Learning Plateau

Today we flew (N223NH) back to Bowling Green/Warren County Regional Airport (BWG) for another cross country flight. The plan to fly there successfullytoday,  and then tomorrow fly back by myself for my first solo cross country flight.

The pre-flight planning went quickly, as I just adjusted the weather information from my prior flight there. Then I call logged the flight plan.

Today's flight went well, but we didn’t fly any higher than 3,500 feet because of the clouds. Actually, for the first 7-8 minutes of the flight we had to fly at about 2,000 feet, because we were so close to Nashville International Airport’s airspace. The first part of our path has us flying through a section of their airspace from 2,100 to 4,600 feet MLS. I can fly in that area, without permission, as long as I am below 2,100 feet or above 4,600 feet. The last time we few route, we decided to just fly a couple of miles east to avoid it.

The clouds above made thermals that made it challenging to maintain altitude and airspeed.

We arrived at Bowling Green/Warren County Regional Airport (BWG) pretty easily. Having I65 as a landmark also makes it very convenient to find. Once again, I had a difficult time determining which runway to use and how to enter the traffic pattern. With the help of my CFI, we determined that runway 30 was our best option.

BWG


It was slightly winding, but that was no excuse for I had my roughest landing in several weeks. I had a good glide slope, and I just reduced the power to idle, which made the plane more impacted by the wind. This require multiple corrects and created a hard landing. Had I just come in with more power, the aircraft would have resisted the effects of the wind better. Needless to say that was discouraging.

Once again, the flight home we using the GPS and was uneventful. I am pleased to say that my final landing of the day was much better than my first.

I told my CFI I wasn’t ready to fly a solo cross country and I needed a better understanding of runway selection and pattern entry. He agreed and we discussed that I may be hitting a learning plateau. This is very common, (I have been reading about, but was sure it wasn’t going to happen to me…) and with persistence, can be overcome. I hear this is the point where a lot of students drop out. I’m not giving up.

Flight time: 1.80 hours
Cost: Plane rental - $169.00, Instructor Fee - $96.00