Went back out to the RAMS field today; week two, first as a provisional member.
One of the leaders of the club helped me fly three times; I took a charged battery, but I only have one. They recharged it there. It took about fifteen to twenty minutes to recharge the battery each time, and it turns out that delay is actually pretty beneficial for learning; it gives you time to reflect on the flight you just made.
The flights themselves were awesome. Let’s be real here, I love flying. I especially love doing the actual flying itself; they’re used to be being at the airfield because I like to see things fly, and I only started actually flying my own plane really recently.
I do not fly well. I’m still trying to get a sense of how to read the line of the plane; I’m okay at level flight, I turn rather impatiently, and I struggle with perspective. They tell me this is all pretty good for a newbie. They’d know better than I would, but I’m gonna get better.
I landed the plane four times today! Once was a landing but was sort of accidental – I couldn’t see the plane when it touched down! But it was upright and in one piece.
The second was my best, a nice smooth landing. To suggest it made me happy was to completely misunderstand what joy is: I landed the plane!
The other two landings were acceptable but not good. I couldn’t quite get the approach angle right; I kept correcting the plane to take it away from the landing strip, then I’d overcorrect and aim it too close to the flight line! But they were “successful landings,” in that I did land the plane in one piece.
I’m learning, and I’m really enjoying it all.