Nothing about flying is really "routine," but of late, the business at hand has been drilling down on my landings. Gaps in my mind have been filled in, and I'm feeling a lot more confident about my landings than I ever have. I was flying today with my secondary instructor, who has been working with me to get over my landing struggles. Today's lesson was designed to be "more of the same." Take off, hit the pattern, land. The pattern at Centennial was full, so we flew out to Rocky Mountain Metro in Boulder. I will confess that due to other things going on right now such as vacation and multiple things on the "honey-do" list, I'm writing this three weeks after this lesson, so my memory of details has gotten a bit foggy.
The big takeaway from this lesson was the importance of maintaining a tight pattern--for the benefit of everyone in the pattern. You need to be in a predictable space (absent ATC instructions to the contrary) so when ATC advises planes in the pattern of others in the pattern, we know where to look and can find the planes (or they can find us). There were a few times in the pattern where either I was a bit far from the runway or the plane I was supposed to be following was outside the pattern and I could not find him. When ATC says "you're number 3 to land" and you only see one other plane in the pattern, is he number 1 or number 2 to land? If you think he's number 2 and you follow him, the plane who is really number 2 to land is converging on the same point you're flying towards, and, well, let's just say that's a situation that needs to be avoided.
A tight pattern, mind you, is helped by landmarks on the ground that you can reference to know when to make your turns, so even on airports out in the middle of nowhere, you need to figure out points on the ground which you can quickly identify and line up with, or failing that, time your turns with a consistent count on the crosswind leg of the pattern.
After a handful of not-too-bad landings, my instructor apparently felt comfortable enough in my abilities to introduce a new wrinkle--the no-flaps, forward slip approach. He had been working with me on side slips in previous lessons as a means to keep the nose lined up with the runway. A forward slip is similar in principle, but rather than keep the nose lined up with the runway and use the ailerons to move the plane side-to-side (hence "side slip"), with a forward slip you keep the plane's course moving forward, and let the nose point to the side opposite the aileron input. The goal with a forward slip is to introduce drag, slow the plane, and lose altitude quickly (in a controlled fashion). Given a choice, I'll use flaps, but it's a good skill to develop.
We left Rocky Mountain Metro and returned to Centennial, flying south towards Chatfield Reservoir because my instructor prefers to fly routes over less-populated areas "just in case" something happens and clearings to land are easier to find. Makes sense, but my aerial photo of Coors Field will have to wait.
We got back to the field and talked about how things went. My instructor called my progress since the first time we flew together a month or so ago "miraculous." Truthfully, I'm not sure how to take that. While I will definitely say my landings have improved greatly since, I didn't think they were quite that bad to begin with. Still, progress is progress, and I'm moving closer to my goal.
