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Old 24th Sep 2002, 11:09
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Don D Cake
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: St Albans, herts, UK
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Oh no, not another landings post....

Sorry about this but I need some advice....

I have 30 hours of dual and 2 hours of solo with about 100 landings logged. I'm doing solo circuits at the moment. Last Sat I was trundling around the circuit in a PA28, there was a xwind of about 7 kts, 30-40 deg to the left of the runway centre line. The first few landings were fine, I crabbed to the left on final, raised the nose to roundout, applied some right rudder to correct the yaw and a little left aileron to stop the drift. Float, float, float then touchdown. So far so good. The last landing was horrible. I was a couple of feet above the runway when the aircraft suddenly yawed left. Before I could correct it I touched down and (so it seemed at the time) I was hurtling towards the grass at the runway's edge. I didn't know how well PA28s take corners so I applied just enough right rudder to straighten up (I'm sure I heard the nose wheel scrubbing) and as I slowed down I re-found the runway centre line.

I can only guess that either there was a change of wind velocity just at the wrong moment or I completely miscontrolled the landing. My instructor told me not to worry about it but I am. Am I being overly concerned or could/does this happen to even experienced pilots?
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