Another good day for crosswind landings

My intention for flying yesterday was simple. I wanted to solo in the pattern again. This is confidence boosting exercise as much as it is practice. With winds at 10 to 12 knots and gusts up to 20 knots, this outside my comfort zone to fly solo. Luckily, Instructor Geoff sat with me. No earth shattering lessons to report on cross wind landings. Been there, done that. Just need to firm up the skills as expected. Just a few tidbits to remember, as follows:

(1) Announce to the tower the intention to land, even in the pattern, as soon as mid-field. I tend to wait till the plane is abeam the numbers.

(2) If I am in the glide slope, do make power changes until over the threshold.

(3) Do not be so quick to add 20 degrees of flaps until on final when a strong wind is present. Judge the ground speed (as it is slower) and the glide slope. Just make sure the the altimiter is in the green (65 knots) but do not assume it is correct (TAS) with a wind.

That is pretty much it. All my landings were safe. The last one was a bit odd, as I reduced power too soon and rapidly lost airspeed in the flare. Luckily, I recovered fairly well with a firm (no bounce) landing 5 feet off the center line.

A have minor correction for a previous post. I mentioned, on an ILS approach in IMC, the copilot takes control of the plane once the runway is in sight. I investigated this procedure further and it is not a strict procedure. It depends on the airline or organization. For example, military pilots do not do this. The reason, I am told, is that the copilot may trim the plane differently, and unless they have flown with the same PIC along time, they would need to adjust. This is not a good thing 600 feet above the ground in a jet at 150 KIAS. It was funny, because I noticed my instructor trimmed the plane different than I. I tend to add a little more elevator trim so I can fly in 20 or 30 degrees of flap, and gain airspeed quickly. With Bill's trim, I felt the need to use 40 degrees of flaps to get the plane to 60 KIAS. My reasoned approach to trimming the plane comes from two considerations: (1) most planes do not have 40 degrees of flaps and (2) one should never retract flaps once added in order to gain airspeed. The risk of losing lift at the same time can and often does have detrimental effects.