BFR prep

I'm approaching that time of the year (well, 2 years) that require me to get a biannual flight review performed. Being a little rusty on things like soft field takeoffs and short field landings I went out to the airport tonight to practice the fundamentals.

The wife, K, was using the airplane (like always!) so I had to wait my turn. She gave me a call and handed me the keys at 4:30. That meant that I had about 40 minutes of practice time before dark set in - perfect!

I started with a soft field takeoff. For this one you keep the nose up nice and high as you roll on the runway and coax the airplane into the air as soon as possible. Then you lower the nose and imagine yourself as a low-level fight pilot by trying to fly 1-2 feet off the deck to remain in "ground effect". After a very short amount of time doing this you've gained enough airspeed to go ahead and climb out. And climb out I did! It was ~60 degrees F out, so not too cold, but boy did the airplane climb.

I went out to the practice area and did some steep turns, slow flight, and a simulated engine out. All that went just fine and it was getting dark so I headed back to the airport.

I did a short field landing with full flaps (I think that was the first time I used full flaps in 35388) and was surprised by how little runway I needed to get stopped. I came across the threshold at 65 MPH and could have fully stopped in something like 650 feet or so. I think that airplane would do well with short fields. :)

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