Flight 26, August 31 2024, Falcon 2 195, LMFP

No Flight 25 footage from the day before as I forgot to turn the GoPro on. It'd been about 1.5 months since Flight 24, and despite a good launch, I felt a little awkward once in the air--like I needed a few seconds to regain a feel for flying. It came back quickly, and my landing was fine (my second declared spot landing in a row despite there being a six-week period of no flights), but I think I ought to hit the training hills for a few warm-up flights if it's more than two months since my last flight or if the air is particularly turbulent.
I made my second spot landing in a row on Flight 25. To get my spot landing checkoff, I needed to make 3 declared spot landings within 5 attempts, and those two prior back-to-back spot landings meant I needed to get only one more spot landing on my next three attempts. That took a lot of pressure off.
Flight 26 was all about getting that 3rd spot landing. It took about 2.5 hours of hang-waiting to launch, as the wind was tailing all morning until around 10:30 when the valley heated up enough to create brief windows for launches. In the box pattern, I could tell I was a little too high to exit on my downwind, so I did a quick circle to lose a little altitude instead of the full box pattern, which would put me too low. (The instructor had mentioned this technique in previous chats, so I'm glad I listened!) That gave me a good setup for a faster approach, which was needed as the field was starting to get active air this late in the morning.
The landing was fantastic! Touched down on the middle circle and stopped on the inner circle with a really solid flare that required only a couple steps instead of a running landing. I couldn't be happier about that landing!
The instructor later said getting my three declared spot landings by my 26th flight was really impressive, and that many pilots do not achieve that by the time they've got 90 flights (and can potentially move up from H2 to H3 status).
I'm not good at much, but I guess I'm decent at spot landings! :)
If it helps others, here's what has been working for me (on a single-surface Falcon) for getting these spot landings.
1) Exit the box pattern just a teeeeeny bit on the high side (maybe 25-50').
2) On the downwind leg, keep an eye on the tree height by the creek and (over your shoulder) your distance to the target.
3) When to turn off the downwind leg is going to vary, so this is where you simply have to get a feel for when to turn. Anticipate losing about 1 height of the trees on the creek side when you turn from downwind to base to final approach. You want to be a little high (maybe 25') on final approach. It's way easier to burn off a little extra altitude with a steeper glide.
4) Pull in for an aggressive, fast approach lined up with the cone (also accounting for wind direction), but angle your pitch so you'll enter ground effect about 50-75' before the outer ring of the target (depending on how much headwind there is).
5) Once in ground effect, stay level to consistently bleed that speed off and you'll (probably) be ready to flare right over the target.

[@FLYNRYAN1978]

Nice!

[@Adam-xv7cd]

Hit the bullseye on the landing! Looked a little crowded above n below ya. Lots of moving parts.