Flew to KHAF and back with Melissa. 3 landings total.
The Wx was good over KHAF, surprisingly, so Melissa and I packed into the Flycatcher and we zipped off to KHAF.
Inbound, there was someone landing who didn't seem to be bothering with silly stuff like making radio calls. For some reason, I totally misjudged my pattern, coming in super duper close to the runway on downwind, then turning correspondingly close. I had to slip to land, after warning Melissa about what I was doing. She didn't seem to mind very much, and I made a very smooth landing.
We got out, secured the airplane and walked around. She was anxious to get back so we did not linger.
Outbound, we took a detour around the airport and found the parking area where I could have stopped and which would have been really close to the shops and restaurants over the airport fence. Lesson learned. We took off, then I did one more pattern and did a full stop short field landing, which was fairly good. On the way back to KPAO, I demonstrated some steep turns at 3500' to Melissa. I offered to demonstrate slow flight; as soon as I started slowing, she said it didn't feel safe and she didn't want to do it, so I sped back up. On some level, I'm kind of proud of her for realizing the inherent un-safety of flying slowly -- even if we were high enough that this was a non-event. We got back to KPAO where I attempted a soft field landing; it was safe but, for some reason, I ended up getting blown sideways, I think because of sloppy rudder work on my part.
Melissa said she enjoyed it, so that's awesome!
The Wx was good over KHAF, surprisingly, so Melissa and I packed into the Flycatcher and we zipped off to KHAF.
Inbound, there was someone landing who didn't seem to be bothering with silly stuff like making radio calls. For some reason, I totally misjudged my pattern, coming in super duper close to the runway on downwind, then turning correspondingly close. I had to slip to land, after warning Melissa about what I was doing. She didn't seem to mind very much, and I made a very smooth landing.
We got out, secured the airplane and walked around. She was anxious to get back so we did not linger.
Outbound, we took a detour around the airport and found the parking area where I could have stopped and which would have been really close to the shops and restaurants over the airport fence. Lesson learned. We took off, then I did one more pattern and did a full stop short field landing, which was fairly good. On the way back to KPAO, I demonstrated some steep turns at 3500' to Melissa. I offered to demonstrate slow flight; as soon as I started slowing, she said it didn't feel safe and she didn't want to do it, so I sped back up. On some level, I'm kind of proud of her for realizing the inherent un-safety of flying slowly -- even if we were high enough that this was a non-event. We got back to KPAO where I attempted a soft field landing; it was safe but, for some reason, I ended up getting blown sideways, I think because of sloppy rudder work on my part.
Melissa said she enjoyed it, so that's awesome!
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