All coming together now...and just passed aircraft tech

[Rob P]

...... I left the throttle open for too long, hence the ground effect was stronger; but, we all learn from our mistakes, and I won't do that again!

Bet you do!

I'm about 500 P1 hours further down the road and still once in a while find myself floating down the runway and wondering why, only to find I have an eighth of an inch more throttle to close.

Great write up.

Rob P

[Paul_Sengupta]

A Bulldog with full flaps has so much drag that you have to keep a fair bit of power on to achieve the same effect!

[Iolanthe]

Iolanthe wrote:
...... I left the throttle open for too long, hence the ground effect was stronger; but, we all learn from our mistakes, and I won't do that again!


Bet you do!

Ok, Rob, I bet I do too But at least if I end up floating and landing very long, I may think to myself "umm, wonder why this thing won't land...ahh, check the throttle!" ...well thats what I should do in theory anyway!

[LavanyaLea]

I have the same experience. My home airfield is Liverpool airport and it has very nice tarmac, long runway, nicely marked and some PAPI lights too. When I fly to Sleap, I have to do the overhead join, they have 2 runways at about 30degree to each other, and they tend to confuse me (so on my downwind I tend to fly parallel to the OTHER runway and hence closing in on the actual runway I'm using!). The runways are much shorter and narrower, and not as clearly marked (and definitely no PAPI).

All in all, a few times I have to do go around at Sleap and they're always on my first landing after the overhead join.

[Rob P]

As ever, your instructor is the arbiter of what you should be doing and nothing said here outweighs that.

But you should simply never get into the habit of relying on PAPI on final for two reasons

1) You are in a light GA aircraft. The glideslope angle for PAPI is generally set at a far shallower angle than you should be approaching in your light single. If you do use the PAPI make sure they show you as 'High' for most of final. If not, in the event of a last minute loss of power you will not make the threshold.

2) Lots of places don't have PAPI. Relying on them is thus not a great idea, as you are finding out at Sleap whose runways at nearly 800M are far from short.

Rob P

[Iolanthe]

Hi LavanyaLea,
I'm glad I'm not the only one to have trouble converting (as it were) from an all singing all dancing airfield to a little AGCS, short tarmac one....

I too have found the PAPI lights useful (first actually pointed out to me when "Landing" a KingAir in the Sim!!) I then though "ooooh, how useful", and yes, when flying solo do tend to use them as a guide. So thanks Rob, that advice is really useful, and I will ask my FI for further comment. But that said, the lights are on "too high" for most of Finals, and I did wonder why....so, that answers that question...

Iolanthe

[riverrock]

Our chief instructor thought my approaches were on the flat side and I stupidly mentioned the PAPIs. That gave him the perfect excuse to get the tower to turn them off for the rest of the lesson. Seemed strange to not have them! If I ever mention them again I'll make sure I'm not the only one in the circuit...
But yes - they are normally set for around a 3 degree approach. Light aircraft should be much steeper.

[Keef]

PAPIs / VASIs aren't much use to GA, unless you're practising ILS approaches (in which case you shouldn't be looking out of the window anyway).

There's a much better approach aid in our little Jodel: a dead fly on the windscreen. If it stays in the same place relative to the ground while on the approach, I'm descending at the right rate. If it moves further along the runway, I need to take some power off; if it moves towards the near threshold, more power is needed. All I need now is a little painting of a fly on the runway to tell me the correct aiming point...

[Iolanthe]

There's a much better approach aid in our little Jodel: a dead fly on the windscreen.

Know the feeling Keef!! But as our CFI has a things about clean aircraft and my FI insists on a clean windscreen (he's funny that way ) we (sorry, I!) kinda have to clean them off in my Check A!!

When he was getting me to focus on a spot on the runway to land, my FI told me to imagine I was in a Typhoon (the WW2 sort) about to strafe a gun position at that point on the runway - worked a treat!! But I guess thats just me and my profession/ interest...

By the way, I passed Comms Written with flying colours!

[riverrock]

Congrats! Do you have many other ground exams to go then (beyond the radio practical?)

[Iolanthe]

Thanks Riverrock!

Yep, I do indeed have a number of other ground exams to go....the only others "in the bag" so far are Met and Air Law. RT Practical and one of the worst....Aircraft Tech next... hmm a few late nights for me methinks...and also for my FI!

[Yankee-K]

Congrats on passing the comms exam Iolanthe.

my FI told me to imagine I was in a Typhoon (the WW2 sort) about to strafe a gun position at that point on the runway

Now there's a difference between your training and us civil studes

[Keef]

Nicely done, Iolanthe!

Aren't instructors a pain! I can have all the "approach aids" I like in lil Concorde.

[Iolanthe]

Thanks Yankee and Keef!

Aren't instructors a pain! I can have all the "approach aids" I like in lil Concorde.

A necessary evil..... as are CFIs....... Thing is, i've been trained to clean and tidy the aircraft...so even when qualified, i'll just find myself continuing to clean on auto Keep the aircraft cleaner than I do the car!

Won't get airborne this weekend (again!) and if the snow comes, that'll be it for the duration...unless the order is given that "clearway will be used on the ASP, Northern Taxiway and 19/01!" If so, as our club ASP is part of the main, we'll get the benefit

[LavanyaLea]

You are in a light GA aircraft. The glideslope angle for PAPI is generally set at a far shallower angle than you should be approaching in your light single.

Thanks for the advice!

I think it's good that I'm flying from Liverpool and Sleap, they couldn't be anymore different. Controlled vs uncontrolled airfield. Long, smooth, very wide runway vs not-so-long runways (runwaySSS - sometimes I do get caught up with which runway we are using especially when doing the overhead join), and many more! (Cost, suddenly springs to mind).

So, after the initial from first solo subsided, I think I'm getting better grips with the differences when flying solo, e.g.:

1. Climbing at 70kts means I'm climbing at steeper angle, this also means turning into crosswind earlier, at Liverpool it's somewhere in the middle of the runway (which is good if there's traffic behind), so my FI told me to make a wider crosswind rather than a 90 deg turn, to keep downwind like how I normally do it.

2. At landing, needs to be more gentle with the flare... this was my problem before I did solo (either rounding out too high or too much flare it flies up again), got that sorted, and now when flying solo this problem resurfaced again! But I'm getting better at dealing with it (I hope so anyway!).

Will start recording my landings for learning purposes (and a bit to show to my friends too :p) - didn't get chance to today, plus it was already a bit hectic and stressful before I went flying so I'd leave it for another day!