Steep Turns (In Turbulence)

After a 10-day hiatus, I was back in the air again today. The afternoon was the only time available and so I had to contend with pretty choppy thermals while practicing steep turns. These are banking turns over 30 degrees, and in this case, were supposed to be 45 degrees. Unfortunately, that ended up being more difficult than I anticipated, especially after doing a few slow ones last time. When all was said and done, my instructor and I decided to relax the altitude monitoring and just focus on maintaining speed and rolling out on the right heading. On that count, things weren't too bad.

We also did some stalls, which I tried to complete a bit more crisp than last time, and I did for the most part. In the warm air, the bottom dropped out on one of them, and we actually nosed down more severely than typical for this plane (although still nowhere near a Cessna 150). Nevertheless, recovery was much smoother, especially from a rudder standpoint. This plane really likes to turn left and I was definitely making an effort to remember plenty of right rudder.

Upon deciding to return to the field, we had to lose about 3000 feet of altitude in about 6 miles. Not a bad task, but it would have felt uncomfortable to someone not accustomed to a small plane's motion. I think we were descending at about 1500 feet per minute or so. It was a good exercise to make sure I could keep the speed under control, which I did well, according to the instructor. Our ground speed during this was about 140 mph.

Then it was time for a little pattern work, slow flight over the runway (low approach), a touch and go, and then landing. Luckily, the bouncy air wasn't as bad right near the field, except for the little thermal pockets and a touch of crosswind just over the runway. The absolute key to success here is only glancing at the near end of the runway while keeping most of your gaze out to the horizon and the far end. I had a bit of trouble staying as low as my instructor wanted, but the second time around was better. Then, I had the controls all the way to landing on the third go-around.

All in all, this was a bit of a stressful flight due to the thermals, but not for the reasons I would have thought. I usually don't like turbulence for the simple fact that it is uncomfortable. This time, though, I think I was concentrating so much on simply flying the plane that it was more of a nuisance and didn't really bother me physically. Good to know. And it's also a good thing to be able to fly in it, just in case my checkride ends up being on a hot day.