Wind is fun

The Nissan Open golf tournament is in town this weekend, so like a good golfer I had to get up at 5:00am to head out to Riviera Country Club to watch the pros. Stayed until about noon, when I got a call from Kent saying that the plane was available. Figuring that any flying is better than no flying, I hightailed it home, watched the end of the tournament on TV (Ernie Els beat Tiger Woods by one) and headed to the airport.

ATIS was reporting wind from 330 (runway 34 would be in use) at 17 gusting to 30! I called Kent just to be sure we were still on, and he said “Sure – it’ll be fun for you”. Yeah. OK. Preflighted and headed to the practice area, with moderate to severe turbulence the whole way. It calmed a BIT once we got over Simi Valley, but not much. Kent seemed to be enjoying this. I, however, was sweating profusely. We did some climbing turns, descents with and without flaps, steep turns (I seem to have no problem with those) and then some power off stalls. Still not comfortable with those, but I’m getting better.

Headed back to VNY, with instructions to make left traffic for 34L. Just as we started to turn downwind, the tower told us to fly directly across the runway and start a right downwind for 34R. No problem – just surprising. Thought about doing a touch and go, but the wind was too hairy. Put it down a bit hard, but in one piece.

1.0 hours/7.3 total