Well what a shocker that was. I was quitely confident that my checks were going well, but once again they fell apart under pressure. I will have to address that before next lesson on Tuesday.
Flight time was 0.9 hours, which was a bit annoying because we spent a heck of a long time on the ground waiting for a gap on the tower frequency. We sat there for a good 5 or 10 minutes without being able to get a word in, never seen in that busy before. Eventually we gave up and the instructor said we should just taxi over to the holding point E1. So we did that and then established contact there.
Finally we got a word in and we were cleared for takeoff on grass 25L. First circuit was a bit rough but that was to be expected, approach was terrible and we were forced to go around. Also a first was the crosswind on the approach, which was interesting to say the least. The aircraft is going straight ahead but the nose is pointed off to the side, so that felt a bit weird.
Circuit 2 was just as bad, once again we were forced to go around because we were to high.
Circuit 3 was another go around...
Circuit 4 was much better, I remembered my checks and I had plently of time to do them unlike before. Landing was pretty good, right on the stall warning. Funny that, always get something right when the flights just about to land.
Well that lesson was a BIG learning curve for me, 3 go arounds in a row was slightly embarrising (but best to be on the safe side, though), and forgetting many of my checks.
Lesson on Tuesday will be interesting, hopefully everything will go much smoother.
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6 comments:
That sucks aye.. Go-arounds are good practise though :) Crosswinds are good fun too!!!
Oh, I forgot to mention - on most approaches you'll have some amount of crosswind component, so really every landing is a crosswind landing !!!
Yeah guess thats true.
I was having problems keeping straight while 'downwind', and was thinking this would have been becuase of the crosswind?
Yeah, that would be it. You'll learn to judge how much correction to apply downwind so you keep your circuit spacing. And the wind at 1000 ft can be quite different to that on the ground so you need to keep an eye on the runway while you're downwind to judge the wind.
Seemed to me that on that fourth circuit you were far enough ahead of the plane for it to go like landings should. You'll hear this "being ahead of the plane" a lot from pilots (and especially instructors). Instructors might look like they are staring aimlessly out of the window sometimes but they are in fact mentally flying the plane about 5 seconds ahead of where you are flying it. After a while you'll pick up this mysterious yet necessary skill, but its an insidious and undetectable process of endless circuits and home study that gets you there.
At least if the instructor is looking out the window he's still awake :)
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