My Flight Journal

Sunday, July 13, 2003 4:39pm

Hoo Boy.

Just when I think I'm getting the hang of landings we go try them at a couple of different airports. Holy crap.... At the airport I'm flying out of, our main runway is 9,600ft long by 150ft wide. The runway I've been doing T&Gs on is 3,500 x 75.

So we head off to this little strip cut out of the woods named Massey Ranch (X50). They have a single runway, 3,845 x 60ft. Dayam that's a narrow friggin strip. It really screws with your sight picture. Before I can even get set up to get into the pattern, my instructor yanks the motor on me and says "whoops! just lost the engine!". Talk about pressure! I'm proud to say I got it down (a little long, but better than a little short, eh?) and stopped with plenty of runway left.

Then after taking back off I couldn't hit that damn strip again for anything. Actually, after my 3rd T&G I was getting it figured out. Rain showers were moving in and I made my last T&G there with the edge of the rain only about a half-mile from the approach end.

Here's what it looks like on a too high final. I saw this picture a lot today.

After boogeying out of there, we cruised over to DeLand (DED) for a couple more T&Gs. Once again, going from that tiny strip to a 100ft wide one, I ended up low and slow on the first try. However, that's easier to correct than being high and fast (at least when you have an engine). Did much better on the second one and we left the area. It's a super-busy untowered airport, with three intersecting runways, and all three were in use! DeLand is also the busiest skydiving dropzone in Florida. My head was on a swivel the whole time we were there.

We flew back to Sanford from there, and geeze was SFB busy. I think it was because everyone was trying to get in before the weather hit. That landing started out a little ugly (some gusting crosswinds because of the approaching weather), but I ended up greasing a feather-light two-pointer out of it. It was a good confidence booster after all my other landings today.