Don Riep and I hit the skies again tonight to get current on our night landings. It is a Transport Canada rule that a pilot with a "Night Rating", must perform 6 take-off and landings (the landings should go without saying) every 6 months to be allowed to carry passengers at night.
All things considered, it was another fun and uneventful flight, and we both left thinking we have to fly more. It's just too much damn fun and one of the things that provides a complete distraction from our day-to-day lives. As stressful as it can be at times, it is relaxing in another way, since you have no time to think about anything else.
Tonight did serve me a lesson however, and it reminded me of this quote regarding flying:
"You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The
trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck."
Every time I fly, I take something away that I will hopefully transfer to my bag of experience. Usually it has to do with good Checklist management, but tonight was my first experience with a slippery runway. We had first thought we would fly to St. Paul, where I had received the NOTAM (Notice to Airmen, which is basically an update on the condition of the airport). We decided mid-flight to cut that part of our route short and fly to Vegreville to do some circuits.
Without having any airport information, and not thinking much of it, I set to land and then do a "touch-and-go". This is basically a landing where you don't stop, and once you have the plane under control on the runway, you power-up and head of again. We do these all of the time and generally they go very smoothly. This time everything went perfectly until we made that tricky transition from flying to driving, the point when the wheels are on the ground and you have about 5-10 seconds to get everything in order to take of again.
This time however, when we landed, I found that the runway was very slippery and the plane wanted to skid immediately. This was excacerbated by the fact that there was a slight crosswind on the landing which you need to compensate for by flying the plane basically crooked, and straighten up once you have landed. This "straightening" process was the problem when we hit the slick runway.
Although the plane had trouble finding it's footing, I simply added power quickly, and held the plan on course by being very light on the brakes and more anxious to get it back up in the air. All in all it was a good lesson, and even though we performed 2 safe touch-and-goes (the 2nd one with full-flaps to come in as slow as possible), I was taught a valuable lesson. try to get as much information as possible BEFORE trying to land. We did apply the lesson eventually though as I was hesitant to try and do a "full-stop", which we had originally wanted to do.
A good flight, another valuable lesson learned, and I think I am better off for it. Here are some pics, including one taken by Don of the slippery runway.
