Cardinal c177rg checkout

Washington DC is sitting under some of the hottest weather we have had in a while. Combine the heat and humidity(95 degrees) and some really bad haze and you have a less than ideal day to go flying. None-the-less....my instructor Ray and I headed out to the Cardinal for our first flight since my CFI checkride. He showed me the subtle differences in systems from the Arrow, and the similarities I could relate from my days in the Cessna 172. After a thourough and sweaty preflight we climbed in. I got my ADIZ clearance, and we checked the AWOS. Wow, 2800 ft density altitude. This is gonna be interesting. The higher the density altitude(pressure altitude corrected for non standard temps) the worse(or better) your performance. In this case our performance was much worse. He told me to fly by feel and get to know this new bird with the bigger engine and way nicer avionics. She was equipped with a Garmin 530, dual display, autopilot, TCAS(traffic collision avoidance system) and some nice radios. We headed up to DMW-carroll county MD. My first landing there was terrible. Its been a while since ive bounced an airplane. I bounced the cardinal, about 3 times before we settled down. The next landing was much nicer. we did a soft field takeoff out of there and headed over to 2w2-clearview airport. We are talking about some work. the runway is 1800 ft long, and one side has a slope so you better hope the wind is blowing downhill. We dragged it in over the trees, and put it down in the first 500 ft. rolled to the end and took off on the downhill. I rotated at the published airspeed(55 kt) and climbed out....barely. we cleared the trees by no more than 100 ft. interesting. there was some serious pucker factor. we came back in for another landing and takeoff. these were both much better. One thing i learned about cessna retracts is that you dont pull the gear up while trying to clear something. the mechanical drag of the gear in motion destroys performance. lesson learned. the arrow you got rid of the gear and drag when you were clear of the runway. I experienced a real practical application of short field technique. its just not the same when there is actually an extra 3000 ft of runway in case you mess up. its one shot or no shot. The we headed back to JYO-leesburg. he yanked the power on me abeam the numbers. i forgot how those cessna wings like to fly......full flaps and a slip on the base and I greased her in. So, what did I learn? bigger engine means better performance, but also means more to do. Cowl flaps are there for a reason, and density altitude and hot temps are serious business on a short runway. Oh yeah, and dont pull up the gear till you are clear of anything. Cant wait to take this bird onto the grass strip next weekend, and then on a x-c trip somewhere.