After a SNAFU this weekend, I was a little nervous. Basically, both lessons got cancelled because I had to ground both planes for separate issues. I wanted some extra practice before today, but on the plus side, I learned a lot about Citabria systems.
Why Sharkie was a little bitch: During my preflight, I noticed that the #2 cylinder intake was leaking oil at it's base, so I traced it to a loose connection at a bracket mounting the #2 intake to the cylinder. Jostled the bracket and it moved. Dammit. Jostled the intake pipe and it moved. SIGH. Sharkie's grounded. On the plus side, one of the check ride instructors came by and congratulated me on my preflight.
Why Snoopy was a little bitch: After visiting my sister and nephew who live nearby, I came back for lesson 2 of the day. While preflighting, Snoopy's beacon wasn't working. ARGH. Radio out too. Thought process: 1) I'm cursed and 2) the battery is fully discharged. We tried hand starting it and it started right up, but the ammeter didn't show charging so the initial thought was that there was an alternator issue. Snoopy's grounded too.
I ate pie and ice cream for both lunch and dinner that day. #adulting.
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So yeah, I was a little nervous, given my luck. I woke up a little earlier and got to the club around 7:20am to check out Sharkie. Things looked good and everything was tight.
"I got this."
The chief instructor I was doing my stage check with came by as scheduled at 8, and we went through the ground portion of the stage check. Super knowledgeable and an airplane owner too, so we talked a lot about system differences between the Citabrias, his 120, and our 180. Really cool guy. Everyone I meet at this club seems to be "our people".
After I did a second, more thorough preflight than the quick look I took earlier this morning, we hopped in the plane. He had a coffee cup in his hand, and I asked if part of the test was to make sure it didn't spill in a steep turn. He laughed :)
Ground work all went well, and traffic in the pattern was light so we were off quickly. All the maneuvers went really well, accept for one steep turn to the left where I lost about 100 feet. I fixed it on the steep turn to the right though, and he said I had great altitude control. I also pitched the nose forward a little too hard in the power off stall, but he said it wasn't terrible. I got away with things on the ground reference maneuvers because the wind was so light, so I definitely want more practice in stronger wind conditions.
Over UTC, he asked me how much landing practice I had.
"I've been talked through it several times and done most of the approaches recently, but Batelle usually helps with the flare."
"Well, you'll do everything this time and I won't touch anything, but I'll talk you through things if I notice you need any corrections".
Wut. Okay.
The approach was perfect, but I came in faster than usual and not in a full stall configuration. The straight in approaches from UTC are tricky for me because I don't have the full pattern to work with. Unintentional wheel landing (it wasn't hard, but I didn't like that it wasn't intentional). Pulled the stick back and touched the tail to the ground.
"That was okay, but you were a little fast. Have time for another?"
Always.
Second one went a lot better. We worked the pattern, and came in full stall configuration for a three point landing. He said I was good at keeping her straight.
He had me post-flight things, and we went back to the club office. Logbook signoff happened, and he said I flew really nicely. Alright alright, I'll stop gushing. I'm just happy I made my instructor look good. She's really good. Texted her the good news, and we went back and forth about how things were at Oshkosh. Apparently, it's super busy this year.
That's all! To more landing practice and safe landings :)
My mini celebration:
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