Ahhh that's better

Today's weather was pretty nice. The air was clearer for the first time, and the winds were only 4-5 knots 40 degrees left of the runway. We practiced landings some more. They went fine. Then we flew over to Wolf airfield, which is a grass strip, and landed, stopped and took off. Grass strips are fun :)

I found my way back to the airfield, and entered the pattern. I had some traffic today... there were 3 other planes in the pattern with me. We did a couple more landings and then the CFI asked me if I wanted to do a couple of landings solo. Wanting to redeem myself, I said yes. I know what I did wrong tuesday when I soloed. After studying short field landing procedures, I had them stuck in my head. So that's why I came in steep and slow. So I went around the pattern again (traffic and all) and the first landing was pretty good, and the second landing was great! I taxied over to the parking area and let out a WOOOOO!!!! That felt more like what my solo should have been.

I have next tuesday & thursday scheduled on the plane, but I've been bumped for it's annual maintenance. I asked the CFI if I could get checked off in the Cessna 150 so I could use that for solos for a cheaper rate. So I might do that next.

BTW... to update what happened yesterday, I ordered a CH Products Flight Yoke, and rudder peddles from New Egg. I eagerly went home after work yesterday to plug them in and try it on my simulator. I was very P.O.'d to see that New Egg only shipped the flight yoke. They charged me for both and only sent the yoke. I called and they said they were out of stock on the rudder peddles. Gee thanks for telling me. They refunded the money for that, and I went to Fry's to get Saitek rudder peddles there.

So anyway... After configuring all the aircraft controls for the yoke and rudder peddles it worked very well. All the jittering I experienced from my crappy joystick were gone. And using a yoke & rudder is a much more realistic way to interface with the sim. I was able to duplicate the weather conditions during my last solo and virtually fly at the same airport and practice over and over again. The one thing missing that I desperately need is a Track IR head tracking system. This is a relatively cheap way to track your head movements so when I'm flying in the pattern, I can turn my head to look at the runway without having to clumsily use keys to look around. (No, I don't need to turn my head 90 degrees - the head motion is scaled so you turn your head say 20 degrees left, and the view on the monitor rotates 90. This way you can still see the monitor while turning your head). Or if the strut between the front & left windows are in the way on base, I can just move my head to see the airport rather than turning the plane. See this video for a demonstration.

Can you tell I'm a gadget freak? :-b Actually I work on simulators for a living and appreciate the value of being able to try things out or build proficiency in the safety of a good simulator. And compared to the cost of renting a plane and gas these days it's actually a cost effective way to train.