My Aviators - My Journey as a Woman Pilot

Today was pretty sad but very exciting at the same time. I haven't had much time to fly recently so it was my first time back up in about 5 days. We were supposed to work on short and soft field take-offs and landings. After going over the ground information I pre-flighted and we taxied to runway 15. The weather was questionable today, but our visual scan and the weather report led us to believe we would be able to get in a little bit of time. However, as Tim was demonstrating the first maneuver (soft field take-off) we were climbing and when we hit 1200 feet we were in a cloud. This was very disappointing because I knew we were going to stop. Tim demonstrated a soft field landing and we stopped in the middle of runway. We evaluated the weather and Tim said it would be ok if I tried one take-off and landing. So I did a short field take-off (because we were in the middle of the runway). It went pretty well. It could have been a bit better. I didn't quite hold 65kts long enough, but not bad for the first one. We flew a modified pattern (to avoid the clouds) and set-up for a soft field landing. During a soft-field landing you keep the weight of the plane on wings as much as possible. To do this you rev the engine as the mains touch down and keep the planes nose wheel off the ground (basically looks like a wheelie down the runway). Now this is the exciting part of today. I have traditionally struggled with getting the nose up on the plane. So I wasn't sure how this was going to go. But on my very first (and only) try I came pretty close. The nose touched for a second but I had it right back up, so I just needed to get that power in a little bit sooner and i would have had it. I felt pretty good about it and wanted to go again, but the weather wasn't going to have it. We quit for the day, which sucks. I rescheduled for Friday, but I really want to go now.

Total Hours Logged: 28