It's been a while. Three months to the day, to be exact. This delay wasn't my idea. But aviation is filled unplanned delays. After my stage check, the plan was for me to get back with either of my two instructors, hammer out the short and soft field landings, retest those, and be well on my way to finishing this process. That was the plan. I had things scheduled. Then a hail storm came through and grounded the three Grummans I have been training in. The Cessnas and Pipers were unscathed, but my poor Grummans use a thinner gauge aluminum, and just (literally) got hammered. That cancelled my "brush up my landings" flights.
While I'm waiting for the school to determine if the Grummans are to return to service, both of my instructors left the school. I knew my first instructor was on borrowed time. He had his hours and was just waiting for his class to open up with the regional airline. My second instructor abruptly retired. I was left with no airplanes to fly and no instructors to fly them with.
It took a full three months for that dust to settle. The school had to hire new instructors to pick up the extra students, and I was holding out for an instructor who was comfortable flying the school's Pipers, since they are also low wing, similar to the Grummans. The pieces finally came together again, and three months to the day since my last flight, I'm back in the air. New instructor, new plane, renewed push to get this process finished up!
This flight was a textbook "get to know each other" flight. My instructor and I had never flown together before, and I had never flown the Piper before. (Technically, I flew my friend's Piper, but that was over 20 years ago.) we kept things simple. We flew out to Spaceport, did some touch-and-goes, then returned back to Centennial. That would give my new instructor a solid baseline to gauge where I was and where I needed to go. I felt comfortable in the new plane, and I will say two things. First, where has electric trim been all my life? A simple thumb switch on the yoke allows me to effortlessly set the trim on the plane where it needs to be for climb, cruise, and landing. Second, the Piper is a joy to land for one primary reason. The landing gear built on what amounts to shock absorbers as opposed to long arms of spring metal. The difference is that when the Piper touches down, it has much less tendency to bounce back up. It still can (and does) but with nowhere near the ferocity that the Cessnas and Grummans do. It's much easier to recover from a bounced landing.
The plan going forward? Nail the landings. Get them polished so they would pass a final check ride. Get everything polished to that level, retest the cross country stage check, get that time checked off, then get ready for my final check ride, which should be very easy since my instructor is holding me to those standards at this stage. We have clear-cut expectations and a plan to get there. Now, let's just get this done!
