Trim Tab Altitude is everything!

I have another flight under my belt now. When I went to the flying club today, the winds were 20 knots gusting 30. Unal asked me if I wanted to go up, and I said absolutely. We were directed to runway 32, which is the 10,000' one, which meant that we had to taxi all the way to the main apron, and follow WestJet planes.

I just found my score for the pre-solo exam (the one I wrote on the 16^th)! When I was talking to Unal on the phone this evening, he mentioned I had "two small errors" on the exam. Roughly, that converts to 95%!

The OFC (Ottawa Flying Club) pre-solo exam is not actually required by the government to get my license, but the flying club makes me write it before they trust me with their planes.

I got my PSTAR results back yesterday! My grade is...92% (four incorrect answers). Sounds high, but don't forget that a passing grade is 90%

I reviewed the exam, and I am mostly sastisfied with the mark. One question, though, was a "silly" mistake. Here it is:
Avoiding wake turbulence is:

The PSTAR is an exam that students must take before being allowed to solo. It is made up of 50 questions taken from a publicly viewable list of 200 questions. Given that, it is not suprising that the pass mark is 90%.

All week I've been studying for it by using a couple of websites that give answers to the questions, and scheduled today as the date I would write it.

Unfortunately, Unal got stuck in his laneway, so he wasn't at the Club, but I was able to write it anyway.

Since I couldn't fly yesterday because of weather, Unal and I did an hour of circuits today. Mom stayed in the club where she could watch, and said she enjoyed it. I did 95% of the flight including radio, and did pretty well. I think we did five touch-and-gos, then one overshoot from full flaps, and then a full stop.

An interesting element to the flight was a flock of birds that stayed between 600 and 800 feet in the air, just past the end of the runway. We had to be careful not to hit one, or the plane would have been a mess.

So I flew a 1.8 hour flight with Unal today - completely the longest flight so far!

The weather was amazing, which was a good thing except for the fact that it made the sun really bright. The temperature was almost hot in the plane, even without a coat on.

We flew out to the practice area, where we practiced forced landings. Basically, we bring the engine down to a low power setting, and lower the flaps until the rate of descent simulates the rate of a descent with no engine at all. Then I have to do a ton of stuff really quickly, including

Unal and I flew five or six circuits for one hour today. I had to do some of the radio calls, and had control of the plane the whole time. There was a 10 knot crosswind that made judging the circuit not perfectly easy with no real experience at this location/in this plane.

A spiral dive is essentially a automatically tightening downward turn. The wings are still producing lift, but since the aircraft is banked at least 60 degrees, the lift serves only to tighten the turn. The G-forces increase rapidly, as does the airspeed, meaning that recovery must be completed by the time the airspeed reaches VNE.

Unal demonstrated the first one, going to the left (my side). I didn't feel great afterwards, but knowing what to expect helped me when I had to do one.

Just a quick one this time... Unal and I flew the ground briefing from yesterday - spins and stalls. We did three spins, then a couple power-on stalls. They are so cool, but not quite as cool as in a glider. The G forces during recovery are still rather strong, though.

I asked Unal to take a quick picture of me in the cockpit after we landed: