Lesson 59 - Zen Interrupted

I don't know that I really intended to have back-to-back solo flights, but--hey--I have the endorsement, I may as well enjoy it, right? My previous solo flight was more of a "you're finally up here by yourself" flight, so this time it was time to get to work. Today was "brush up your landings" day. 

The pattern at Centennial was full, so I flew out to Spaceport. The winds were out of the south, so I thought that would be perfect. Straight down the runway. I get out to Spaceport, call the tower, and ask for touch-and-goes. They say sure. Fly to Bennet and straight in on runway 26. Um, the winds are straight out of the south. Why not 17? No. That would make too much sense. Sorry, they're using 17 only for departing traffic. Anyone wanting to do pattern work will be using 26. Landing on 26 with winds out of the south means a crosswind, and a direct one at that. I ask for an update on the winds. 170 degrees at 8 knots. With my solo endorsement, 8 knots is the maximum crosswind I'm allowed to land in if I'm by myself. I was "legal." Unsure, untested, but legal. I figured I'd have a go at one, and if I didn't like it, I'd go around and just depart to the south. 

I have actually flown crosswind landings many times on my simulator at home. I've got different scenarios set up with varying degrees of crosswinds. I'll scroll through them as I practice so to mix things up a bit. It's good practice to build muscle memory, but the sim is never "quite" like the real thing. Fortunately like the sim, today's wind was a steady 8 knots, so there wasn't a whole lot of adjustment I needed to do to stay on centerline. The key is to crab the nose into the wind just a bit so you keep your course over the ground in line with the centerline of the runway on your approach. Once you're on short final or crossing the threshold of the runway (wherever you feel comfortable), dip your wing into the wind and apply opposite rudder. Dipping your wing into the wind creates a turning force to combat the wind, and opposite rudder points the nose of plane straight down the runway so when you touch down, you're rolling in the right direction, not headed off to the side. It's a bit of a dance and one that definitely takes practice to get right.

I'll be perfectly honest and say I surprised myself on my first landing. It was rather smooth and (mostly) on center. I figured that was good enough to build upon, so I stayed in the pattern and flew a half dozen or so more landings. None were "perfect," but all were pretty decent and I felt in control of the process the entire time. Today was definitely a confidence builder. Good solo flight getting out to Spaceport, good crosswind control on landings, I was actually reveling in the moment. 

Feeling good about things thus far, I figured I'd cap the day off by flying solo over my house. It's on the way back, so I wasn't going to be going out of my way or anything. I found the major cross street near my neighborhood and lined up to fly over it. I was thinking about quickly texting my wife to have her look out the window (voice to text in a loud cockpit would be interesting, but no worse than it butchers my usual messages). It was just me, my thoughts, and the cool notion of waving to my family as I flew over the house.

"Three Eight Eight Charlie, are you on frequency?"

Oh, crap! There's that little thing you have to do called "talking to the airport you want to land at." I was so caught up in the zen of the moment I forgot I still had real work to do. Fortunately I had not yet entered their air space; I was still a few miles out and flying a course which would have me skirt the outside of it. However, I'm in a trainer whose call numbers ATC sees multiple times per day as student after student flies the plane out and returns to the airport. They had every expectation that I was going to turn inward at any moment. 

The thoughts in the previous paragraph raced through my mind in about half a second as I was snapped out of my state of zen, and I told ATC that I was indeed listening to them. They instructed me to continue to runway 17-left to land. By this time I was nearly over my house, so I just waved quietly as I flew overhead. 

The takeaway? Never get so caught up in the fun that you forget you still have a job to do. I didn't bust any airspaces or break any rules, but I was not giving the primary task at hand the attention it needed. I'm not naive enough to say it will never happen again, but it was a glimpse into how easily it is to get into that mind space.