Date:  05.Jul.2016
Flight Number: 19
Flight Hours: 1.3
Solo Hours: 0.0
Instructor Hours: 1.8

What we did today:

• More soft field T/O and landings.
• Short field T/O and landings
• Power out emergency in the pattern

What went well:

• All in all, not a bad day. I kept the pattern much more rectangular and closer to the correct altitude today: Track overview
• Landing speeds were all much lower today rather than being 'high and fast'. In fact, I sometimes needed to pitch down to gain speed as I was getting a bit too slow...don't want to be on the news! 
• Landing is almost starting to make sense. I'm getting into ground effect better and holding my attitude more steady (rather than doing roller coaster landings down the runway).
• Power out landing went pretty well. I made the runway with room to spare. I did, however, start the process by entering a regular landing pattern rather than immediately turning to the runway. While I had sufficient altitude to make a standard landing, if I'd have gotten low on final I would not have been able to add power to gain altitude. Remember, power goes out, get onto a landing surface and screw standard practices.

What didn't go so well:

• Soft field was a bit hard because of cross winds; I was crabbing before landing rather than 'wing low, opposite rudder' so there was a bit of a harsh use of rudder just before touchdown.
• Bounced a couple of landings so I'm still a bit high over the runway.

What I need to work on:

• Cross wind landings. I need to talk to Rick and see if he's a 'crab and stab' proponent or if he goes with the POH.
• Keep working on landings.
• Radio calls. Had one today where I forgot which leg of the pattern I was turning into and wound up cycling through them all...how to sound stupid to the world in one easy lesson. Also, apparently, one lands on runway 'two nine' not 'twenty nine'. There should be a requirement for people like me to include some kind of 'noob ID' in our radio calls.

Prep for nest flight:

• Nothing specific.
• I had a conversation with one of the flight center's staff and they suggested I see if Rick wants me to schedule a check-ride with the Designated Pilot Examiner. Apparently these guys are booked out into September already. I still have to a ways to go (flying solo in the practice area and doing cross country flights) so I'm not sure when Rick is thinking I might be ready to think about scheduling my DPE. Complicating the timing is that I'm going to be on a couple of short road trips between now and early Sept so I'll loose between 2 and 3 weeks of flying time plus days likely to be lost due to weather. The good news is that I'm not on a schedule so if it takes 3 weeks to schedule a check-ride I'm not going to sweat it too much since I can just do practice flights during that time to build skills.