NOT ON THE FREQUENCY.”
Me: “Thanks, we see him.”
We never left the pattern today, just around and around which was just fine with me. I really don’t care where I’m flying, it’s just great to be up in the air…
The plan is to have my phase check the next time up, followed by my solo check ride the next time, followed by my solo.
