Night Landings Practice
Completed my night landings flight last night, smoothly performing 10 takeoffs and stop and go landings. Having not performed pattern work for several weeks of instrument training, it was a bit odd to return to the standard airport traffic flow, but after the first two the rest were very straightforward. The repetition of the landings really paid off to help me hone those in and by the end of the night, I was performing them flawlessly. It was a might accomplishment knowing how hard I struggled with landings in the Cessna.
Without a doubt, the highlight of the night was sharing the runways with these two Harrier Jump Jets. Just as we were preflighting the plane, these two came in and performed a near vertical landing that was a thing of beauty to watch up close. They glided in ever so gracefully and then plopped down at the last second at virtual crawling pace. Then later in the evening as we were coming around for one of our last landings, we heard on the radios that we were “to give way” as two Harrier Jets would be taking off from the adjacent runway! And just as we touched down and came to our quick stop and prepared to go again, the jets took off and we were literally drag racing them down the runway – we lost!
Video
That’s the first time I have seen that Harrier land and take off — and I’m nor real sure I believe it !! Looks like one incredible balancing act. Thanks for the Video.