Sorry for the delay but work has been hectic as of late. As far as lesson #9 goes, it was much different than any other training I have done up to this point. First off, my regular instructor fell ill so he was unable to make my 4:00pm appointment (which would have also been his last as he is leaving the country). Fortunately, there was an instructor at my flight school who was able to take over for the day’s lesson.
The new instructor, Meiko Powers, went over some ground training with me before my preflight inspection regarding some pattern work. We discussed the pattern around VNY and she taught me about what airspeed we would need to fly at when on the downwind, base, and final approach. My regular instructor was going to go over landings with me today and Meiko didn’t disappoint. We went through the pattern about 8 times which included 6 take offs and landings and a couple of go arounds due to high arispeeds at the approach.
Our routine was to fly off of runway 16L (which is a significantly shorter runway that the 16R I was used to) for some closed traffic work. We climbed at 70 knots of airspeed and headed due East avoiding Burbank air traffic and even a police helicopter at one point. On the downwind, we leveled off at about 1800 feet keeping 85 knots of airspeed and losing 10 knots on the base and another 10 knots on final. There were a couple of rough landings but it is all part of the learning experience. Unfortunately, things were not made easier by the fact that there was a crosswind coming from the East but it was an extremely productive lesson. I logged 6 take offs and landings and another 1.5 hours of flight time for a total of 10.4 hours to date. Unfortunately, I will have to take a week off since I have a planned trip to Las Vegas this weekend, but I will make it up the following week.
As far as instructor goes, I was very comfortable with Meiko and will see if she has time for another regular student. Here is a news article from an emergency landing that Meiko made recently that is extremely interesting.
