Jekyll Touch-and-Go

I went to the doctor today and got a steroid shot and some other meds, so I'm feeling a little bit less like I've been hit by a truck. I actually tried to go to bed early and skip flying tonight, but my two youngest boys (ages 5 and 3), kept coming in and turning on the lights or trying to climb in bed with me, so that didn't work out. Instead, I retreated to my man-cave basement and fired up the simulator.

As I mentioned yesterday, I felt like I needed some landing practice so I decided to do a couple of touch-and-go landings at the Jekyll Island airport. The plan was to take-off, fly to the south-end of the island, swing around and fly north along the beach at about 1,000 feet, then turn around between Jekyll and St. Simons island to the north. After that, I would land and then throttle up and take back off to repeat the course.

I chose real world weather, which was probably a mistake. It was a bit windy, and around the north end of the island where I'd be making my final approach was cloudy and hazy, reducing visibility. On the first take-off, I pulled back too hard. Cessna's aren't jet fighters so they aren't meant to climb out this steeply:

I managed to get my nose down and into a more proper climb angle, but since I was distracted by that I let the wind push me off-course, so that I drifted east, off the runway and over the airport terminal and hangers. I'm sure they wouldn't have appreciated that in the real world.

The flight around the island was fairly uneventful, although I let my altitude creep up to 1,500 feet, which meant I had to descend a little steeper than I wanted on the landing approach. I also turned too sharply around the north-end of the island, so my approach angle was all wrong. I finally got lined up on the runway, but by then I was pretty close to it. I probably should have just throttled up and aborted that one, but I decided to land it anyway. The frantic maneuvering that ensued resulted in a fairly rough landing and even rougher take-off as I forgot to retract from full flaps after the touch-down. Here's a shot of me banking furiously to stay over the runway just before landing. The wings really aught to be straighter than that, but without rudder pedals, the only way to adjust course is to bank the wings.

I've also confirmed my suspicions from yesterday that the video recording feature in FSX is next to useless. While my first landing today was a bit rougher than I'd like, the same landing viewed on the video had me bottoming out the plane (wheels sunk into the runway, sparks flying, smoke, etc.). In fact, the impact caused the engine to cut off, but the plane continued to fly the second pattern with the propeller not moving at all. Very strange.

The scenery on the island was also disappointing. From the looks of it, you'd think Jekyll was mostly farmland with only a few houses. It's actually mostly wooded, with a golf course in the middle and houses all up and down the beach, plus a few older hotels near the middle. Here's a view out of the cockpit on the northward leg of my second lap. You can tell that I'm flying through some haze or a low cloud:

Another odd thing I've noticed is that when you switch to external view while flying through a cloud, the airplane itself does not appear to be in a cloud. It's drawn clearly which makes it look more like fog on the ground than a cloud in the sky. That makes sense from inside the cockpit, where you wouldn't want it to look like the cloud was in there with you, but doesn't make sense on the external view. Here's a shot of me banking to the west with the northern tip of Jekyll to my left and the southern tip of St. Simons to my right:

On the second landing approach, I did two 90 degree turns around the north end of the island instead of a single 180. That put me on a better line into the runway which allowed me to focus on the landing itself a little better. The actual landing, while not perfect, was smoother than the first one. On the recorded video though, it ended up being even rougher, with the plane bottoming out again. I wasn't fast enough on the take-picture button, and was too lazy just to back it up and try again, but here's an aftermath shot showing the smoke cloud just after touch-down:

Notice that the propeller is not turning at all. The shortcomings of the video recorder are really annoying. I wanted to use the recorder to review my landings as a training aid, but since they aren't accurate enough, they're worse than useless. I can't even use the system to get realistic screen shots during portions of my flights when I'm too busy actually landing to switch the camera view and take a shot.

Oh well, I think I'll try some more touch-and-go tomorrow, but with "fair weather" selected so visibility will be better and the wind won't be such an issue.