PPL Lesson #10: More circuits

Definitely more of a challenging lesson this time, with 16kt gusty winds and reports of wind shear from other pilots. It was also the first time I’ve flown from RWY 07, which at Blackbushe meant my first experience of right hand circuits and some noise abatement to content with on climb out.

Managed to get 10 circuits in with 4 standard, 2 flapless, 1 go-around and 3 glide approach landings. I was annoyed at the go around as it was by far my best approach of the day, though my instructor’s “moose on the runway, go around” at least gave me a chuckle.

Overall the gusty conditions made for a tricky lesson, especially with the glide approaches where I found judging overall gliding distance from base to get the right time to idle the engine a real challenge. On debrief, I wasn’t properly accounting for the effect of wind on turning onto final, though the judgement on when to deploy flaps once on final was much better.

General landing technique wise we had a little balloon in a few of the landings - I need to smooth out my round out some more to combat - but nothing that prevented us from landing safely. I was happy to have handled the gusty winds reasonably well, albeit with some choice words and quick action required on a couple of notable occasions when we caught a major gust on late final or just after take off.

1h04m added to the clock, putting me at 9h11m. Next week: more of the same.

PPL Lesson #9: Circuits

Just got back from easily my best and most enjoyable lesson so far. Apologies in advance for the long write up - you might want to grab a cuppa :)

The subject of the day (and many more days to come) was circuits. We’d taken care of the briefing outside of the lesson to maximise flying time, so - after a quick check that I knew not to just whack in the throttle without cleaning up flaps and carb heat on a touch and go - off we went into the circuit.

It was relatively quiet at Blackbushe for most of the lesson today, with typically only one other aircraft in the circuit. On my first circuit I’d dropped ~100ft below circuit height at the end of downwind, which meant I had some work to do on base and final to get back on the glide slope. Being self critical I’d say the landing was a little firm, but my instructor seemed happy enough and it was a massive improvement over the one landing (or not) from last lesson.

The second circuit was much better in terms of height control and the landing was properly buttery smooth, evoking uncharacteristic oohs and ahhs from the right seat. I felt totally in control and comfortable on the approach, and while it was slightly right of centre if I can execute all my future landings like that I’ll be happy.

At some point - I think it was our 4th circuit , but who knows?! - I rounded out too high, and although the round out itself and the hold off were good we were far too high above the runway. I could see it - and more importantly my instructor could see it and wanted me to learn my own lesson - but I didn’t call the go around as I should and we dropped a fair distance onto the runway for a very robust landing. Nothing bent or broken, and we didn’t break stride in terms of the touch and go procedure, but definitely less than ideal:. Thankfully I had time to redeem myself and shook that off quickly with a couple more okay landings: a lesson felt is a lesson learned :)

Clearly at this point my instructor decided that I was having too easy a time of it, and on climb out for circuit #6 said “engine failure”, pulled the throttle and asked me to do something about it. :pale: I’d been doing the take off emergency brief from the second lesson so the actions were burned into my brain, but we’d not brief this as part of the lesson so it came as a massive surprise. I immediately pitched for best glide and selected an apparently suitable enough field, at which point I was given the green light to resume the climb out. I’m honestly not sure I was breathing throughout the whole incident, but it reassuring that the correct actions came to me instinctively.

We did a couple more circuits before he suggested we make our 8th a full stop so we had time to practice an aborted take off, and either by luck or good judgement I repeated my buttery landing from the second circuit. Once again I wasn’t bang on centreline and in general I feel my runway alignment could use some work, but it was another massive confidence boost after last lesson.

Aborted take off practice went well after holding for an age to get a clear enough runway, and we were back to the office for debrief and some rehydration.

Aside from endless repetition of the basic circuit skills to hone consistency, the main takeaways to work on for me for today were to make a proper conscious effort to control altitude on downwind, to find a way to better get on and maintain the centreline on final and to not repeat my high round out from earlier in the lesson.

Another 58m dual time racked up today for a total of 8h07m.

Next lesson we’ll do a bit more general circuit work, with my instructor throwing in some flapless and glide landings for good measure to “keep it interesting for you” 😲

PPL Lesson #8: Spins and spin avoidance

Today was my first lesson after a couple of weeks of no flying so I was feeling a bit rusty, and the weather forecast was non-committal on whether we’d get sufficient height for spinning or whether we’d be banging out circuits. In the end the weather was lovely (if a little breezy, which will become important later) so my instructor had me take us a bit further out than our normal practice area to give us sufficient headroom for hurtling towards the ground at high speed.

After climbing to 5000ft and steering clear of a mob of gliders to our west, we did a quick rehash of spin avoidance from last lesson and then I got a demo of a fully developed spin and recovery. I counted 4 full turns but there may well have been more as I was supposed to be keeping an eye on the turn indicator as the primary means of identifying spin direction. We’d done one demo of a full spin and recovery at the tail end of last lesson which I found massively disorienting, but it was much better this time and I might even go so far as to say that I enjoyed it. After climbing again it was over to me for a handful of spin recoveries, progressing from “just about okay” to “nicely done” as we went along, and we finished by once again revisiting incipient spin recovery to ensure those are the primary upfront skills.

Then it was back to Blackbushe for what was supposed to be a few touch and goes to prep for circuit work next week. As we were crossing the numbers from deadside we overheard the wind report given to the aircraft on final: wind 250 gusting at 20kts. Although straight down runway 20kts is right on the limit of the school’s policy for students, so my instructor decided that a full stop was probably prudent. He told me I might be in for a pretty sporty landing for this early in my training but he was happy for me to give it a go and we’d get to find out just how good my landings are.

I flew a nice circuit with an early turn to base to accommodate for the drift and all was well on final right up until the main wheels touched the runway, shortly after which we were surprisingly airborne again. Initially I thought we’d bounced despite a relatively soft touchdown, but my instructor filled in the blanks once we were on the ground: I’d continued to pull back on the yoke as I’d done for pretty much every other landing to allow the nose wheel to come down, but with the gusty winds our airspeed exceeded Vr and so took off again. My instructor took over, gave it a squirt of power and brought us back down for landing. No unassisted landing in the logbook for this lesson then :(

On the plus side I nailed all the RT including getting a basic service from Farnborough, a distinct improvement on last lesson. All those practice calls whilst driving as recommended here really paid off I guess.

Another 47m puts me at 7h09m flight time. Next lesson is Friday next week, and we’re cracking on with circuit practice so hopefully plenty of opportunities to redeem myself for today’s less-than-stellar landing.

PPL Lesson #7: Stalls and stall recovery

I ended up cancelling my first lesson back after vacation as I was completely cream crackered, but I had a lesson booked a few days later so managed to get up in the air today for another enjoyable and (mostly) successful lesson.

With stalls on the menu I’d been keeping a close eye on the cloud levels today and was almost certain we were going to end up with a wx cancellation (or some early circuit practice) but after a quick chat with my instructor we decided to give it a go. It did mean that we had to pick our way around the lower-level clouds to find pockets of space just about big enough for me to get in a HASELL check (with clouds looming ever larger), do a 180 and enter and recover the stall, which I found quite thrilling but definitely not something I’d do without an instructor in the right hand seat.

We’d covered stall recovery without power in the previous lesson, so went straight into Standard Stall Recovery practice in power-idle clean, approach and landing configurations. Aside from needing to voice “roll wings level” even if that step isn’t necessary for a particular situation, my instructor seemed happy and I was able to recover with only a ~50ft height loss for each, so went into power-on stalls with high (-ly misplaced) confidence.

It might have been the cloud (in the manoeuvre we were climbing towards the cloud ceiling with low-level clouds around us, which was a bit disorientating) or it might have been the lingering fatigue from yesterday, but I didn’t find this one as straightforward as recovering from the power-idle stalls. On my first attempt we came pretty close to entering a spin as I was late on recovery and also forgot to take power all the way off before releasing the backpressure, but somehow I instinctively saved it with some opposite rudder and eventually getting the power off. Second attempt was much better and my instructor chalked it up as successful, but I think I’ll ask to revisit these as I can definitely tighten up the recovery.

Since I’d nearly spun the aircraft, and since spin recovery is the topic for next lesson, we ended with my instructor demonstrating a fully-developed spin and recovery. Honestly, this tied my stomach in knots. Remind me not to eat… well… anything before my next lesson :)

Other notable points for today were:

• requesting (and receiving) my first basic service from Farnborough Radar. I flubbed the position, but thankfully got the rest right enough that I avoided being reprimanded for gross incompetence by ATC. I doubled down in my mistake on changing back to Blackbushe by asking “G-BZEB request frequency change to Farnborough on 122.305”, and got a friendly if appropriately emphasised “G-EB frequency change approved. Squawk conspicuity and freecall Blackbushe on 122.305” in response. Need more practice :)
• first crosswind takeoff and landing. Crabbing in and then correcting with rudder at the last minute adds a whole new thing to occupy my already overloaded brain on final, though I got it down safely (if a little robustly).

Another 55m of dual flight time logged today, or a running total of 6h22m.

No lesson next week as my instructor is away, but I have booked my Air Law, Operational Procedures and Human Performance exams for next Friday. Revision via a combination of the Pooley’s books and Easy PPL has been going well and in the mocks I’m at ~90% across all three so hopefully a bit of additional revision between now and then will see me right.

PPL Lesson #6: Slow Flight

Last lesson before vacation, and the subject of today was slow flight.

This week has been really busy at work and I felt relatively underprepared going into this lesson. I partly blame the busy workload, but the heat earlier this week really wasn’t conducive to doing anything remotely taxing. I’d normally have read through the exercise in APM#1, made some notes, checked out some Youtube videos on relevant techniques and chair flown (occasionally with MSFS) some of the things to work on or consolidate from last time but had done essentially none of that.

Thankfully it didn’t seem to matter, and may have done me some good not to spend every spare moment thinking about flying. I actually really enjoyed the more technique-focussed side of trying to hang the plane off the prop with full flaps at 40kts straight and level, and we got through the full range of manouvres - entry, recovery, climbing, descending and turning - in slow flight with a happy instructor, and ended the lesson with a little look ahead at fully developed stalls.

Back at Blackbushe I handled the full circuit again, including filing in behind a PA28 on a very long downwind, and down onto the runway. It turns out I’d overlooked applying drag flaps, but I was bang on the glide slope all the way down, remembered to get the throttle off so we didn’t float, and landed gently just right of center.

A shorter session today due to a late returning experience flight tying up my ride, but another 47m for a total of 5h09m.

Next up, after a 10-day break, is a full session on stalling, and apparently I’m alright enough on the ground and with RT that I’ll be taxying for fuel solo 😲 Being the only person in a moving airplane is going to be properly weird.

Oh, and I’ve had enough of revision and booked myself in for my Air Law, Operational Procedures and Human Performance and Limitations exams on August 12th while my instructor is away.

Things to remember for next time:

• Full flaps on final
• Put your kneeboard on - my instructor had to note down all the salient bits of RT info today as I forgot to strap mine on before we got going

PPL Lesson #5: Medium, climbing and descending turns

…plus a brief cameo by the Red Arrows

I managed to snag a lesson first thing this morning before the temperature started getting all melty (as I write, some parts of the UK in excess of hitting 37°C).

We briefed the lesson based on only covering medium turns, and I enjoyed the freedom of visual reference point turns and the more technical side of turns onto a heading. On the latter, for some reason - maybe this is common? - I had a tendency to overshoot the heading when turning left and undershoot when turning right. Only by 5 degrees or so, but with impressive consistency. Something to work on.

I’m sorry, who will be along in a what now?

Somewhere around this time Farnborough alerted us to keep a lookout for the Red Arrows, who were overflying the Farnborough Airshow. Looking at their planned route, they would have flown down the East and then around the South / West side of our practice area, and I wish I could say I saw them but - resisting the temptation to keep an overly vigilant lookout - we cracked into climbing and descending turns. If they passed us I didn’t see them.¹

The climbing and descending turns themselves were great fun, and much more accurate on headings with the lower target angle of bank.

Circuits and landing

Having duly followed the turning instructions I was given we (not coincidentally, I’m sure) found ourselves back over Greenham Common, so I use the disused runway (and my newfound ability to go around corners) to fly a full mock circuit and practice go around before heading back to Blackbushe for landing.

I’m pleased to say that I handled the full circuit at Blackbushe all the way back to terra firma, this time with a little less prompting from my instructor. I did have a little float before landing this time as I’d left a smidgen of throttle in when I’d meant to go idle as we came over the fence, but I got it down in one piece relatively gently on the centreline and slowed in time to take the penultimate taxiway so I’m not going to beat myself up too much.

Considering I couldn’t land a plane two lessons ago, being at the point where my instructor only took over to demonstrate an exercise is pretty weird.

Debrief

Managed a full 1h02m in the air today - must be getting quicker at the walk-around checks - which takes me to 4h22m dual time logged.

I also handled a few of the radio calls with Farnborough, which I thought was brave of my instructor given the Air Tattoo was in full flow at the time. My only brain fade came after I radioed for take-off clearance and, pen at the ready, expected to be given runway / circuit instructions and “take-off at your discretion”. I got something totally unexpected; my instructor told me it was an ask if we could take-off quickly as there was another aircraft just turning onto base leg, but I heard none of that and instead looked at my instructor with yet another “I got nothin’” look on my face. All was well, though, and I’d already booked myself on an RT workshop this weekend to hopefully help me feel more comfortable talking to strangers over the radio.

As mentioned this was my third lesson in 6 days, which is maybe a bit much but I’m away next week so wanted to make as much progress as I could before I take the inevitable backward slide that’ll come with 10+ days off. I’ve got one more lesson before then on Thursday afternoon to start Slow Flight and Stalling. Hopefully the temperatures then are more conducive to human survival when awaiting take-off clearance.

Things to remember for next time:

• Don’t book a lesson on the hottest day of the year - and potentially every - even if you book it for first thing in the morning. Melty!
• Throttle all the way out over the fence for landing
• [There was probably one more salient point, but it’s hot and I’ve lost the power of critical thought]

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.