Chapter One...

Today I went for my first official, on the record, lesson. My homework was basically to just read chapter one and do the quiz at the end of the chapter. If you know anything about flying this chapter is pretty easy. I can't really think of any part of it that was actually tough. Maybe some of the P Factor or gyroscopic effect stuff, but other than that. Easy...  Ground training went pretty smooth. We went over the answers to the quiz to make sure I not only go them right but understood them as well. Didn't really take very long then it was off to fly.

Today we were is N2649J. It's a 1998 172R. Not real sure of it's hours, but lets just say it's well broken it. Preflight was uneventful. One annunciator light was burned out but other than that. Good to go. I did all the taxi out but the tower was in a hurry to get us airborne that my instructor handled the takeoff so we could get going quickly.

We did climbs, descent, climbing turns, descending turns, slow flight, and flying around a point. Since we didn't get to do the takeoff at Addison we landed, taxied, and took off at KHQZ Mesquite Metro Airport. There were a few other airplanes in the pattern which was good experience in finding traffic and dealing with unmanaged airports. 

By the time we headed back to Addison it was starting to get a little windy. I think by the time we landed it was 15 Gust to 21 or 22 knots. Just a bit of cross but with the gust it was a little interesting. Approach and final was pretty good. I got a little low once but it was easily corrected. Actually it was looking like a pretty landing all the way till the end. With all the wind I was constantly fighting to keep on course. Right as we went over the overrun I pulled it back to idle. Just as we were about to touch down we hit a big gust. I handled the gust pretty good but fell into a hole behind the gust. Slammed it on the ground kinda hard and bounced a bit but I managed to catch it and the second landing wasn't too bad.

We taxied back to the hanger and parked it. Ten minutes more of ground training and we were done. All and all I think it was a pretty successful lesson. I'm definitely hooked. Can't wait until next time.