pywackit,

Correct, you’re not supposed to be out on the runway while any planes are active unless your are retrieving a plane. We have that rule in place to comply with the AMA safety code since we are an AMA chartered club. You’re supposed to set the plane down like we did, walk to the pilots’ station and then taxi and take off. If it’s a direct cross wind, and the Field N*z* isn’t there, you can take off across the runway like I did on the last flight (after you get more experience), but still have to land with a cross wind – you don’t want to land towards the pits, and can’t fly behind the pilots station (don’t pay attention to my last landing heading towards the pilots station, I was trying to keep from walking out too far, and knew what I was doing on the landing – remember the s-turns before I landed, that was to keep from floating to the other end of the field). Your plane used all of 30 ft. to get airborne heading across the runway, so distance is not an issue, just the safety aspect.

Since almost all of the flying will be parallel to the runway, along with landing, it’ll soon become second nature. You are getting the rectangular pattern down quite well for the first day out there, and you’ll see how that translates to the landing pattern and taking off also as you gain more experience. It just takes time and patients. A year from now you'll wonder what was so hard about all this landing stuff as your flying aerobatics like Jim (the guy we shared the frequency with).

Hogflyer