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

Moderator: AndyR

  • 1
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 143
User avatar
By tr7v8
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1910793
Well today dawned with lesson 4 at Headcorn airfield.
Today Paul my FI announced we were back in the circuits. He seems to be taking a keen interest in my medical which I suspect I know why! Unfortunately it expired on 07/05, I have one booked for 19th May my fault.
Today Monday Headcorn was fairly quiet, with a few GA fliers but otherwise no meat bomber or anything else. The weather today was a slight breeze & murphy's law meant back on Runway 10 rather than the more common 28. Typical! But otherwise a warmish sunny day.
At least this time I remembered my wallet!
After a briefing: I was to do 2 "Normal" circuits, the we'd do some flapless landings. We've agreed I am happy to do pre-flights then taxi for fuel on my own so that was the next task & my FI would meet me at the pumps. Still seems a bit weird doing start up checks & taxying with no one in the right hand seat. Also Paul had the seat belts swapped from P1 - P2 & vice versa so no I had a belt that didn't need me to stretch to fit.
I managed to taxi to the pumps but misjudged the left turn so left the brakes off & pushed the aircraft back afterwards.
Next we taxied off to do power checks. Which were fine.
Off we went, did several circuits on 10 We did 3 circuits & T & G with normal flaps, the landings were fine, after this he demonstrated a flapless. I took over & did a few. First one was a tad fast & long, in fact borderline go around but got away with it. After that I settled down & did a few more.
So ended up doing 8 & 8 with 5 of those take offs & landings being flapless.
Aside from one which I wasn't happy with, the rest were OK, my height control is getting better. And I need to get out of pushing or pulling the yoke whilst I do "other" things such as adjusting flaps.
So Total hours = 50:50 now.
T6Harvard, ericgreveson, Milty and 1 others liked this
User avatar
By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1910838
I've been turning over yesterday's lesson in my head (as one does) and can see the errors but I'm still feeling the 'in control' glow :lol: I am still tired though, it was a bit of a workout :lol:

Booked in for Thursday but not so kean to have it so gusty so soon, I want to consolidate :D
FlyingBoot liked this
By Duncan M
#1910860
Could I give a thumbs up to all the students flying at the moment. Some tricky gusty wind conditions to cope with all round.

TR7V8, try holding the yoke much more gently, even holding a pen in one or two fingers might work.
You would need to keep a bit of forward pressure on yoke when selecting flaps just to counter the nose up tendency.
Try not to pull back as you are selecting flaps though!
Maybe look again at trim and make sure that is spot on, will enable you to loosen your grip on yoke.
T6Harvard liked this
User avatar
By cotterpot
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1910863
tr7v8 wrote:

> I managed to taxi to the pumps but misjudged the left turn so left the
> brakes off & pushed the aircraft back afterwards.

Don't you always leave the brakes off when refuelling?
It is part of our standard procedure - in case you need to push it away from the pump urgently.
tr7v8 liked this
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1910865
T6Harvard wrote:

> It's definitely 'happening slowly enough' (ie, in my head I have time to
> process it all) for me to control pretty much as I want to.

It's worth spending a little time to reflect on this, in the context of where you were in the early dark days.

There was a lot of damage to recover from, you've done well.
tr7v8, T6Harvard liked this
User avatar
By tr7v8
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1910893
cotterpot wrote:
> tr7v8 wrote:
>
> > I managed to taxi to the pumps but misjudged the left turn so left the
> > brakes off & pushed the aircraft back afterwards.
>
> Don't you always leave the brakes off when refuelling?
> It is part of our standard procedure - in case you need to push it away from the pump
> urgently.
Headcorn & Weald Air Services have pages of SOP so I'll have a look back at that & see if they cover it.
By FlyingBoot
#1910957
@T6Havard, not sure about your airfield but I have a lesson booked for Thursday and winds look likely to be 10kn westerly but not gusting, at least not enough to be mentioned.

Good that you feel comfortable with your landings now. I had a poor landing the last time out. Everything looked fine on the turn to final and then the plane just felt like it wanted to stay up. Some judicious slipping later (that was fun but I'll have to stop using it so much) and the plane just decided to glide a couple of feet off the runway. Just as I was about to go-around, it settled on the ground. Realised that I had carried too much speed initially and the wind had dropped to barely a gnat's fart. Still you live and learn.
T6Harvard, tr7v8 liked this
User avatar
By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1911263
Wind straight down the rwy...... easy conditions. Wrong. On climbout it was very unpleasant turbulence, not too bad Downwind, pretty unpleasant on Final.
Different to Monday's very bumpy, this was full-on woozy :pale: bordering on :pukel: by the end. There was just enough respite for me to get my head together between the worst bits. I was ready to call it 'to land' before the hour was up.
Yukkity yuk.

For clarity I did not get to the queasy stage but knew it was lurking and I turned down another circuit, aware of the distraction if nothing else.

Even so / despite the challenging Finals I scored 2 good landings, 3 OK, one slightly (only slightly :mrgreen: ) dropped in. Instructor pointed out on the duff one that I had moved my eyes down the runway too soon :roll: He was right, of course. He also said that my control was good, correcting things as necessary and seeing stuff in time. Again I felt that things are now manageable in the last few seconds and I can make the adjustments.

I reminded him pre-lesson that I still have to do some EFATO and glide approaches....

...... so 450' he pulls the power and says 'engine failure, put the nose down for 70kts and pick a field'. I'm fumbling about wondering what nose attitude will get me 60 kts are per POH. "Pick a field!". Er, that one (pointing feebly). Instructor puts power on and tells me to make the turn. We discuss the correct glide speed and he asks me what was wrong with the field. Too close? Nope, bounded by power lines :oops:

So, a good exercise re the effect of startle factor and the need to react quickly, and indeed the reason this needs to be second nature, but I need practice at drilling it. I've asked for a trip to 3000' to do a few to make the actions flow. Then I'll take the surprises :D
bladerunner911, Milty, ericgreveson and 2 others liked this
By FlyingBoot
#1911265
@T6Havard, I was scratching my head about your EFATO. Haven't you taken-off from the same runway countless times before and not thought 'where would I land if the engine failed?'

Anyway, sounds like you had an interesting time in the circuit. Isn't it unusual for the pilot to get close to motion sickness rather than a passenger? I get the impression that you now feel more in control of the aircraft and get it to do what you want it to instictively rather than having to think about it and then react within a few milliseconds. Well, except for EFATO

I also had a lesson today. Wind not too gusty but direction quite variable but nominally straight down the runway. Did a few circuits which was actually quite fun as I never knew which way I might have to point the aircraft to get it lined up. Plus the odd de-crab only for the wind to shift to the other side. It certainly had me moving the joystick and pedals a lot. Plus the odd dog walker crossing the runway when on final. No queasy feeling though. Only one slightly heavy landing as I didn't keep enough speed which the instructor pointed out. The rest weren't perfect but certainly safe.
User avatar
By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1911266
[usermention=25776]@FlyingBoot[/usermention]

Truthfully, nope, never wondered where I'd land if EFATO because I couldn't even do it on a 1200m runway until very recently, nevermind a field.

Yes, I thought as the driver I'd be fine but not so today. I took consolation from 2 experienced pilots coming into the Club looking a bit dishevelled, commenting on how very unpleasant it was.

All adds to the experience, I know.
By FlyingBoot
#1911270
It all adds to the experience in a very useful way though. When/if I get my licence, I certainly wouldn't think of taking a passenger out with the wind as it was. I might just be tempted to practice a few circuits solo though but not if was a little higher. Basically you now know that you could land the aircraft in bad conditions if you had to. You may not chose to take off in such conditions but you never know what the weather has in store for you at your destination regardless of how good your flight planning is.
T6Harvard liked this
User avatar
By MattL
#1911272
Don’t know what time you were up but I probably wasn’t helping cluttering up the circuit staggering the Duchess around on one engine :D it was a bit choppy down low
T6Harvard liked this
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1911285
T6Harvard wrote:

> I reminded him pre-lesson that I still have to do some EFATO and glide
> approaches....
>
> ...... so 450' he pulls the power

Always good to have an instructor sensitive to requests and feedback from the studes.
T6Harvard liked this
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1911292
FlyingBoot wrote:

> Isn't it unusual for the pilot to get close to motion sickness rather than a
> passenger?

It very much is, but that's no guarantee.

The fact is, if you're even slightly susceptible to air sickness (and some lucky buggers seem not to be at all), if you're thrown around enough, your inner ear will eventually get churned up enough to make you feel sick, especially if you're tense, nervous, tired, low blood sugar, or otherwise below par.

And once you start feeling bad, it doesn't really go away till you're back on the ground.

The only answer in my experience is keep doing it until you get acclimatised.

I'm *very* prone to airsickness. My PPL nav test was the worst flight I've had, an absolutely horrendous experience. But I've had enough practice now for almost all ordinary flying to be fine, although I can make myself feel a bit ill by flying repeated steep turns. One each way is ok, three I can cope, but after that it's time to call it a day.

Aerobatics I feel sick quite quickly and have to head back after about 15 minutes if I'm out of practice (which I am these days). But I can develop a tolerance even to that, with repeated exposure.
bladerunner911 liked this
User avatar
By tr7v8
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1911663
Well today was lesson 5 at Headcorn airfield.
Last night just happened to look at my work email account to find Paul my FI had mailed me a request to do a Nav PLOG for today. So at 20:30 last night was fish out the Nav kit & chart. I plotted the route, printed a blank PLOG & sat down to work out the tracks.
Unfortunately today was the first when work gets in the way of flying. I had a conf call before the lesson & another at 12:30. Headcorn is a good 45 mins drive from home & lessons finish at 11:30 :shock:
We arrived at the airfield at 09:10, I met up with Paul & we discussed conditions. Not only was the wind pretty gusty but the cloud base was around 900-1000ft :|
We discussed the options & decided that with the limited time we'd do circuits. We checked my PLOG against Sky Demon & my tracks were all good to with a degree or so.
By the time it was my slot the cloud was lifting & there were some blue bits.
Yet again a very quiet day with only the wing walking Stearman flying, otherwise pretty quiet. Back again to Runway 28 with a strong crosswind at around 180ish. Hmm OK Typical! But otherwise a warmish sunny day.
After a briefing: I was to do 2 "Normal" circuits, then do an emergency stop, then some EFATOs.
Off we went, the first circuit was pants, good t/o, good landing the rest was dire!
The 2nd & 3rd improved. But we had an R/t &/or Comms problem, lots of background noise, Paul could hear the radio I couldn't. In fiddling with the various bits the distraction did my flying no good at all. We landed & did a full stop & then sorted things out, On the subsequent take off we did an emergency stop. Direction control & even braking weren't ideal but it was not too bad.
We then did 2 EFATOs. The first I choose a field that was very optimistic & would have landed in the OK field before. The second was spot on & we'd have been down in the nominated field OK.
So ended up doing 6 & 6 with 2 x EFATOs, 1 x emergency stop,
Aside from one which I wasn't happy with, the rest were OK landings, The conditions were pretty bumpy.
So Total hours = 51:40 now.
Last lesson for a few weeks as I'm off on a cruise for my birthday & Silver Wedding anniversary. Next lesson is the 6th June.
  • 1
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 143