As of today, I’ve logged 18.9 hours and I’m really starting to feel some progress! I had a nine day hiatus when my good friend and business partner Tyler Tate was in town, then I left for a weekend reuniting with friends in Indianapolis for a great wedding.

My first lesson back had an inauspicious start: during my initial call to the tower, I got a little mixed up. It sounded something like this: “Ann Arbor ground, Cessna 222 Uniform Mike is at the northwest tees with information yankee, ready to … um … go to the runway?” That’s right, I forgot the word “taxi.”

After my instructor, Will, stopped laughing, we proceeded to taxi and take off, and things got a lot better from there. My worries of getting rusty weren’t realized, and after we spent some time in the practice area, we came back to the airport and things were going great. There was a light wind right down the runway, and I had a smooth, stabilized approach. I felt in control, and when the wheels touched down, I was genuinely surprised by how smooth it was. I think I said something like “hey, look at that,” but the highlight was when calm, unfazeable Will pronounced, “That was a damn good landing.” I grinned and wanted to soak it in, but had to immediately move on to the takeoff (we were going around for more touch-and-gos): flaps up, carb heat off, and full throttle. I did two more landings in that lesson, and each felt terrific, although none of them beat the first one.

There were two things that I think helped with this set of landings: first, I was trying a technique that Will had mentioned a few times, and I’ve read in a few other places. The goal is to have the stall horn sound and have the control yoke reach its back stop at the moment the wheels touch the ground. This helps to smoothly time and execute the landing flare, and it really helped here.

The other factor was that we had practiced slow flight earlier in the lesson, which is essentially flying the plane at the slowest possible speed (around 40mph). This is perfect practice for the landing approach, because both take place in the back side of the power curve. This essentially means that if you pitch up, the plane will actually descend, because it’s moving so slowly. The proper way to control altitude and speed here is the opposite of how it is controlled during normal flight. To change speed, you use your pitch, and to ascend or descend, you use the throttle. Even though I’ve had this concept in my head, it has been difficult to translate into action. That day, during our slow flight practice, the “region of reverse command” finally clicked, and I think this helped immensely with my approaches.

Unfortunately, this great lesson didn’t stick around, and the next lesson just felt “off.” We did a lot of stall practice, and the various stalls require different setups. I kept confusing these and feeling mixed up in general. Will even noticed this and reassured me that everybody has those kinds of days. Landings were no better, and though they weren’t terrible, I was still a bit discouraged. I topped off the lesson by splashing fuel while filling up the tanks. But, any landing you walk away from is a good landing, and my hope is that my brain is absorbing just as much on the bad days.

And in hindsight, I don’t even think I can call it a bad day — I am, after all, still flying an airplane.

My most recent lesson was on Saturday. The visibility was low that day and was a good introduction into how easy it could be to get lost. It was also my first time flying in light rain, which when combined with busier airspace, made for an interesting time flying near the airport, while the tower gave us four or five traffic alerts on our way out. We practiced steep turns and emergency landings, which are some of my favorite maneuvers. We were low on fuel (which actually means over an hour remaining), so we didn’t have time to practice more than one landing. There was a decent crosswind which gave good practice, though I’ll be glad to have a few more calm days to really cement the easier landings.

Again, thanks for reading, and stay tuned — there should be some more exciting news coming soon!