The weather isn’t too calm today, but it’s not too turbulent either. So, we are practicing emergency landings. It’s a strange feeling when the airplane suddenly turns into a glider. I don’t have strong skills yet in estimating suitable field parameters such as height, size, and distance. In theory, it’s straightforward, but in practice, I feel like I’m falling like a stone, and all the fields look tiny.
It reminds me of my skating training when I was learning to make a 180 turn via jumping. It’s an easy maneuver, but I had to overcome a psychological barrier to do it. Similarly, with emergency landings, I need to overcome my stress and act rationally. I think I should also practice descents with flaps 30 and 40, when the sink rate is relatively high, just to get used to the feeling. At our home base we have a long concrete runway and usually practice landings with flaps 20.
I’m not sure if it’s possible to become fully confident with all of this in the published minimum hours for a private pilot’s license (a glimpse into the future: I can now confirm that it took more in my school). But I don’t want to stop at a private license. I want to keep flying after getting my license, not just put it on a shelf. I want to move forward.
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