Flight Training - August 2020 - 39

Take an hour and land at as many
different airports as you can reach...
Fly out of your comfort zone.
landing as if you're in a "pretty landing" contest. If it's a
tricycle-gear airplane, try to smoothly put it on the mains
and hold the nosewheel off until the speed bleeds off and
you let the nose down. If it's a taildragger, make a mix of
three-points and wheel landings.
Hamburger runs/short cross-countries. Building
little cross-countries around meals can include benefits beyond cheeseburgers. If you're in a populated area,
you probably have several airports with restaurants
within a half-hour's flight. If so, you can sharpen up your
cross-country skills by doing those trips primarily by dead
reckoning. Draw a line on the chart, get the winds aloft,
calculate a compass heading, shut off the GPS and VOR,
and trust the compass. The distance isn't very long, so you
can't get very lost, but you can cross-check your progress
with landmarks.
New airports. This could be incorporated in a hamburger run: Take an hour and land at as many different
airports as you can reach. This, again, is a function of
where you're based. Urban areas always have a handful of
different airports. The more different airports you land at,
the better your skills become at diagnosing the effect of
different topography, winds, and control towers, assuming
there are any. If you do all your training and your flying at
the same airport, a strangeness factor is involved in leaving
your comfort zone and going someplace else. If you don't
land at other airports, you'll develop a form of geophobia,
which is a fear of geography that's different than your own
(I just made that up). Fly out of your comfort zone.
EACH FLIGHT SHOULD INCLUDE CERTAIN CONSTANTS

By inserting certain constants into every flight, we broaden
the learning curve attached to every flight.
Different takeoffs. There is no rule that says we can't
use a soft-field takeoff technique when we feel like it (but
avoid doing them in hard, gusty crosswinds). Or make it
a short-field takeoff even though we have 6,000 feet of
pavement in front of us. If you ask friends how often they
do a soft- or short-field takeoff, many will admit to not
having done them since their checkride. There are several
downsides to not keeping current in specialty takeoffs.
Should field conditions dictate that one of those special
takeoff techniques be used, our technique will be rusty,
and it could become a safety issue. Also, these techniques
cause us to pay a little more attention to what the nose
is doing and sensitize our hands to the way the controls
feel when speed is coming and going. Short- and soft-field
practice will make normal landings better because we
then are more aware of what is happening.
More than one landing. Don't just land and call it a
day. Instead, do at least one-preferably two-touch and

goes. Hey, you're there. The airport is there. The airplane
is running great. So, put another 10 minutes in your logbook and hone your landing skills on every flight.
Different types of landings. Not only should we
try to make every landing to an exact spot and make it
beautiful, we should practice different types of landings
regularly-short field; soft field; how about a short, softfield landing?
50 HOURS ISN'T A SET NUMBER

As much as we may enjoy the process of keeping our
skills up, doing only the exercises discussed here forces
a certain level of sameness onto our time in the cockpit.
Don't leave the joy, the freedom, and the fun out of the
discussion. Remember why you were drawn to aviation in
the first place, and do what you love.
No one says we can't fly 55 hours. Or 60. Within
the limitations set by our time and finances, we owe it
to ourselves to remember, for instance, how much fun
it can be to learn to fly a new airplane. Maybe step up
from the beloved Cessna 172 and strap on a 182. Better
yet, invest 10 extra hours or so in an honest-to-goodness
cross-country vacation. Take the family and pick a destination that will be fun for all-and use the airplane for
what it was designed for.
A PLAN TO BROADEN YOUR AV WORLD

We've been talking about planning each flight and flying
the plan. Another part of our aviation planning should be
to look down the road and, beyond maintaining our skills,
decide how we want to expand our aviation horizons.
When we're first taking lessons, our aviation world is
confined to the Cessna 172, Diamond, or Piper Cherokee
that we know so well. In only a few short months and
hours, however, you're likely to notice other aircraft and
other activities and, before long, you'll realize how incredibly big the world of aviation is. When that happens, you
may feel the urge to fly a biplane or maybe dip your toes
into the world of floatplanes. Or maybe get a tailwheel
endorsement. Or try aerobatic training. If so, work all
of that into the plan. Every time we try something new,
it makes us better pilots because we have to dissect our
skills and apply them in new ways. Any one of those new
adventures can be accomplished in just five or 10 more
hours. They're not only fun, but they will also keep your
enthusiasm fires lit so you'll stay in the cockpit for the rest
of your life. By that time, you'll have realized that aviation
is so diverse that you'll never run out of new things to try.
And that's a good thing. FT
BUDD DAVISSON is an aviation writer/photographer and CFI.
AOPA.ORG/FT 39

http://www.AOPA.ORG/FT

Flight Training - August 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - August 2020