Knocking the rust off

It's been almost a year since I've flown, so I decided to go up with my club instructor. I remember some time gaps from before and I've always been glad to get used to the airplane again before taking up a passenger, but this gap was long enough where I wanted the instructor as well.

The interesting thing about rust is you forget what feels normal, and there's a lot of feeling involved in takeoffs and landings. Normal is very important because while there's usually a cautious side to err on, there are extreme mistakes on both sides.

A consistent but gentle crosswind at Paine. So, so, so much smoke, cutting down visibility to as little as 4 miles (not something I'd fly in alone, especially being so deconditioned). A new (to me) airport in Sequim, Washington. Back-taxiing on the runway only, no taxiway. It's a small place.

The air was smooth and the smoke kept most pilots on the ground, so we had the skies to ourselves, with strobes and nav lights on during the daytime just to be sure. Did I mention it's smokey in the greater Seattle metropolitan area? It's really smokey. Like, there's a lot of smoke.

When I finished my training and earned my certificate I was pretty proud of my landings and my pattern work. They were good for a long time, but after a year some nominally-conscientious habits were getting in the way.

First of all, it's 30 degrees in the pattern. You don't really need or want to be steeper because of a higher stalling speed, but you don't want to be shallow, either, because then you can try overcorrecting with the rudder and get into a cross-controlled condition, which neither is nor feels good. Next, inversion of control is great at low speeds, but in Piper Archers that speed is really low. I had decided that while still at 70-80kts to control for airspeed with pitch and arrest sink rate with power. That's too fast for that and you'll feel silly. And this is really a second-guessing of myself anyway, since the natural thing to do if you've played any kind of flight simulator game is to compensate for your sink rate with back pressure on the yoke. It's way more effective.

After half a dozen landings I went from some of my worst in years to some I'm far less embarrassed about. I'm happy with the decision-making that was pushing for a lesson and it's good to get to know the airplane again. One or two more times with the instructor and I should be better than new.