Journal #5

June 12, 2002

7pm-9pm
hobbs time 1.3 hours
N20117 (c172 - cheaper one)

Took off from Oakland Runway 33, obtained clearance for vfr to Hayward (incredibly close, just across and south of Nimitz/880). Passed from Oakland Tower (ATC?) directly to the Hayward Tower - called up with negative ATIS, did the left pattern into runway 24L for T&Gs - the tower was really nice. Other people were around, but mostly no factor - spaced out well etc. Crappy weather, little bumpy approaches, but working for sure on the flare thing.

Also - the "sight picture" is very important. With little guidance from Jeff (on this one part) he had me fly for the sight picture, while the airspeed was covered up. This worked! I was within 3mph (this plane was mph, not nm/ph) on each leg, without having an airspeed indicator! That was probably better than when I was looking at it. With a crosswind from the right, I crabbed right down to the flare each time - not too far from the centerline, and had some ugly and some less-ugly landings. The flare is really tough - starting too soon, or immediately upon the roundout was my main problem - often bouying back up for a mini-climb, or not dissapating enough energy in the roundout/flare so that after touchdown I would bounce up again. ok - enough self-analysis... they weren't *too* bad - nothing was damaged, and Jeff didn't seem too worried.

Flying back to Oakland, passed from Hayward tower to Oakland Tower - the woman there was really rude. We couldn't see the runway at all (it was approx 15 min after sunset, and it was hazy - actually foggy to the north (far past OAK). The landing lights were not on, and the controller didn't seem to care! After Jeff asked her to turn 'em on, she finally did and sarcastically said "there: can you see the runway now!". I couldn't believe it. Also - she said that we were lined up for runway 27L, when we were about 20 degrees off the centerline (maybe 1/4 of the way to runway 11!)

Had not-too-bad a landing on 27L, taxied back - handled the majority of the radio work with Oakland Ground - think I might have asked for fries or something (metaphorically speaking) at one point, but they understood me and were very helpful.