Flight #3, March 2, 2005

CFI: Tristan Peters
MapComments
Despite the things I have heard about morning flights being smoother, this was the roughest one yet. After doing the pre-flight, I had to go back to the shop to get my forgotten headset, and we taxied out to 4R via taxiway C to F. The plane (N402DJ) kept moving in gusts of wind while I was checking it. I did my first full set of fuel samples, there was no cup in the plane, so I had to borrow Tristan's. I did some of the radio stuff this flight for the first time. My worst omission was that I didn't tell the clearance guy where I was, he asked, I told him, no damage.

As soon as the tires left the asphalt ("tarmac" is just the British word for "asphalt") on takeoff, the nose jumped 45 degrees over to the right and we flew sideways for a while until I got the tail behind us with some rudder. A bumpy morning, all around. Good to work with Tristan, there were a couple of things that I got better after hearing a second person explain them. I can't think of an example...

On returning to HNL from the South Practice Area, the tower told us to extend the downwind leg, and then Tristan tried to talk me trhough the landing on the way back. As we were bearing down on the threshold, tower says "2DJ, we need you on the ground". Apparently they had a lot to do, and we were clogging up the works. So Tristan expedited the landing, and then taxied at full power to taxiway D, which was pretty interesting to observe.