The Cessna 150

My plan for today was to get certified on the Cessna 150. I thought it might be a stretch to get both of us in the plane with only 400 lbs of weight for him and me, but I wanted to at least get certified so I could do my solos in the C150 which would be cheaper than the 172. I woke up to lots of rainy weather today, and the CFI called to tell me the bad news. This was not flying weather. I agreed. So I started looking at when I could do my next lesson, and checked the weather. I saw that today, afternoon, the rain would stop, the winds would be non existant, and the visibility & cloud ceiling would be improving. So called him back and we were back on for today - just a couple hours later than planned.

Before flight I had to fill out the airplane quiz on the V-speeds and other information about the plane. Then we got going. Now that I saw the C150 up close, I saw that it was in better condition than I thought it was. We started off doing a couple of landings. I don't know if it was the still air, or the plane, but it landed very nicely. Then we did the turn maneuvers again for the C150 checkout. And then the CFI cut off the power. I was about 1000 ft up. I set the proper glide slope and looked for a place to land. There were no obvious straight strip of road I could use, so I looked for a nice grass field and found one back behind my left shoulder. I did a 180 and lined up for a landing on a strip of grass that probably would have made a pretty good short grass runway. I was high though and after adding full flaps, decided my only option was to do a slip to drop some altitude. This is where you dip one wing and apply opposite rudder to crab the plane and drop altitude without increasing your airspeed. I had only read about them and hadn't done one, at least not successfully, before. This time it worked very well and 20 ft above ground CFI was happy with my almost-emergency-landing, so I pushed the throttle back to full and ascended again. I found my way back to the air port. We did some more landings and then the instructor told me to stop and let him out. So I was going to get certified in the C150 today then :) I breezed past my 3 landings and I was done. Again, I don't know if it was the still air, or the plane, but I really liked it. I told the CFI since the plane seems to handle us ok, that I would like to do the rest of my lessons in the C150.

He said he would like to do another lesson on the good ol' ground reference point maneuvers again (if we ever get some significant winds), and then I would start my solo practices. Then after that would be the cross country flights. I am really looking forward to those because it will take me beyond where I have been in my lessons from before when I first started flying. Then I'll feel like I truly am back on track for my private pilot's license. My next lesson is next thursday. I am hoping for some winds! (But not too much ;) lol)