Lesson #19 Soft Field Takeoff

Cherokee N560DH

The plan today was to go up with my instructor and fly to a number of airports close to Palwaukee so he could endorse me to solo as these airports as well.

I got to the airport a little early so I could get the ATIS information written down. My instructor called next and said he was running a little and that I should go pre-flight the airplane myself while I was waiting. Too bad I didn't have the key to the plane, but I took the opportunity to walk out to the plane and take some pictures.

My instructor got there a couple minutes later and we were off into the sky. From PWK we flew to C81 . My instructor promptly cut the engine as we were on the entry to the downwind leg of runway 90. No problem, I had plenty of altitude to make almost a full pattern. I added one notch of flaps, made the turn to base and still had plenty of altitude to make runway 90, added second notch of flaps and started my turn to final. PROBLEM, the tail wind on my base leg had bled off way too altitude and at this point it was obvious that I wouldn't have made then runway. I was a little upset with screw up, but after obviously not making the runway I was instructed to add some throttle so as to finish the approach with power. Here is where I was really pleased with my self. There was a direct crosswind on runway 90 and I was able to correct for it and made a very respectable landing.

A couple more laps around the patch for consisted of me making my first attempts at both a short-field, and soft-field takeoff. It was a lot of fun but I will need a bunch of work on these maneuvers. Each of my landings got a little better which I was pleased with. I did have to go around once as I wound up a little too close on my downwind which led to a u-turn final that was too fast and too high.

After the whole prop incident I wrote about yesterday I really wanted to be comfortable going around.

From C81 we headed to KUGN to get a couple of touch and gos in. As we headed northeast toward KUGN I got cleared straight in to runway 5. I made a pretty good landing on this approach. I would call this landing a greaser except that I drifted about five feet off the center line. My instructor tells me that occasionally I attempt to hold the center line with the rudder instead of the ailerons. I don't know what causes that, but I need to concentrate on this aspect more.

From here we headed home. This leg was uneventful except for one thing and it was a big thing. We flew a higher altitude than I was used to. As a result my sight picture of the terrain around PWK looked much different. I thought that ORD was PKW, not good.

Key takeaways form this, be very vigilant in watching your surroundings.