So it near time to get to the airport for the session. Yesterday I have prepared a flight plan for the airport of Turkey Mountain located 30 nautical miles north east of Bentonville. If the trip is confirmed by Michael, we should be there in about 20 minutes max.

To finish the preparation, I went online, downloaded the latest weather forecast, winds aloft, NOTAMs and TFRs, packed all my gear and start going down to the flight school.

To be considered as cross-country, a flight needs to be 50 nautical miles but the distance is only 30.5 nm according to my calculations. So despite all the planning, this trip can not be counted as  a cross country.

I’m now at the school and Michael is waiting for me. I’m asking him what is the plan for the day and the answer while laconic is right on my expectation: “Turkey Mountain!”. My preparation would not have been for nothing. I’m getting all the paperwork out, present the idea to Michael. He seems perplex at first but after reviewing all the paperwork, he agrees to my plan. We will then go to Turkey Mountain.

Lights! Camera! Action!

I’m heading in the plane and remember too well that the maps and the papers were bothering me because I couldn’t manipulate them properly and fast enough. I therefore took a little more attention in laying out everything a little better this time. Making sure that I can take my board with the flight plan quickly out without hitting anything and being able to put everything back as fast. I’m pretty happy of the layout and I think that I can make this work out pretty well. Now it’s time to get serious and start preflying the plane.

As part of the preflight procedure, I ‘m setting up the NAV2 on the Dogwood VOR nearby and set the radial on 235. This would not allow me to navigate because KVBT and MO00 are not aligned on any radial and the radial going through MO00 was too far off our path to be usable but at least it was giving me a general indication if I was on the right general direction or not. I can also use it as my left fence to not cross…

We are at the end of the runway, engine running. The winds are pushing us to use runway 36 for a take off towards the south. I’m pushing the throttle and we are slowly taking off. Of course, by now, I’m going away from the trajectory but I can not turn immediately, I have to reach a safe altitude. After making the announcement, I turn left and go back up parallel to the runway to try to get back on the course plotted. As I’m reaching the middle of the runway, I’m taking the heading calculated and start looking outside for the first signs. It should come pretty quick since it was only 7 nautical miles from the airport. The road becomes visible and  I immediately identify the pattern that I had seen on the sectional. This would be the first point that I’m taking as reference and from which I will make the calculations. I’m pointing at the first waypoint to Michael and showing on the sectional that I had marked it. Michael agreed and I move to the next waypoints or at least, all the information that allows me to understand our exact position.

Did you found an airport? I’ve kinda lost mine!

At the end, the navigation was perfect! I hit on every single checkpoint for the progress. Measured the elapsed time and managed to stay on track. This is what Michael wanted to see and that I miserably failed on the trip to Forth Smith. The only little annoying detail is as I was coming close from Turkey Mountain, I had some difficulties locating the airport. I knew it was a soft field made of grass but I couldn’t locate it until I finally realize that I was almost over it. I had barely enough time to setup the plane for a deceleration and to start reducing the altitude  that I had to call on the CTAF to announce our landing, starting with a crossing of the airport at midfield.

As I was coming closer from the airport and turning base, I remember the instructions from Michael for the soft field landing: I have to stay on the main wheel as long as possible by keeping the yoke pulled towards me and therefore the nose wheel up for as long as possible. Also in order to avoid sinking in the field, I need to give a little throttle until the plane loses enough speed and sink the nose wheel by itself.

First Real Soft Field landing

As I’m entering final the runway, I realize this is very different from a regular concrete runway because there is no clear edge to the runway and of course, forget about a center line. so it became obvious very quickly that I would have to rely on something else but what? The trees? Same issue with the threshold of the runway! It’s not clear where it is starting. Oh well I guess I will aim at the green patch between the trees! As I’m slowly approaching, I’m getting a better feeling where the plane should be touching down and if I’m properly lined up.

I’m slowly approaching the runway and do a correct round off and flare. I listened to my instructor and tried to maintain the nose wheel high as long as possible. The plane is slowly loosing speed and finally the nose is going down. My first landing on a soft field is done!

The first impression of a soft field, I was expecting a rougher terrain, more bumps, more vibration in the plane but in fact this ground was firmly firm and smooth so it was almost like landing on a regular airport but with  less ground reference on the approach.

Let’s go for another round … or maybe two!

Now we have landed, well, we need to take off. So the main difference about the taxiing is that you should not stop because it is using too much power to put the plane in motion. The plane being fairly heavy, it might sink if the ground was actually soft!

The other difference is that you need to try to get off the ground as soon as possible, this means flying in ground effect until you can pick up some speed. I practiced previously, we will see how I’m doing on a real soft field. So, the plane is to take off, fly the pattern and come for another landing.

The least I can say is that it did not happen as planned!!!

As I going down towards the runway on final, I did not felt that it was going properly. I was trying to keep the plane centered and was coming a little low. the result is that I touched the runway a little too fast and bounced back up slightly off center, by the time I' had recovered the proper position on the runway, I had used too much runway and did not want to try to land again. So I put back the power and was good for a go around!

This is frustrating. The first landing was good. The second one should have been a confirmation but no I messed up the approach. So on the second approach, I was determined to take my time to get a better alignment and a better grip on the speed. I decided that I needed a little more time on final so the best way to do that is to extend my downwind a little more. That means waiting longer before turning base. Unfortunately, I did not look close enough to the terrain around me and I ended up fairly close from the hill. Granted I was still at a safe distance but I was definitely close enough to fill the updraft of the wind going uphill. I ended up a bit shaken and got a noticeable reminder from my instructor that it was a bad maneuver. I was too long on the downwind and that I turned final too late putting the plane a little too close from the hill.

I finished my final and landed the plane. The landing was far from perfect but it was acceptable.

It was not fun to be reminded that I did something wrong but it did serve as a lesson!

Landing was not that good! Let's redo it!

So, after a quick debrief, we are back for another cycle. The take off started pretty bad, after applying all the gas, the plane started to weathervane a little towards the right and I’ve over corrected. The result is that the plane started to get off the center axis and point towards the hangar on the side. I was still above the runway at all time and started to correct it but apparently not fast enough because I ended up with another serious comments from my instructor. I had realized that it was not a very nice take off.

If you look carefully, you will realize that I was not ready to forget the comment from the previous landing and that I’m actually turning base fairly early. My final was then very short compared to the previous landing…

… Maybe a little too early because I’ve crossed the threshold of the runway fairly high. The landing was not  really good with a first light bounce.

Time to go home

The lessons is now coming to an end. We have about 20 minutes to fly back to the home airport. So we better get going.

I know that now the drill for the take off and once again, I do not want to let the same mistake happening again so I will be a little more watchful during take off. As you will see on the video, that paid off because the take off was near perfect. Then we quietly headed back to Bentonville while enjoying the scenery that the lakes were offering!

We just arrived at the airport and it is time to close the flight. I have to say that I have some mixed feeling about this flight. The first part with the navigation was fun and I did very well but the landings on soft field were not exactly good nor really bad. It seems that I should have done better. During the debrief of the flight, Michael told me that I did globally well but that he will be asking more to make sure that I have a continuous learning.