Lesson #25: Well, maybe *this* is the final lesson

Last time I had a lesson, my engine-out-over-an-airfield procedures were poor. Namely, I just sort of made turns while I descended to the airport. This left me in a poor position to set up for a landing, and I botched the procedure. Thus, this time, when I pulled the power over Gnoss field once more, I was careful to make my turns similar to those of a traffic pattern. Then, as my powerless plane descended slowly over the airport, the lowest turn simply became my pattern.

"Gnoss traffic, Skyhawk 9UL is over the airfield, 2,000 feet, simulated engine failure, circling to land."

"Which runway?" some deadpan voice asked.

"Runway 31."

Stephen watched with satisfaction as I completed the turns, but I was still way too high on final. I put in a full 30 degrees of flaps and made the biggest, fattest slip my feet could muster. The airplane was crabbed nearly sideways, and with my neck craned out the side window I carefully kept the plane aligned with Gnoss's windy runway. Fighting the crosswind, I watched the altitude bleed away while runway disappeared beneath me.

There's a saying in aviation, "There's nothing less useful than runway that's behind you." I wondered how much further the plane could float above the runway before I wouldn't have enough to land. Fortunately my fat slip bled away the last few hundred feet, and twenty feet above the ground and with three quarters of the runway behind me, I kicked out the crab. The airplane aligned itself with the runway and the nose pitched downward. I pulled the yoke back, assumed a landing attitude, and the aircraft settled on the ground, all three wheels at once, with about a thousand feet of runway left. I raised the flaps immediately to get weight back on the wheels, braked, and stopped the airplane a hundred feet or so short of the runway's edge.

Stephen and I were both aglow with pride. "That was pretty good," he said. "You flew it like Top Gun." Of course with him, every rose has its thorns. "You did a slip-to-land with full flaps. That's not something the POH recommends." This I knew, but Stephen pressed anyway. "The book says that you could experience 'elevator oscillation.' Now, I've done this a bunch and I've never once had the elevator oscillate, so if you do this in your checkride, just explain to the examiner that you figured in an emergency situation things like this are OK. Plus, everyone comes in high during an engine-out. Better to come in high than put it in the swamp."

"If you do this in your checkride" was a hallowed refrain this lesson. Everything I did was likened to how the examiner would respond. I practiced some go-arounds (which was practice I needed), then departed Gnoss. There Stephen had me do a stall. I failed miserably. I'm glad I told him I needed the work, because that was most certainly a terrible stall. Well two or three stalls later I was finally getting it, so Stephen had me practice steep turns then head back home.

My phase check with Liz Sommers is next Tuesday, and I scheduled my checkride for the following Tuesday. I wish I could do it sooner (nevermind the ominousness of getting one's pilot's license on September 11th), but these are the only times available. Two more weeks... two more weeks.