Learning to fly, or thinking of learning? Post your questions, comments and experiences here

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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1851868
cotterpot wrote:No he hasn't.
Not walked into the edge of lowered flap yet :lol:


Well one advantage of being a short female :mrgreen:
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By tr7v8
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1851872
Well yet another lesson under my belt. 6 more take offs & landings in the logbook. Oh and yet more flapless landings today, another 3 flapless landings which were interesting. Despite being very warm today the circuit was very smooth.
Flying 20 again today, so familiar feeling which good, keeping some consistency. Although the first time of flapless on this circuit. Seemed to be almost there although the final holdoff needs work, that'll be for Saturday then. Aircraft is getting its annual tomorrow so hopefully will be back for Saturday afternoon.
So now 21 lessons & 21 hours 30mins in.
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1851873
Oh that's good, @tr7v8 ! You're rocking it :thumleft:

Tomorrow I have stalling again, with flaps this time, and possibly spins :puker: My Instructor loves aeros so...... it's pretty much a nap he'll do the full-on version.
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1852046
Nope, we were not in the aerobat, we were in a horrid C152 with touring tanks, older than the hills and not very pleasant to fly.

On the plus side, thankfully I surprised myself and probably my Instructor by having a decent go at the rest of the stall recovery stuff. Stalling with full flap, in a 30° AoB turn, power off, low power etc. All good. I really enjoyed it.

Will report more tomorrow, good and not so, but mostly better :)
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By Fellsteruk
#1852051
Sounds good stalls, descending turns and steep turns are so much fun. I flew an aero at a few time many years ago great little thing, sadly too fat for that now, one day maybe.

Good luck tomorrow!!
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1852119
So another curate's egg of a lesson and a couple of interesting side lessons on Comms.

Different aircraft, c152 with touring tanks.
I was warned the aircraft is hard to taxi but it wasn't too bad.

As we were waiting at the Hold we obviously checked to make sure no-one was on Downwind, listened to the radio (we have A/G but not operating weekdays) to hear if anyone was approaching to land, nothing. I had a final look at the approach and saw an aircraft that appeared to be heading our way but they had not radioed their intentions. Instructor radio'd to let them know we were Holding. They landed with no announcement.
As soon as they were clear I taxi'd onto the runway and took off (see below) but then the landing pilot made a general call for taxiing info. Quick as a flash my Instructor radioed to say his radio was fine now but we hadn't heard him on final. Ouch, zinger. Other pilot apologised. Instructor took his finger off the PTT button, called him a very rude word and said, " They just aren't trained properly, they should know to announce their intentions. It's vital".

My take-off was OK, but I flew to the right of the heading at first so I was disappointed with that. Never done that before. I am blaming the aircraft :shifty: . Even my Instructor said the aircraft was horrid. It is old, has a bigger prop, cruises at  higher revs and is, according to my Instructor oversensitive on the climb (see my later use of this as an excuse), and has very lagging instruments. Given my struggles at the best of times this was not helpful. Hey ho.

Some of my general flying was OK and my turns onto given headings were back on form, thank goodness, but I found myself inadvertently climbing at times, esp in turns, which I haven't done since about lesson 2 (only gently, but still!).
I suppose I should be thankful that I was able to distinguish headings on the direction indicator today, esp 030, 300 and 330, after Monday's complete number blindness.

My salvation this lesson was that all variations of stall situations were recovered satisfactorily. I haven't a clue why but I found it perfectly natural to check the yoke forward (but not too much), put on full power and not let the nose pitch up. I really enjoyed doing all of them, even the turning ones.

Instructor demo'd 60° AoB turn, 2g. All good. Wouldn't let me do one today though :roll:

Then we heard another example of poor comms. While we were up in the training area an approaching aircraft called his position but failed to state his altitude. Again my Instructor jumped on it, asked what altitude please, because we are here too, at 2,500' to be precise. Other pilot responded with proper info (higher than us). "Oh that's OK, we won't bump into you then" :lol: , followed by another off-air rant about poor piloting.

Good comms learning points but @Irv Lee had done a good job with his Zoom seminar last summer and I knew the correct calls (thanks Irv!). Experiencing it in action helps one realise just WHY it is all so crucial.

Oh, yes and while I'm distracting from my failings..... we later had a heli decide to hover-taxi off the RWY at a random place then hover at about 3', right in front of our live aircraft (beacon on, clearly engine running) on the apron. There is dedicated heli parking elsewhere on the field. This got another rant.

Towards the end of the lesson I was asked to head for the landmark lakes for rejoin announcement and FREDA checks.
Do you know where the lakes are?
Well no, of course not, we've been jigging around like we've got ants in our pants for about 35 mins!
*sigh*
They're behind you.

Ah yes. Off we go. This time we did an overhead join and I admit it threw me for orientation, even though I've been round the circuit loads of times now, we've only done a very few joining this particular way. I regained my bearings though and it wasn't too bad a circuit and I turned at the right places.

I was all sorted to do Base procedures when I was told I'd raised the nose instead of maintaining height as speed bled off to below Vfe. Now it wasn't my intention to do that. I must have been heavy handed on the yoke (remember my excuse about this aircraft having a climbing tendancy??). I was really annoyed with myself because it looked like I'd just forgotten what to do. *I know that doesn't excuse the poor control!*

The rest of Base sequence went fine, and deploying 2 stages of flaps 'at the same time' seemed to be satisfactory :) - and I kept the airspeed and rate of descent tolerable.

I did end up high on the final approach because I'd been distracted at the beginning of the descent, but miraculously managed to loose height like I knew what I was doing :D , had the speed bang on, lined up with centre line and did my best ever approach to land.

Anyhoo, all good learning experiences. I certainly surprised myself with the stall recovery, thankfully in a good way :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Now I just hope I don't have to fly that aircraft again. Bet I do though! 
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By Crash one
#1852131
All sounds good to me. Your instructor is quite right regards Comms.
Try hearing someone on Safetycom calling “Final 24” at an unmanned grass strip with a runway of 24.
Is it here or 100miles away? Because I’m also final 24! Everyone on final 24 in radio range will schit their selves.
We also had an aircraft like that, rumour has it that it had a 152 wing on one side and a150 on the other. It would fly round in circles all day! :D
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By FlightDek
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1852135
On one of my early lessons at Hawarden we were on the climb-out from 22 when someone announced they were left base for 04. Instructor immediately took over and stopped us climbing while we looked ahead to the right. Couldn't see anything. Turned out they were actually left base for 22. After landing they read back the taxi instructions wrong 3 times and tower finally told them to hold position until the police heli could land and then gave them progressive taxi instructions. Made me feel better about my radio work as it showed that even people with a licence could still mess up.
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By Duncan M
#1852136
“Now I just hope I don't have to fly that aircraft again. Bet I do though! “

Maybe turn this experience on it’s head. Flying different aircraft in your training will add to your experience. Some aircraft are more difficult to fly straight, keep level, keep in balance than others. This 152 may have it’s own special quirks but if you can make it do what you want then you will gain more from that than flying something which is easy.
Think how easy flying your usual aircraft will be next week!
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1852142
You are quite right, @Duncan M .
I am also conscious that a bad workwoman blames her tools :oops:

It was just disappointing to cast aside one of the few things I grasped fairly quickly - very level turns.

It's going to take me AGES to gain competence but it's still an amazing thing to do.
By Duncan M
#1852188
I really wouldn’t see it like that. The PPL course has a vast amount of content, not counting the actual flying the aircraft.
The course keeps pushing new ideas, problems and is a steep learning curve.
As you learn more and fly different manoeuvres, the ones you learnt last week seem more difficult just because you are out of recent practice.
Once you have a good grasp of the basics and move on to solo circuits and navigation phase it will all come together I’m sure.
It’s a well trodden path for students to become proficient in circuits and particularly landing, which then goes to a complete ball of chalk when the navigation training starts. But by the end of the course everything will slot into place.

Come back in a few weeks when you have mastered navigation and done some landaways, and re read your posts. I bet you will wonder what the problems with level turns etc were all about :lol:
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1852189
It'll be more than a few weeks!!
But yes, I have tried to write a warts n all account so I can see my development :D
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