Well this was my first flight lesson on a weekday and I can say I actually enjoyed it. I had an appointment for 2:30pm at my normal flight school with my usual instructor, Ami Kaufman. Again, I brought my grandfather with me on this lesson and I’m glad he got to share the experience with me as he is the only family member that understands the feeling I get when I fly.

I did all the preflight checks by myself prior to the flight and when everything was said and done my instructor joined me in the cockpit. Due to heavy traffic on 16R, we were notified by VNY tower that we were cleared for immediate takeoff on 16L. We made our right crosswind departure over Warner Center and back over Simi Valley.

There was a horrible visibility due to low clouds and for the first time since I began my training, there was a bit of a wind. We made sure that we were clear of any traffic and proceeded to review steep turns and stalls. After that, we picked up where we left off and did some ground reference maneuvers. We went over some turns around a point and rectangular courses which felt like I was learning them again due to the wind factor. After completing a couple of those successfully, we moved on to some S-turns.

We used the 118 freeway as a reference point and did S-turns for about 20 minutes making sure we were purpendicular to the freeway before each turn. After I was comfortable enough with ground reference for the day, we made our call to VNY tower for permission to land and were granted to do so on 16R. Again, I began the approach but unfortunately the crosswind was a bit to much for me to do the actual landing so I was assisted by my CFI.

I was able to log another 1.2 hours.