After a hiatus of 3 weeks from flight lessons, I finally got up today. The last time I flew I crashed my ARF trainer. Many years ago I built from a kit the exact same trainer, so I have been getting it ready to fly - there was a fair amount of "hangar" damage. My instructor took it up to trim it out and it wouldn't trim! Turned out one of the aileron pushrods had come loose. Fixed that, then went back up, plane trimmed out nicely, but the engine, an OS 40 LA, was running poorly and eventually quit. After the dead-stick landing I could hear the clunk rolling around in the fuel tank. Pulled out the tank, and the clunk had broken off from the brass tubing in the middle! A little field ingenuity and we had that fixed (I will be replacing that before I fly again) and we went back up. I practiced landing approaches and finally had my first landing! Yeah Me! I got in about 20 or so touch and go's over the next couple of tanks of fuel. This was my fourth time out and the last two were disasters (see Crash forum "First Crash") But today was an excellent day, eventually.

girthdenton,
Great!!!! Good to see that you had a good day. Keep it up and you'll be soloed before long!!!!

Ken

Congratulations, persistance and a helpful instructor with patience pays off.

Good for you! I'm glad to hear that you didn't let that first crash scare ya away. Many people do if they have one right away early in their training but as you now know first hand, it does get better. Sounds like you eventually had a great day & are progressing nicely in your training. Doing a bunch of touch & goes is no simple matter when first learning to fly so well done!! As Ken said, you should be soloed in no time. Keep up the good work.[sm=wink_smile.gif]