Another Sunday and another lesson.
The weather was good in Santa Clarita and amazingly, the same was found when we got to Van Nuys.
First up, was the tee shirt ceremony. It was presented to my son and as we expected, it had it's back removed and there were all sorts of things written on it. What the day was like, who was there, what time the solo happened and who his instructor was. It was a very cute thing and we had a good laugh at it. In bad news, we had to wait for the fuel truck to arrive, so they were a bit delayed, but eventually they left me to my work. They were going to do a short take off and a short landing today and then some touch and goes. So they do their short take off and then I go do my work, watching out for them as they do their thing. I finish my work early and then go sit under the wing of a nearby plane that is tied down. I notice that there is a small wind coming from what I thought was the South and it goes under the wing and then hits my back. I don't think much of it, it seems innocuous enough. After about 45 minutes, they land and pull over to near where I am sitting. I decide to get out of their way and go inside the hanger to watch. They talk for a bit and then, just like last time, my son's teacher gets out of the plane and comes over to me. I ask how many he will be doing today and the teacher says that he will do three touch and goes, since he needs to do them for his official Solo sign off. I watch him do the run up again and he takes off effortlessly a few minutes later. As he comes around and passes us to the east, we find out that he is number 3 for landing. The airport has become a bit more busy, then it was when he soloed a few days ago. He gets into the cue for landing and his landing is pretty good and then up he goes again. When he is coming around for the second time the teacher hears the air traffic controller tell him that she has 2 other planes right behind him and she needs him to get off the runway ASAP. My son does not acknowledge this, but to the instructor it seems as though the plane lifted off a bit early and he mentions it to my son as they do the debrief at the end. He tells my son to never let the air traffic controller force you into doing something unsafe. If you can do it safely, that's great but if you can't, do what you have to do and let them deal with the other planes, wave one off or whatever. My son successfully gets the plane back in the air after that fast take off and goes around for his third and final time. When he gets clearance from the tower for a touch and go he answers back that he will be doing a full stop landing this time around and then he does so. He again took a bounce but he got the plane down safely and quickly taxied over to our position at the hanger. The debrief went well, all in all. The first thing the teacher mentions is the wind that I had noticed earlier. He quizzes my son about it and says that at one point, when they were flying together, it was 9 at 12 and he almost canceled the solo part of the flight, due to it. Thankfully the wind died down, but if it hadn't, he asks my son, why would he have canceled it? He explains that due to the fact that the wind was coming from the West (thus a cross wind) and too much of it, makes takeoffs and landings unsafe. If he had been up in the air, obviously, you deal with it, but if it had been that way in the beginning, it would stop a flight.
He then moves on to what my son's flight looked like to him.
He makes a comment about my son cutting his corners a bit on his first final approach. Then he metions the "Don't let them rush you" comment for that second take off. Then he metions the bounce on the final landing. You don't want to get the plane into an oscillating pattern, of bounce, jump, bounce, jump, bounce, jump. So you give it a bit of power and get the nose down a little and touch down gently. My son then parks the plane in the hanger and we head out. No lesson next week, but the instructor wants him to come down to the airport on his own and take it out for a little bit between lessons. Yikes!
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Photo Credit:
A piece of the signed shirt
showing the plane, us
cheering, the runway and
the fact that my son was
PIC or Pilot in Charge!
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