always landing at the home ’drome usually involves old, well-worn routines.
Note that none of these are wasted,
make-work activities. To be able to
make a steep turn and come out right
where we entered it is a skill that
demonstrates our stick-and-rudder
abilities. Doing stalls reacquaints us
with the airplane’s pre-stall behavior.
If sleepiness attacks in
the air and can’t be
fought off by any other
means, a precautionary
landing could be the
only solution.
Our forced-landing procedures need
to be sharp. As for picture-taking, the
pics are always treasured later.
On the flight in question, I strung
most of these things together—a couple of precise 360-degree turns,
some stalls, and a simulated forced
landing, and it added hardly any
time to the flight.
Even if we’re being ultra-cost-conscious about tach time,
waker-uppers like these seem to add
very little to the total. In fact, when
monitoring a predicted arrival time
on the GPS, I’ve noticed that even a
touch-and-go at an airstrip that’s
along the course never seems to
increase the ETA by more than two
minutes, and that does include doing
a complete pattern.
Flying is fun. The only time it’s ever
boring is when we’re not paying
attention.
Dave Matheny, EAA 184186, is a private pilot and
an FAA ground instructor. He has been flying light
aircraft, including ultralights, for almost 30 years. He
can be reached at DaveMatheny3000@yahoo.com.
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