Lesson eight: More takeoffs and landings

When I arrived at the airport today for my lesson, I was informed that my airplane had no right wheel, that the mechanic was installing a new one, and would be finishing up any minute now. After waiting about 30 minutes for the mechanic to finish, I decided to go outside and see if he wouldn't mind if I preflighted the airplane while he worked. He told me to go for it, and assured me I wouldn't be in his way. As I preflighted the airplane, the mechanic told me several stories of his past, of people he met throughout his life, and then we got into talking about movies. I reckon that by me going out and preflighting while the mechanic was working, I added another 30 minutes to the time it took him to finish. The good news is that the mechanic was a good guy, and had some interesting stories...so whats waiting a little longer matter?

Once the mechanic was finished, we taxied to the runway to begin our lesson. There was a special event going  on at my local airport today, which meant there was a lot more traffic than usual. Once it was our turn to take off, we flew the pattern, landed, and were told to make a full stop and taxi for takeoff again. My instructor wasn't about to deal with this all day, so we flew to another local airport...an uncontrolled airport.

The uncontrolled airport we did most of today's lesson in had a much narrower, and shorter runway than the one I am used to. It was also next to a military base, and over a neighborhood with noise abatement procedures in effect...it made for an interesting experience, and I really enjoyed it.

We made a total of eight landings today. One of them felt great, and I think I actually flew it all by myself. Another landing was okay, and the rest were not so good.

Today's lesson ran for a total of 1.9 hours on the hobbs, mostly due to waiting to taxi, and being forced to make a full stop after our first lesson I am sure. The costs were $171 for the airplane rental, and $85.50 for instruction...a grand total of $256.50...my most expensive lesson to date I believe.

My instructor informed me that all the lessons from here on our will be to practice landings until I am ready to solo. Things are getting exciting!