CHALLENGING CONDITIONS

Well, challenging for me, at least!!

I turned up to the club at the appointed time of 1000 fully expecting to have a cup of tea and a yarn as conditions looked somewhat marginal to say the least (low cloud surrounding the airport and showers around).  I had the Arrow, DQV, booked for a dual "currency catch-up" with Roger, our CFI as I had not flown the retractable for about 8 months.
Roger had a look outside and pronounced it flyable for some circuits and sent me off to preflight DQV in the hangar as it was actively raining (only a light shower at this stage). Roger duly arrived and we pulled the plane half out of the hangar only just onto the grass, started up and taxied off around two planes parked nearby making a beeline for the nearest concrete taxiway without delay.  The grass was very boggy after further rain and significantly more cut up than last week.
Once on "terra firma", I switched on the radios, got the ATIS (one good thing - no wind to speak of), and was cleared into the circuit off 18.  Now, I will start with the best thing of the whole flight - Roger made no comments about any of my landings.  The only comment was by me that I was a bit off the centreline on my first touch and go to which Roger merely said I would be OK next time.  We did five circuits in all and I remembered gear up and down, power and pitch at the appropriate times.
There were a couple of negatives, though.  We were given a right hand circuit second time around which put us into the moderate shower which was parked to the North and West of the field (also flew into it at the end of downwind on some of the left-handers).  I found myself concentrating on keeping the runway in view that I forgot about the trim change after gear down and slowly drifted down to 800' indicated by the time I turned base.  Remember to fly the aeroplane first was Roger's comment.  I also got a bit high on one approach and a little low on another but had them all sorted out in time to make good touchdowns.
Good fun.  It was not a day I would have been happy about going up alone but as always with Roger it was great value and good for me to fly in "challenging" conditions and to feel current again on a retractable, constant-speed prop type.  Thanks, Rog.