December in Montana leaves much to be desired. It's below freezing, there's snow and ice on the ground, and storms blow in suddenly, with cold fronts bringing high winds and low visibility.
All the more reason to take advantage of a summer day on Australia's east coast to take a flight in a Piper Archer to bang a bit more rust off.
This time, I flew with the local flying club and one of their instructors on an intro flight to see how the operation differed from the light sport guys down the road.
On the plus side, the Archer is a bigger, more stable airplane and the weather was a lot smoother than last time. Light easterly winds and cool temperatures under a high overcast made for a much more pleasant trip. The instructor was very professional, as this school caters more to those seeking higher ratings. They also have a wide selection of aircraft just in case I feel like working on a complex endorsement or playing around with a G1000 panel again.
But today was just a bit of airwork and circuits to refamiliarize myself with the Piper. Yes, it's silly to argue about which is better - high wing or low, but I am now firmly in the low wing camp. Fundamentally, it's just easier to look outside. There's no extra strut hanging out in the wind, and clearing turns (not to mention the pattern) simply feel safer.
So, what was the down side? The last two flights from this field were in a Tecnam light sport plane. It can settle down to the runway at 45 knots and stop on a dime. So, flying on and off a 2,800 foot runway didn't seem like that big of a deal. Though the runway is much shorter than the 9,000 feet that I used in my primary training, the small light sport scaled everything down. It seemed just about right.
Today, in a standard category, four-seat low wing, a bit too much speed on final and a bit too long of a flare in ground effect means that this airplane eats runway for breakfast. So there we were...bouncing down the runway at 75 knots, realizing that this first touch and go was more "go" than "touch". It meant that all the confidence I managed to rebuild during the hour doing steep turns and stalls was somewhat eroded by my utter lack of ability to make a smooth landing. Oh well.
It took three tries, but I managed finally make a half-decent touchdown. I guess next time I'll work on short field approaches.
