I own an ultralight plane called a trike but since you can only fly it when there are very low winds and no thermals it really limits you to flying only in the early morning and late afternoon. And you don't have a rudder so you can't land very well in crosswinds.
So last fall I decided to upgrade my license to full PPL so I can fly more often (in a Cessna 172).
So far I have about 40 hours of lessons. I have been cleared for solo flights and local x country so each morning if it is nice I go to the airport and take a plane out and have a blast for an hour or so before heading into work.
Today when I woke up it was cloudy and raining but on the way to work it had cleared so I headed to the airport and rented a plane. Winds were about 5 knots @ 230 degrees so the airport was using runway 21.
Takeoff was normal but after about a 45 minutes of flying in the practice area it was getting kind of bumpy and during some slow flight I noticed that when I pointed the nose at 240 I was almost in a hover. Hmmmm. Time to head back.
I flew in and it kept getting bumpier, but not so bad that I was worried. I tuned in the ATIS and the report was still Charlie which was the one I had going out which was comforting as I assumed the winds down low were still 5 knots.
I called the tower for permission to enter the airport zone and asked for a winds update. Winds were " 14 gusting 20 at 250". I felt like saying "WHAT" but held my tongue and continued my approach.
I was instructed to fly straight in to the airport because of traffic, so I was not able to set up my the normal long final. On final I get the plane trimmed up for 70 knots and aligned with the centerline and correct for drift and alt. If you have a long approach you have lots of time to do this. On this landing I would have almost no time at all as I was turning into final a few hundred yards out from the threshold.
Runway 21 is the shortest runway at the airport and you come in just over some trees at the threshold. The trees cause some sink and turbulence, which would be worse today due to the strong winds.
I was bouncing much more than I ever have and I had to keep applying power and chopping it to keep on altitude but once I cleared the trees I was more or less over the centerline and pointed down the runway. I kept the flaps up as I was concerned about the crosswind and this made the speed harder to judge. Normally if I am high I just add more flaps and they bring you down and slow you down fairly quickly. I was using lots of rudder to keep it straight and I did one of my best landings ever.
I was a bit long but not much longer than a normal landing with flaps. After I turned on to the taxiway I watched the next few planes come in (heavier planes mostly) and they were bouncing all over. Of course some guys were doing circuits so they must have had a lot more hours that I do.
After I shut the engine down I felt on top of the world. I had landed in a strong gusty partial cross wind, with a short final, on the shorter runway.
For those of you who fly with hundreds or thousands of hours you may not appreciate what I felt. But for a guy with under 50 hours I was feeling every emotion from slight panic to total uphoria this morning.
I can hardly wait to get back up there next time. Of course if the winds are 14 gusting 20 I will probably sit it out.
