This morning my instructor and I decided to do some pattern work and give me a chance to do several touch and go’s.
It was a beautiful morning with about a 6 kt crosswind, giving me my first opportunity to learn about crabbing the aircraft.
I got to the hangar around 530 am. I performed a preflight inspection, including checking the aircraft for fuel. We had just over 10 gallons in each wing, so I knew we had plenty of fuel since our C-152 burns about 6 gallons and hour.
I like getting to the aircraft early and doing the pre-flight before my instructor gets there. This gives me a chance to get familiar with the checklist at a pace where I don’t feel so rushed. By the time my instructor got there, I already had the aircraft out of the hangar and ready to perform our start up.
We were the second aircraft taking off this morning. The first was an older tail dragger. We noticed that the pilot did not make any radio calls as he left the run-up area and taxied out to the active.
We stayed in the pattern and worked on landings. I had the chance to practice landing six different times. As we turned to the downwind leg after our 7th take-off, I noticed the tail dragger we encountered earlier in the pattern and heading from downwind to base. He was holding a much tighter pattern than us and was only about 400-500 feet off the deck.
By the time we were to get set up to land the tail dragger was doing what seemed to be an extremely slow touch and go. My instructor and I aborted our landing and did a very wide go-around, keeping the other aircraft in our sight the entire time.
At this point, my instructor took over the controls, landed our aircraft, and then let me handle the taxi procedure. Today we had to drop our airplane off to be serviced, so I had the opportunity to see how this is done.
From my very first flight, my instructor (Jeff) has said that there are other people out there who are flying around and just waiting to kill me. Together we have discussed the shortcuts and outright disregard other pilots have for safety. It was good to see this firsthand.
Total Hours: 7.4 Dual
Landings: 22
Areas Covered to Date: Take-Offs, Landings, Power On/Off Stalls, Slow Flight, and Pattern Work
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