PPL Lesson #13: Crosswind circuits

Today’s lesson was a mixed bag of dual circuits with 8-12kt perpendicular crosswinds following my first solo last week. Landing-wise we squeezed in 8 circuits: 3 standard, 2 flapless and 2 glide approaches, plus a go-around for the first circuit as we caught a wicked gust that blew us off the runway just as I was rounding out. Good to get some consistent crosswind landing practice in, and flapless seemed much more natural than previous attempts.

The major area of development needed for me is on the glide approaches, particularly on judging the right point to close the throttle and start the glide. On the first one I was long and we eventually touched down just shy of the middle of the runway, and on the second one I was short and needed a fair squeeze of power to get back onto the glide slope. Hopefully this is something that comes with repeated practice. Can’t say I’m at the point of enjoying glide approaches just yet.

Another 57m dual time logged for a total of 11h31m dual and 15m solo (I’d under-judged solo time in the last update). Next lesson is supposed to be this afternoon but the weather is awful at the moment. Assuming it goes ahead, we’ll either be doing advanced turns or solo circuit consolidation depending on just how good the weather is.