It's Bastille Day! So it means French equivalent day to the US Independence day. But what it really means for the moment is that I have the day off! I will be able to sleep properly and get my lessons well rested! I was thinking also that by taking an early lesson (10:00am instead of 2:00~3:00pm), I would not have too much of the usual turbulence and it might help my landings. If some of the turbulence are due to the ground heating up then temperatures are much cooler and bearable at 10:00am. Right?

Results were unexpected! I felt well rested of course but I was greeted with much stronger winds than usual. I usually can count on winds of 4 to 6 knots but today, winds were going from 9 to 14 knots. Also, where we usually have winds blowing with a 10 degrees difference with the runway, I ended up with more than 40 degrees of difference. So forget about the calmer air! It was blowing me all over … sideways!

First landing of the day

So the first landing was a catastrophy! Approach was tough because of the wind but it was going fairly well. Then came the time of the round off and it seemed to have gone fairly ok but then the plane just went right and we were so off the centerline that it was better to consider go around instead of trying to salvage it. We did just that. Another session that does not present itself well and promise some serious frustration. But then Michael made a comment that today would be tougher than usual because of the cross wind generated. It was not a strong cross wind but enough to not being able to apply the usual approach practices…

Practicing cross wind landing techniques

We then did a couple of exercises to address the proper techniques to perform a proper control of the plane during the approach and how to land with a cross wind.

The approach technique is fairly intuitive. You need to use the ailerons to maintain an angle and beat the wind effect (push the plane towards the wind) but to avoid turning the plane, you need to use the rudders in the opposite direction to maintain the plane on the centerline. Depending on the strength of the wind, you adjust the rolling and release more of less rudder to stay on the centerline.

Where this is becoming odd is when it is time to touch down on the runway. My mental representation of a landing is that a plane should land flat, nose up. Main wheels then front wheel. I know from working in the industry that airplanes are designed to sustain their own weight on a single landing gear (preferably not the front one of course!) but it seemed to me more of a pilot error to have to land on one gear then have the other ones touching down. But landing cross wind is exactly that! Putting one wheel down (the one in the wind) first then leveling the plane and have the second gear touching down then letting the front wheel touch the runway.

Of course, this is easily said than done!

So after a few bad landings and telling my instructor that I was getting tired of not making progress on the landings, I started to do one fairly good landing all by myself.

I guess I took my time this time. I've forced myself to really control the approach and maintain speed and centerline. The rest just came easy. The landing was not of course the smoothest you should expect from a pilot but it was all by myself and  that is a very good feeling because you know that you can bring a plane on the ground without killing everybody on board or making significant damage to the plane.