PPL Lesson #15: More crosswind circuit practice

Having had to cancel a few lessons due to sickness - bloomin’ kids and their back-to-school lurgy - I finally made it back into the cockpit today.

At the end of the last lesson we spoke about focussing on PFLs next if the weather was good. A quick chat in the hut suggested that having not flown for three weeks it would be better to bash out some circuits and practice crosswind technique in 11kt crosswinds blowing pretty much perpendicular to the runway.

By my count, we did 8 circuits: 2 standard and 6 glide approaches. The good news (for me) is that the glide approaches seemed to click this lesson, and I found my judgement much better on when to pull the power and if/when to add various stages of flaps. I managed them all without needing to touch the throttle and (mostly) on the numbers, which is a distinct improvement over last time. I did flub one due to being too high on approach - a combination of climbing a bit on downwind and not adding flaps soon enough - and I ended up ballooning as I carried too much airspeed in the round-out from the descent, earning myself some go-around practice.

Hopefully, all that gliding will pay dividends for next week’s PFLs, and I’ve been given homework on suitable field selection and the format for Mayday calls. It was great to get back up today, and the rustiness I felt in the first circuit was thankfully gone by the time we got into the first glide approach.

48m added today, making 13h09m dual and still just the 15m solo overall. I must say that solo flight feels like an age ago now despite being less than a month ago, and I’m looking forward to consolidation at some point.

As an aside, taking off from runway 25 at the end of a beautiful autumn day put the very bright sun pretty-much square in my face throughout the climb out. I’d deployed the sun visor and donned my cool-guy shades, but I had to engage squint mode in order to check the ASI whilst climbing and I’m pretty sure I can still see the after image of the sun when I close my eyes. I suppose I should be thankful that the weather wasn’t miserable, but most of my lessons end up booked at the **** end of the day so I’ve got a lot more of this to look forward to.