Friday, November 16, 2007

Lesson Sixteen: Circuits

A day of mixed results to be honest. I had been going over my checks quite a bit between this and the last lesson, but I had a complete blank, so obiously I didn't know them enough.

First 2 cicuits were pretty shocking, alot of height was lost during my turns, gained when downwind, and I need to pick better reference points. My turns onto finals were a bit slow so we had to make one quite steep to make it straight in.

Last two circuits were quite good, I didn't lose as much height and my approach was much better. I am also judging my flare properly, which is good. Unfortunately I have exams coming up in a couple of weeks so I wont be flying until they're over, next lesson is booked in 2 weeks time for more circuits.

I have been reading other bloggers archives and they think it is important to set goals in aviation to ensure that you are always going somewhere. Obviously my initial one is going solo, which should be achieveable within 8 (ish) lessons, but its hard to tell. Once exams are over I will be able to have 2 0r 3 flights a week, so my hours will get up quite quickly. After solo I will be heading towards my longer term goal of gaining a PPL. I have also considered an aerobatics rating, however alot of dual instruction is necessary, and more of a goal for the next 3 or 4 years.

When will I finish my PPL? Sometime next year I hope, possible halfway through, it just depends on finances. I spose a 172 rating will be needed shortly after to allow me to fly more than one passenger, and I guess also an Archer rating would be a natural progression after that.

Better start saving, I think.

Flying time: 0.7 hrs
Total flying time: 11.25 hrs

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Lesson Fourteen: Circuits

Well back into the circuit again today, for the first time in the Alphas. This was always going to be an interesting lessons as the controls are much more responsive then the 152's. I guess the increased power makes for alot more airflow over the wings, hence the increased responsiveness.

Because of homework and my part time job, I lack motivation to learn my checklists, which is a bit lazy on my part. I had gone over my circuit procegures quickly, so I roughly knew the heights of when we should turnin the circuit, raise/lower our flaps and switch the landing lights. Unfortunately I hadn't learnt much of my general checks so I had to get my instructor to go through them with me. I'm a bit confused with all the digital readouts in the Alphas, with all the switches and things you have to toggle to get the required readouts etc. Good things take time, though.

I cant really recall this lesson, as I didn't write a report after it but I'm guessing it was a fairly average lesson. Flying in the circuit really does require you to know your checks well, so until I learn them properly, progress will be slow.

Flying time: 0.65 hrs
Total flying time: 10.55 hrs

Lesson Thirteen: Revision (upper air)

Due to spending so much time away from training, an instructor thought it would be a good idea for me to do a revison lesson to go over the basic maneuveres - turns, climbs, descents, and stalls.

The instructor asked me what I wanted to do, and thought we had better start with the basics, medium turns. These were pretty average, as I had wasn't keeping the nose up enough, and therefore we were losing quite a bit of height. Second time round was almost as bad, but third was much better. We then did a couple of right hand turns, as we had just been doing left hand ones before.

We finished off by doing some basic stalls, these wern't the best, as for the first couple I recovered at the stall warning by mistake. Third time round was better, although I still was getting a bit mixed up with raising the nose, etc. Might go over those again before going solo as I'm not fully confident with them yet.

We then returned for landing, I cant quite remember what the approach was like, but I am still having a bit of trouble judging the flare height. I was reading through my training manual afterwards and it recommended to look straight ahead and to the side a little, will try that next time. A full hours flight time in the log book, and some well needed revision.

Flight time: 1.0 hrs
Total flying time: 9.9 hrs

Aerobatic Trial Flight

Well after a 15 month period of no flying, I've decided to finally get back into it. Money is in the bank, and its there to burn, so I'm keen to get back in the seat. Being the school holidays I was moping round home as usual, so booked in for an aerobatic trial flight.

A few days later, I was strapping myself into one of new Alpha 160 aerobatic trainers. Most people seem to have a 'pet hate' when doing things, and mine happens to be harnesses. Luckily for me, the Alphas have 5 point harnesses, which will take a bit of geting use to.

Anyway, I told the instructor about my previous flight experience and said I could do most of the flying, which was cool. Anyway, soon we were at full power down the runway. With an exta 50 (ish) HP than the 152's I was used to, it was certainly a exciting experience. I flew us out and was told I flew OK for someone who hasn't flown for so long.

The instructor then took over the controls to do the aerobatic manouvers. They were similar to the ones I did back in the 'Basic Stalls' lesson, but just as awsome. We started off with a couple of rolls, which is always a good intro because of the low g-forces. I think we then did a spin, in which the plane nose dives and the plane spins around. Increases the heart rate, thats for sure. We then finished off with a loop or two. Before heading home, I got to do a roll myself, which wasnt too bad, before flying us back to Hamilton to shutdown.

Overall a great flight.

Flying time: 0.7 hrs
Total flying time: 8.9 hrs

Lesson Twelve: Circuits (2)

Unfortunately this was to be my last lesson for around 15 months, basically due to the fact that I was sick and tired of using my very small part time wage entirely for flying. I still wanted to fly, but being the middle of winter, constant weather cancellations make learning to fly a bit frustrating. However, I will do a basic write up of my last lesson for a while.

It wasn't the greatest of lessons, I kept making little mistakes like underestimating the turn onto finals, and flaring too fast so we floated down the runway. Apart from that, the other parts of the circuit wern't too bad, I just need to keep practicing.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Lesson Eleven: Circuits (1)

Finished lesson number 11 a couple of hours ago, on quite a cold and miserable Autumn day, which was Circuits No. 1. Unfortunately the drizzling rain made visibility quite difficult, bringing it down to just 20km. We were operating on the grass, which is fine on sunny days but when its rainy and wet the runway becomes a bit more difficult to see and judge.

Unlike previous lessons, circuits only require one briefing, which took place during my last one, Circuit Introduction, so we simply flew, which was a nice change.

I began the pre flight however I was soon rudely interrupted half way through by a sudden downpour, luckily the aircraft provides a considerable amount of shelter in the form of wings and the cabin. Aircraft passed my inspection and we hopped into the aircraft and taxied out for departure.

Take off for Circuit No. 1 wasn't too bad, although I was a bit slow rotating and it took a while for us to get into the air. My instructor manned ATC for the first circuit while I concentrated on flying, and we were soon downwind for the grass. I'm still shocking at turning out onto my reference points, but I improved as the lesson went on. Rolling out of the turn onto finals was slightly underestimated. My landing was pretty average, I didn't quite pull back quick enough when flaring the aircraft on touchdown. We were doing a touch and go so we applied full power after raising the flaps from full 30 to 10 degrees, and applied some right rudder to keep us pointing straight on the runway.

Circuit number 2 was a right hand one. Once on short finals the instructor gave me the controls again, this time I flared better and landed on the main gear. Once again full power was applied and we took off for circuit Number 3. This time the instructor said that I would fly the circuit by myself with as little imput as possible and didn't do to badly apart from forgetting the carb heat and raising the nose when reducing power back to 1600 RPM. My approach was looking prettt good, until I lost it and noticed we wern't coming down quick enough, so I took the the initiative of completing a go around as a safe option, which is good for practice anyway.

Lesson number 4 definitely wasn't the best of the day, as we had to considerably lengthen our upwind leg to avoid a large cloud that drifted our way. We were soon back on short finals for the grass, this time it was quite a good approach and I was very pleased with it. Unfortunately that marked the end of the lesson, which was one of my most enjoyable yet, thats for sure.

Flying time: 0.8 hrs
Total flying time: 7.4 hrs

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Lesson Ten: Circuit Introduction

Oh dear. Looking at the diagram of a circuit it looks resonably straight forward, but in practice it really isnt. Anything but, in fact.

The pre-flight briefing was quite long, as there was about 8 pages of theory in my training manual, but it was quite interesting all the same. This time I did most of the radio calls, which is a big learning experience in itself.

Finally we took off, and I rotated off the runway and lauched the aircraft into the air. The instructor flew the first circuit to demonstrate, and that was lucky due to the mayhem that occurred. As soon as we turned downwind ATC requested us to make a right hand orbit, due to traffic. Once we turned onto finals, the instructor gave me the controls so I could have a go at the landing, which didn't turn out to bad. Instead of doing a touch and go we were to backtrack along the runway and takeoff again, as a touch and go is fairly high demanding on a learner pilot. The annoying thing about backtracking is you have to turn round on the runway 180 degrees, and taxi all the way back to the threshold which took quite a long time. Generally you would use the taxiways to do this, so that was a bit weird.

Now that we were back at the threshold I finally got to take the controls for the entire circuit, and my first attempt at the circuit wasn't too bad, although I kept turning past my point of reference that I was turning onto when changing from downwind to base legs etc. During the circuit we were forced to change another runway, which annoyed me a bit.

Turning onto finals we noticed that there were two aircraft sitting on the RWY threshold not looking like they were going anywhere, one sitting behind the other, so we were told to 'go around'. My approach wasn't exactly spectacular, and it didn't look like much of a straight landing but funnily enough we touched down bang on the centre line (must have been a fluke). I then brought the flaps back up to the take off setting of 10 degrees, and applied full power for the take off. I still have a slight problem of judging the climb out attitude, but should correct itself with the 3 or 4 touch and goes we will be doing each lesson in the near future.

Unless my memory has failed me I dont think anything out of the ordinary occured that circuit, and we touched back down on the runway for a full stop landing before taxiing back.

Overall a very intense lesson, the circuit doesn't look very high demanding, but trust me on this one, it is. Not much of time to enjoy the scenery, but still alot of fun.

Next lesson will be Circuits 2, and we'll probably get through about 3 or 4 circuits depending on how busy the airport is, lets hope not as busy as this lesson!

Lesson Nine: Power and Flap stalls

My ninth flying lesson, was power and flap stalls.

This time I got to make the majority of the radio calls, including the second call of the day which includes quite a lot of information such as where you are heading, the ATIS version, and your QNH amongst a number of other things. Before I knew it we were thundering down the runway which didn’t quite turn out as well as I’d liked with the rotate being slightly slow. Air traffic for the region was reasonably busy.

Once established we climbed and levelled off at 2500 ft until we reached the area in which we would do our stalls. First of all we went over the basic stall from the last lesson, and once the instructor and myself were happy with it we moved onto the power stall. Unlike the basic stall, we use 1500 RPM instead of full idle (about 600 RPM), meaning the nose attitude of the aircraft is higher than that of the basic stall. It also means that the entry to the stall takes longer as the aircraft must slow down considerably. The good thing about stalls is that once you get the hang of it initially, stalls after that become reasonably straight forward and rewarding to do. On my last powered stall of the day the left hand wing stalled before the right one, causing the aircraft to rapidly bank steeply to the left which gave us a bit of a fright. Unfortunately I can’t remember why this occurred.

Following power stalls, we progressed onto the flap stall. This time 20 degrees of flap is selected, with the power being set at full idle. Because the flaps are generating a considerable of additional lift, the nose high attitude has no need to be has high, therefore we stall the aircraft at a nose up attitude only slightly above the horizon. These all went fairly well, so we moved onto the last exercise of the day, the power and flap stall. Once again the same recovery technique was used, of control column forward, full throttle and a little right rudder to prevent yaw. Once the instructor and I were happy with the 3 types of stalls we headed back to the airport, where we joined in a right base.

Next lesson will be intro to circuits.

Lesson Eight: Basic Stalls (and aerobatics!)

Well, definitely an interesting lesson this one, and a big learning curve at that. Here is the lesson objective:

As per usual I went out by myself and completed the pre-flight inspection, and everything looked up to scratch. This time my takeoff was better as I kept us straighter once we became airborne.

The instructor than gave me a few demonstrations of the stall before I had a go at it myself. The first few times I was a little apprehensive so I didn't recover quite as fast as I would have liked, but I began to get the hang of it after a while. I kept forgetting to turn the Carb heat off when we passed through 60 knots, but that wasn't too much of an issue once I got the hang of it. My last stall of the day was the best, but Murphys law made its presence known by telling us we would have to return to the airport or we would go over our 1 hour limit in case someone else needed the aircraft. So we headed back to the airport Meanwhile, I was asked if I wanted to do some aerobatics so I said 'may as well!' and away we went.

First of all we did a couple of rolls, which was awesome fun, and I think we also did two or three stall turns after that, followed by a loop which was the best of the lot, as we stayed flying upside down for a couple of seconds before finishing off the loop. G-forces made it a little interesting too. The forces rather try to pull your mouth down, which would be amusing to watch in a video.

Following the aerobatics, we headed back to the airport for landing. Once we joined the circuit (or pattern if you want to call it that) we had to complete a right hand orbit. I then had a go at the landing, this time I stuffed up by over flaring instead of under like the last landing and we ended up doing a bit of a 'floater' down the runway Oh well, practice makes perfect.

Overall an awesome lesson, with getting the hang of stall recoverys and the aerobatics the highlight of the lesson. Next up is power and flap stalls.

Lesson Seven: Climbing and Descending turns

My seventh lesson, Climbing and Descending turns. This lesson turned out to be the best so far, as we ended up turning it into more of a scenic city flight mixed in with some steep turns but hey, I'm not complaining!

Following the briefing I went out and did the pre-flight inspection with everything looking in good condition (even full tanks of gas)! As usual I got to taxi the aircraft out to the holding point and complete the engine run up, before lining up. The instructor said that I was going to both take off and land this lesson which I was looking forward too, and we decided to fly over the city rather than the countryside for a change of scenery.

After being cleared for take off I advanced the throttle to full power but didn't quite use enough right rudder to keep the aircraft on the centre line, but all too soon we were at rotate speed so I pulled back on the yoke and launched us into the air. Once we were at cruise altitude we levelled off and the instructor showed me a climbing turn, which I followed.

Once the excitement of some steep turns were over with, we headed back to the airport for my first complete landing, which I would have my first go at. The instructor manned the throttle, while I had the yoke and pedals to play round with. I had a go at rolling out of the turn onto finals while I didn't anticipate very well, so I had to head left for a bit to get back on track. Once we were heading straight for the runway I lined up properly for the approach. The instructor then told me when to fly level with the runway which I did without difficulty, but when it was time for landing I didn't quite pull back quick enough on the yoke and didn't quite flare enough Oh well, better luck next time.

Well next lesson is Stalls which will be interesting.