More remedial training

I had mistakenly thought that that tonight's Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) for the state of the union address banned all VFR general aviation flights within the Washington D.C. SFRA for the entire day. This would preclude flying for me, because I train out of an airport within the SFRA. I scheduled time to fly this afternoon once I realized that the TFR was only in effect during the actual address.

Today's flight path

Today the wind was calm. My CFI and I flew again to KHWY to work on engine-out landings and soft-field landings.  I made two decent emergency landings to a full stop and my soft-field landings were OK: certainly within the PTS parameters.  I'm starting to struggle with things that I thought I had down, though, such as forward slips. These need more work.

When we got back to HEF, I came in on the base leg behind a Cessna on the downwind.  The tower turned us on an extended downwind for spacing and we ended up on probably a 4 mile final approach.  I wanted to try another forward slip, and my poor execution caused the airplane to track away from the centerline. My instructor took the controls an demonstrated it, then gave the controls back to me.  We were high on short final.  I should have just done another slip, but I thought I could get the airplane down with no power and flaps alone. I landed way long and crooked to boot. I should have gone around. The chief flight instructor witnessed this and sternly gave me his two cents. He warned me that I had better get the manuevers that I busted to be much better than mediocre before I attempt the retest, because the DPE would assuredly cut me no slack.

The balance in my account at the FBO has enough for maybe two more 1.3 hour flights. I'm not sure I can get myself proficient enough to pass the test before exhausting these funds, given that I must execute these manuevers flawlessly to succeed. We'll see what happens.

Did I mention that flying with an instructor in a Cessna 172 costs almost $3 per minute from the time the engine is started until it is shut down?

Flight time today: 1.4 hrs dual