PPL Lesson #4: Climbing & Descending Part 2 (and FIRST LANDING!!!)

I normally write these… diary entries, I suppose you’d call them, in chronological order, but today’s lesson culminated in my first unassisted landing! More later, but just know that I’m writing with a borderline maniacal grin on my face.

50 minutes earlier…

After take-off we went straight into Vy climbing and descending with different stages of flaps to see the impact on VSI. Good news is that I seemed to pick up the new skills relatively quickly despite all the thermals and sinks that were doing their best to disguise the true VSI impact, and I’m please to report that I managed to fix the main issue I had last time with not getting the power on quickly enough in the descent to arrive at a target altitude. Unfortunately I took a backward step on carb heat: I just kept forgetting to turn it off after applying power to level out from a descent as I was so focussed on nailing the target attitude. I can confirm that cockpit overload is a real thing.

From there we moved to approach configuration and go-around practice, but far from simulating that thousands of feet above the hard grey stuff as I expected my instructor used the disused runway at Greenham Common to give me something to aim at.

I got a couple of very loose but successfully-executed circuits with go-arounds in, realising after the first attempt that I’d adopted the student favourite “death grip” technique. I did manage a slightly pinker shade of white knuckle for the second attempt. All good thus far.

Back in the circuit

We then threaded our way back to Blackbushe between the two AWE sites - Burghfield and Aldermaston - to do it all again on a real live active runway. Gulp!

My one big error coming back into the circuit at Blackbushe was getting too low and slow on the crosswind. In my defence I was very conscious of the hard ceiling of 800ft AGL for Blackbushe circuits while the Farnborough Display RA(T) is in effect. I compounded this by only applying a few hundred extra RPM to try to stop us sinking further when it really needed a lot more oomph low on the drag curve!

I managed a stabilised approach - well, as far as I can muster with my single digit hours of experience - and initiated the planned go-around when instructed exactly as we’d practised earlier. Then… well, then it happened.

Same number of landings as take-offs

For our full stop landing I thought it was going to be like the end of every other lesson: my instructor taking control at double-digit feet from the runway for the round-out and landing.

What actually happened was that I flew the approach, and as we got to the point where he normally took over he said “okay, now just pull back gently… a bit more… that’s it, hold it there and let it fly down onto the runway”. I didn’t really have time to register what was happening and then all of a sudden we’d landed: maybe a little hard if I’m being critical, but we didn’t float or balloon and we didn’t bounce, everyone walked away and we didn’t need to note any broken bits in the techlog, so I’m calling that a success.

In terms of actual milestones on the PPL journey the first one most people get excited about is Exercise 14: First Solo Circuit. I’ve got a bit to do before I get there, but the sense of achievement that landing the plane fully under my own control has given me has taken me by surprise. The only flying I didn’t do unassisted today were the turns, which we haven’t covered at all yet but is the focus of the next lesson.

Debrief

Other than the flying skills, I’d done the bulk of the RT with Blackbushe without fluffing the readback calls, though was happy to let my instructor handle the landing calls (as noted above, I was more than a little occupied) and chatting with Farnborough who were super busy managing pretty much all local traffic as part of these temporary restrictions.

One last learning from today is that I’ve gotten sloppy with timing on the FREDA checks. Must find a way to tighten that up.

For the record, today’s 56 minute session puts me at 3h20m of dual flight time logged. Next up is turning so I can stop flying in straight(ish) lines.

Things to remember for next time:

• Level out from descent: Power in, carb heat off, then attitude, hold, trim
• FREDA checks after takeoff and then every 15-20 minutes between exercises
• Hit “Stop navigation” in Skydemon once you’ve completed shut down: the GPS track takes me right to my house. If only I had enough space in the garden for a little runway.