N712MF 1.6 Flight to the coast with Jocelyn

Flew to the coast with my friend Jocelyn -- her first ride in a truly "little" airplane.

We took off from KRHV and flew a left downwind 31L departuer. We did one landing at E16 then flew off to the coast and came back up following Highway 17, then through the KSJC Class C and back to KRHV.

One landing at E16, which was a normal (not short) approach. Worked out fine except I did a bit of a wiggle when a gust caught me in the middle of the runway.

The landing at KRHV was a short approach and it worked out fairly well. I did end up rounding out a bit earlier than I would like to, probably because I arrived with a bit too little energy. Still a pretty late round-out by any normal standards, but my goal is to arrive at 60 kias at the threshold (or as close as possible) then have a long flare. :)

I was hoping to fly over KSJC midfield but at some point they just said to proceed direct KRHV ;) -- but at least we ended up flying close to downtown San Jose which was cool.

N712MF 1.7 Practice flight to Byron

I showed up to fly N712MF today. It was open all day but I failed to make a reservation so it was taken when I got there. :) I ended up staying at the airport for a while working on the computer until it was back, then off I went.

I did 4 landings today.

I took off and went to Byron, did 3 short approaches, then returned to KRHV and did 1 more short approach.

One of the short approaches at Byron was pretty perfect -- arrived on speed, slowed down just right, and made the first turnoff. The others were with too much energy. I think I am setting myself up a bit too close to the runway, then turning in a sort of kinked way rather than in a single, smooth curve. But in all cases I made the second turnoff of the runway without trouble, and they were full stall landings with a complete flare and soft touchdown. On one landing I failed to account for a bit of crosswind and got blown across, but not more than a couple of feet.

I tried to do a better job of speed control on climbout, and noticed that I'm getting off speed simply because I'm failing to keep my eyes on the relationship between the nose and the horizon. Something to look at the next time I fly.