Crosswind Craziness!

So today was my double block of lessons. In a single word, exhausting! So I went in for my lessons and met with my instructor Josh to talk about the plan. Today we were following through with our plan and heading down to Plymouth Airport from Norwood Memorial Airport. Plymouth is un-towered, which means you have to make all your own radio calls on a common traffic advisory frequency to the area traffic. Basically letting everyone know where you are and what you are doing. There we flew the pattern around the airport and practiced my landings, today was ideal because it was my first day with crosswinds. Let me tell you......interesting for sure. My landings were no way near as smooth as my near perfect landings yesterday. We did this take-off and landings flying the pattern 8 times before we stopped off for lunch at Plymouth Airport at the restuarant on the field. My landings were so-so as they were the first with crosswinds. Not so pretty, but more practice will yield better results. It was kinda funny pulling up to the restaurant in a plane parking in front of it and just walking inside. The crazy thing about going down there was, that normally if you think about driving from Norwood to Plymouth, is that it would take you a while to get there. But, in reality we flew there in 20 mins!

After we left Plymouth we headed West toward Taunton where I did another 20 minutes of hood time flying by instruments. Then we simulated an emergency landing which we performed by flying into and landing at Taunton Airport, another untowered field. We then taxied back to the runway and took off to the West to practice a few more of the skills. We did stalls, slow flight and steep turns again. All in all my flying skills are holding up very nicely and I really need to concentrate on my landings and getting through the rest of the material. Here are a few snapshots of the day. Enjoy. Flying up 495, a lake/pond next to it, the Tweeter Center, a shot of Gillette Stadium to the East in the distance, the Mansfield Airport right next to 495, a zoomed in shot of the Boston skyline 35 miles out in the distance, and lastly me in action -proof that I CAN fly.