Approaching Rain

Flying base to runway 33 at Sazena (LKSZ) today, approaching rain already covers half of the runway (visible just to the right of the wing strut), so we decide to abort the approach and proceed to Slany (LKSN).

A cold front had come in and there was a lot of sun, at least in the parts with no rain clouds, which made for a lot of wind and gusty conditions.

At Slany I did short field takeoff and landing practice in a 22 knot wind with gusts to 32 knots. It was extremely turbulent; the plane was bouncing around all over the place. At one point on the downwind leg, the stall warning came on while cruising at normal speed (80 mph IAS).

On the return to Sazena, we were able to hover over the ground at 55 mph IAS by lowering the flaps to 20 degrees and reducing power. There was a lot of mechanical turbulence as well below 1400' MSL.

I was sweating a lot by the time we got back - when we made our full stop landing, the instructor took over the controls and landed the airplane in the parking lot instead of the runway because he said that at that point the winds were too strong to do a crosswind landing.

What a day! it was great; I learned all kinds of stuff today.