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.

PPL Lesson #12: First Solo!!!

Thankfully today’s lesson definitely served its purpose of letting me get back on the horse and find my groove…

So much so that we got to what I thought was the end of the lesson and just as I was about to request taxi clearance my instructor said “I’ve said absolutely nothing for at least half those circuits and only had minor suggestions for the others. Do you fancy doing one more on your own?” 😲 😰

I felt… ready. The circuits today weren’t perfect, but I was totally in control for all of them, each one got incrementally better, and the bloke in the right seat was telling me he thought I was ready too, so off I went.

It seemed like I had all the time in the world in the circuit, not least because I was almost at circuit height as I completed the turn onto crosswind thanks to the lighter load. I remember remarking how oddly calm I felt as I went through the same old routine and brought it around for probably my smoothest landing of the day.

1h10m added today: 1h dual, and 10m solo. I think that puts me at 10h38m dual and 10m solo time total. Now I just need to work out how to properly note P1 under supervision in my logbook :D

PPL Lesson #11: Yet more circuits

Very quick last-minute lesson this morning as part of my pre-solo sign-off requirement of flying with another instructor. The best thing to come out of today is that I can say that box has been ticked.

The schedule got bumped around a bit today due to impending bad weather, and I ended up flying an hour earlier than planned with only a 30-minute lesson rather than the usual 90 minutes. I’m grateful to have gotten those 3 circuits in, but I felt a bit rushed - we only had 20 minutes in the air today - and I never really settled.

We had just enough time for 3 circuits: started with a non-planned go around due to unstable approach, followed by 2 normal landings that were okay but not great. Allowed myself to fly through the centreline on base (thanks to the almost perfectly perpendicular crosswind) and still need more practice on the smooth round out.

27m added for a total of 9h 38m. Next lesson is in a weeks’ time. Fingers crossed for better weather (and technique).

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.

First wx cancellation

Well, it was bound to happen at some point. With thunderstorms and torrential rain on the forecast for today (edit: for once they were absolutely right) I got my first weather-related cancellation.

Since I’m learning to fly in the UK, I guess this won’t be the last time this happens :) Fingers crossed for my next booked slot on Friday.