My double lesson today turned into 45 mins of sporty wrestling.
My (new) Instructor did an excellent briefing so I knew what we were going to concentrate on and we discussed techniques for seeing when to flare and transitioning from aiming point to landing.
TO was OK but almost immediately the gusts caught us and we bounced around a lot on climbout.
Now that I have something else to concentrate on (landing!) my TO, climbout, TOC and Downwind are all fine.
I managed to find the turning points much more naturally and coped with drift but I was a bit slow getting height off on Base and we were blown off wide for Final. My attempt at regaining centre line was rubbish due to wrestling with gusts and crosswind. We were all over the place
I threw the towel in and voted for a go around at 300'.
Second circuit seemed less bumpy but probably I was used to it by then
Another good first half of circuit so some advice has sunk in and it is consistent, turning points felt right, base was a bit better but another poor attempt at flying the gusts on Final, although after me saying I was not stable on approach suddenly the wind dropped and we agreed I'd get a landing out of it.
Unfortunately just over the numbers we were really buffeted again and my instructor took it the last few feet. As we had plenty of runway he managed to extend the hold off so I could have a few more seconds seeing the correct landing attitude (which turns out to be as I'd identified a few lessons ago but at that time I had been told I was wrong
)
We did one more but it was just too bouncy so I called it to land and we expedited vacate runway to let another instructor come in close on our heels.
So a very short lesson, 40mins, none of it pretty.
My instructor suggested we do a detailed walk round to cover much of the ac systems to 'make it worthwhile', bless him. So although I have read the POH and some of Pooleys 'Aircraft General' it was very informative, esp when we moved over to compare flaps, pitot, etc on the PA28 parked nearby.
Quick de-brief to end - my improved 'eyes out' meant Downwind was lots better, better trimming, the need to be more assertive in setting the correct attitude so it flies itself (a definite hangover from being worried about doing the wrong thing
), decent corrections for drift until very thermally Final.
I'd say it was good experience but I am disappointed not to have been able to do more. Just one of those days *sigh*
tbh I didn't feel like I had to concentrate so hard for most of the circuit so it must be coming together
A kind Forumite is taking me flying on Weds, wx permitting. Then we have the mini meet up and (hopefully) BBMF etc at Duxford on Saturday so it's going to be a good aviation week. I'm not complaining