A dose of humility

I spent most of last night flying the pattern in the DC-3. This is teaching me humility. I've gotten very good at flying light GA craft, but this is a whole new challenge. The beast has a much greater range of power, and the response is a lot slower. I need to readjust my own control feedback loop. My glide slope looks like a sine wave, and I have a hard time keeping the runway centered. I think I've bounced just about every landing.

I have to confess I actually had a crash landing. I started to baloon so I pushed the yoke forward. This is a terrible thing to do, but I thought I was just a few feet off the ground and could get away with it. Wrong wrong wrong. It's much more critical to follow procedure with this bird. The next landing after that was my best of the evening.

I can tell it will be very satisfying when I can nail a good landing every time. Right now I'm pretty much in the same position with this plane that I was with the good old Cessna 172, only a little more than a year ago. I'ts nice to think how much my skill has improved in that time, and I can believe I'll see the same progress with the heavier planes.

Oh, another great reason to learn the DC-3, that I forgot to mention. I'll be able to fly the same plane in Golden Wings!