My last two lessons have included some review and basic flight maneuvers, but have been mainly concerned with...gulp...landings. I did not think I'd be trying to land the airplane so quickly, but so far I've managed to get it on the ground six times and have not bent or broken anything. A few of those landings could not exactly be termed "gentle," but as I said, nothing broken.Maintaining airspeed, pitch, and sink rate (vertical speed) in the Zodiac is turning out to be a little on the difficult side. I don't think I'm pitching up enough when I add the full flaps, and that lets the speed build up quickly, which is no good. And if you get too slow the Zodiac starts to sink like a stone. It's a balancing act to keep everything just right, and I'm slowly learning how to best juggle everything. I'm getting more willing to make control movements without waiting for Eric to tell me, which is good, but I still miss a lot.
I'm also drifting off the centerline of the runway a lot, leading to some gross corrections. Eric mentioned that he wants me to make smaller corrections earlier, but honestly I think I'm having trouble keeping everything going at the same time. More practice is clearly the remedy here.
I'm scheduled for four hours of training tomorrow, so if I'm not a total basket case by the end of that, I should learn a lot and get in lots of practice, if the weather cooperates. I noticed today I'm getting more comfortable in the plane overall, and not being so ginger on the controls. The result seems to be more positive aircraft control and smoother maneuvers.
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