PPL Lesson #17: Even more circuits

More circuits. The airifeld was super busy and and it was the first time I’d heard the circuit declared “full” by the tower, which while good for the longevity of the airfield sadly meant no solo consolidation for me. School rules, apparently, though part of me thinks you’ll have to experience it sometime. 😁

Instead we used the time up for more dual circuits: 3 normal, 3 shortfield (new to me), 2 flapless, and a go around. It was good fun mixing it up with busy circuit traffic, though we had to pick our way around some /very/ non-standard joins. One aircraft that was clearly in a hurry flew over the landing end of the runway, cut in on downwind ahead of us and stuck it on the tarmac. Maybe it was sensible not to send students up solo after all :shock:

Next lesson is Tuesday, the plan for which is that my instructor just stays in the clubhouse and I go off on my tod to do a whole lesson’s worth of circuit bashing. Fingers crossed for fair (okay, it’s November: acceptable) weather. Beyond that I’m now booking 2-hour lessons so we can crack on with Nav.

Map folding and flight planning

A glass of malbec at the ready, I set about folding my shiny school-issued half mill chart this evening, which was less straightforward than it should have been…

More engine troubles

The starter gremlin that put the kibosh on my not-quite-lesson on Friday and was then fixed with some (suspected percussive) persuasion from the engineers reared its head again today, meaning a full starter motor replacement. Typically this is just at the time the school’s other 152 is up for maintenance, putting them both out of action and leaving me grounded. To cap it all off, my instructor’s now away for a couple of weeks 😢

Engine troubles

Well, that was unexpected. I was all prepared to go up for some circuits before being let loose for some more solo fun, but the engine didn’t want to play ball. First flight of the day it always takes a few goes to get the vintage G-BZEB running, but this time all I got was a click from the starter relay; no engagement of the starter, no movement from the prop. Battery was fine as flaps et al were working as intended, and I was the last one to fly it the previous day so I knew the alternator was fine and that it had been put to bed properly.

A friendly engineer popped out and stripped off the engine cowling, poked at some stuff and declared the starter dead. No flying for me today, and my first cancellation for mechanical issues. The instructor offered his time to go over anything I wasn’t sure about from a theory perspective so I jumped at the chance to get some hands-on nav planning experience, and he walked me through the process of planning a flight from Blackbushe to Oxford.

The engineer popped in part-way through our flight planning to say it was all fixed - turns out the starter relay was failing to properly actuate, meaning not enough current was getting through to the starter to engage it - but there was only 30 minutes of the session left, and anyway by this point I was too invested in this mythical flight to Oxford.

We only managed to plan a single leg so I asked him to give me a route to take away and plan myself, and he’s given me the first nav route we’ll be flying once I’m done with the solo consolidation. Obviously the flight plan won’t be remotely useful once we get there with varying conditions, NOTAMs etc. but it being an actual route I’ll fly at some point is an extra motivator to (work out how to) do it properly.

I’ve also booked myself on the 3-hour nav ground school that the flight school are running in a couple of weeks. I’m hoping by that point it’s a refresher of newly learned skills rather than brand new, but regardless for a few quid it’ll be worth it just to have 3 hours in the zone without the cacophony of family life in the background.

PPL Lesson #16: Practice forced landings

Given the weather was far too nice to waste with more circuit bashing, practice forced landings (PFLs) were the order of the day today.

In prep for this session I’d tied myself in knots trying to wrap my head around the high key / low key method that the Pooley’s book seems to favour, but the instructor walked through a much simpler approach of being 1000ft AGL at the “base leg” that seemed to click better with my brain. Is it just me, or is high key / low key overly prescriptive when the overriding aim is to get to ground safely?

The process we covered was:

1. Pitch for best glide speed, trading excess speed for height, and trim
2. Identify the wind direction on the DI to help with field orientation
3. Form a rough plan: a set of suitable fields, and how you’re going to get to a 1000ft base
4. Restart checks and (assuming they were unsuccessful) mayday call¹
5. Pick a specific field with backup options and fly the approach, using whatever means necessary to safely get to that 1000ft base position aiming for the middle of the field
6. Use flaps once you’re certain you’ll make the middle to bring the aiming point forward, whilst continuing to assess suitability and keeping backups in mind

The restart drill for the C152 was covered by touching controls left to right:

1. Primer in and locked
2. Master switch on
3. Try to start the engine with the starter
4. Apply carb heat
5. Check throttle position
6. Check mixture full rich
7. Check fuel cock set to on

SkyDemon tells me I had 5 and a half PFL attempts (we abandoned one mid-glide as the instructor realised we were approaching one of the AWE restricted sites and probably making a bunch of people nervous), with the instructor starting me off easy at 2,500’ and no restart drills. Once I’d managed that without fluffing too badly he slowly added more challenge and complexity, ending at 2,000’ with full restart and mayday call thrown in.

How did I cope? Well, I lost my chosen gaggle of fields on the second one whilst working my way through the restart drill. I ended up picking a slightly less ideal selection where there weren’t many alternative options in the event of me messing up the approach, but thankfully managed not to repeat that. A couple of times I found myself too high for the field I’d picked: one I slipped to lose height and would have just made it, and for the other a much better field presented itself as I was assessing my options so switched field. Overall the boss seemed happy with my technique and I extracted a surprising amount of enjoyment from my make-believe perilous situations.

On returning to Blackbushe the circuit was quiet, so rather than flying a normal deadside join for 07 with standard right hand circuit the instructor suggested a left base join. This messed with my head slightly in terms of my pre-landing routine, but it was good to sample a different approach in prep for visiting other airfields.

All that took 54m, bringing me to 14h03m dual and 15m solo. Next lesson is in a few days, with precautionary powered landings or solo consolidation on the menu depending on the weather.

In the meantime, I’ve got myself a shiny new half mill chart in prep for the next segment on nav. I was expecting it to be pre-folded but the school handed me a massive roll instead, like I’d ordered a life-sized Harry Stiles poster or something. As much as I would enjoy the comedy of unrolling it mid-flight to check on progress, I probably should fold it but I have no idea where to start. Wish me luck!

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.

PPL Lesson #14: Steep turns and spiral dives

The weather was fully IMC when I woke up this morning and I felt pretty sure I wasn’t getting off terra ferma today. Thankfully the weather continued to improve as the day wore on and we took off into scattered cloud for some steep turn and spiral dive exercises.

We started with recovering from spiral dives, just in case I accidentally induced one during an attempted steep turn. Like spin recovery I found this at least a little exhilarating - probably something to do with pulling a bit of additional G.

That continued into steep turns left and right with normal entry and then, since it was introduced as primarily an avoidance manoeuvre, fast entry as though reacting to a potential airprox incident. More G, more fun. Definitely found rolling out bang on intended heading more of a challenge, but mostly made it within ±10°.

Had a bit of a brainfart on returning to the circuit. First time rejoining the circuit for a few lessons and I think the first time for 07, which at Blackbushe means right hand circuits. Very nearly flew over the wrong end of the runway attempting to join from deadside as my feeble brain failed to process that would mean I was already on the live side and that the circuits would be left hand rather than right hand. Instructor caught it and we flew parallel on the deadside and then over the 25 numbers. Next time I just need to be more deliberate in thinking through what the circuit information I’d been given means in terms of approach.

Thankfully that was the low point of the day, and I managed a good touch and go followed by a nice smooth landing.

Added 50m dual for today, which puts me at 12h21m dual and 15m solo. Nest lesson will be PFLs or solo consolidation depending on the weather.

Oh, and I’ve properly started on Met and Nav this week, and got myself an ebay-special used package including chart, ruler, protractor and whizz wheel to mess around with for the practical planning side of things.