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

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By Milty
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1871943
Sorry to hear this. Only you can make the decision whether to carry on or not but i would advise don’t give up until you’ve tried another instructor if you can. We’ve recently seen from T6 that it’s made a difference to them. Make an informed decision after that. Be a shame to give up now. I think finishing your exams would also be a reasonable shout. All this is just opinion from someone who’s only just started so not experienced.
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1871963
Oh heck @tr7v8 .

Has your instructor told you how to deal with speed on approach? Yes, so we can all read the book, see the ideal 'picture' of runway perspective, know the numbers etc, but the instructor shouldn't be letting you struggle like this (obvs I speak from experience!).

I'm not very good at it (yet :shock: ) but I can mostly keep the Base and Final speed pretty well within a few knots except the odd time when I'm really tired. I'm never too fast over the fence. I may be struggling to keep on extended centreline in my worst moments, and I definitely have the temptation to flare too high, but speed control is better. At one time I resorted to the imaginary 'piece of string' to get the right combo of actions !! So if you pull one hand back the other hand goes forward.
I know it's pitiful but I've had to take what I can.

In an attempt to get me in the groove last week I spent a happy 25 mins doing high level practice approaches away from the field last week to help my fluency. Instructor asked for height changes, speed variations etc, until I was quicker at achieving targets. Even the briefing was very helpful. Different instructor, different tips, more encouraging, honest but not soul destroying!

So based on that..... more constructive thoughts....

Would your instructor give you a break from circuits to give you a chance to just relax and enjoy flying??? You have given it a good go but right now I think you need to get away from the circuit, tbh. Do a few hours of recapping and some of exercises 15 and 16 maybe? You'll be fine with those and you'll get a sense of achievement, as opposed to banging your head on a brick wall.

Then make a decision.

There is nothing to say you must carry on, you've already flown more than most people ever will, and that's pretty amazing, isn't it?

I know you must be going over it in your head but please don't be afraid you may make the wrong decision, there is no wrong decision. If you stop now you can pick it up again if you want to, if not, no problem. As my Dad would have said, it's been character building :D

PS, when does the 18 months exam time period expire for you? If you have plenty of time to do the last one or two, take that time, eh?
Two lessons per week may have been too much pressure with no 'recovery time' between them, so don't add more pressure in.

Whatever you decide keep your chin up and we'll see you at Duxford come what may.

BW
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By t1m80
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1871973
@tr7v8 Don't you dare give up! You've been making fantastic progress and 45 hours is the low end. Few do it it 45 and many, including me, are 60 plus. I had EXACTLY the same feelings as you at pretty much the same point - looking for reasons not to fly and having that dread inside. Going over the same thing in lessons and just feeling that I wasn't making progress. I think that, where you are now, there is nothing left to learn as such and you are now practicing. So you're not getting the same 'satisfaction quotient'. And the improvements you need to make are all about feel and finesse - it can't be taught it has to be experienced.

Of course, I can say this now with the hindsight of having been through it - it didn't feel like how I've explained it here at the time that's for sure. I still wasn't able to land the thing to my satisfaction until some hours after passing my skills test so don't be too hard on yourself. I also tended to land flat and tried the ratchet technique (https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all ... _technique) sorted me out a treat but your mileage may vary.

If you've got the weather and the time keep plugging away!!
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By leiafee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1871977
tr7v8 wrote:poor speed control especially over the threshold. Still landing too flat.


Poor speed control in which dirction? Too fast? That’d tally with the too flat…

Maybe ask if you go out of the circuit and revisit slow flight?

Or nav - practicing tidy altitude keeping is good for general handling accuracy and makes a change practicing when going somewhere.

Or yes, try a different instructor.

Anything to trick your brain into looking at the skills afresh.
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By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1871981
tr7v8 wrote:Pretty much the same as before, poor speed control especially over the threshold. Still landing too flat.

Bit late tonight for a more considered post, but it's got nothing to do with threshold speed if you're landing flat.

@leiafee has it, will comment more tomorrow.
By Cessna571
#1872004
I fly from an airfield that has such a big circuit that I don’t bother with flap or descending (or slowing down) till I’m on final.

Sometimes I still catch myself coming in way too fast and I even say to myself “come on, slow down, keep that nose up”.

I understand why it’s nose position sets speed and throttle sets height when on final, but when actually on final I don’t overthink “why” I just do it like a mantra.

For me, the more I think on final, the worse it gets, it’s like I have a box of tools, I just recognise what’s wrong at the time, and use the correct tool to fix it.

“Too high,.. let’s throttle back a bit”
“Too fast, get that nose up”.

My favourite, that happens every landing
“ **** here comes the ground, I need to flare”.

I mention this because every landing is completely different, you’re not trying to replicate the same perfect landing every time, you are just using the correct tool at the correct time.

So you expect them to all be different, that’s not a failure.

Landing flat isn’t good though, I went through a period of flaring too high after I passed. Recognised what I was doing and worked out the tool to fix it.

You know what you’re doing wrong, that’s step one. Now work out why, then you’ll fix it.

I don’t want to go into “how to land” here.
That’s a thread of it’s own.

One question though, do you own an invisible ratchet?

If not, it might be worth starting another thread. I can post you one of mine if I can find one. (They’re very easy to make though).
T6Harvard, lobstaboy liked this
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By lobstaboy
#1872015
Lots of good advice above and I particularly like what @Cessna571 and @leiafee said.
The 'plateau' feeling in learning to fly is quite common. You are actually learning stuff all the time. It just doesn't feel like it!
That said, it is your instructor's job to help you with understanding the learning process and to keep you motivated. Have you discussed things with them? @T6Harvard suggests asking to have a few lessons away from the circuit doing something else. This will help and there's no rule that says you can't do that. I'd try this as a first step in getting over the 'hump'.
Only if your instructor is unsympathetic to your concerns would I suggest nuclear options like changing instructor. But sometimes it can be the best thing.
HTH and good luck
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872016
My main worry as a student is that if I get something wrong too many times then the wrong way of doing it becomes a habit. @tr7v8 , does that resonate? It's definitely not too late to get into good habits but you need proper guidance, on the spot!

My guess is that if an instructor did a back-to-basics briefing you would nod vigorously. Same as me, I (usually!) know what I SHOULD be doing but can't always action it at the right time. That will come though, WITH THE RIGHT GUIDANCE.

Have you flown your chair and got it right? In which case you can do it, you just need to re-set those habits in the air.

My first few TOs, with one exception, were pretty dire. I actually expected my instructor to take the next one for both our sakes. Luckily for me the next one was in very benign conditions, removing the need for a lot of in-to-wind aileron* and then I knew I could do it. However, it's still taken me a LONG time to feel confident about them due to that 'shakey' start.

* I started in Autumn and now realise I did a lot of flying in strong crosswinds but with the only advice being 'set full in to wind aileron', nothing about winding it off, I was struggling. So maybe it should have been obvious but it wasn't to me :shock: :oops:

We're all different and some of us need a bit more prompting at times, that's all. No shame in that :mrgreen:
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By tr7v8
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872024
leiafee wrote:
tr7v8 wrote:poor speed control especially over the threshold. Still landing too flat.


Poor speed control in which dirction? Too fast? That’d tally with the too flat…

Maybe ask if you go out of the circuit and revisit slow flight?

Or nav - practicing tidy altitude keeping is good for general handling accuracy and makes a change practicing when going somewhere.

Or yes, try a different instructor.

Anything to trick your brain into looking at the skills afresh.

Thanks for this & everyone else's comments last night. I felt a bit better as the evening went on. To a certain extent I can't talk this through with Mrs TR7V8 as A. she doesn't understand the nuances of flying. B. is still concerned about what happened to my other training aircraft, so offers to quit would maybe accepted for the wrong reasons,

In some ways over the 30+ circuits I have improved, better height & speed control just being two.
The issue at present is the very last bit of the finals. I either get too fast or too slow. yesterday I was slow just before the threshold & too slow to react. Then in reacting I was keeping the power on for longer which meant we ballooned down the runway, running out of space.
I suspect my FI thought something was going on in my brain yesterday, as although I don't know him that well, he did query after the lesson whether I was OK several times.
I cannot believe I am getting stressed over something you do for enjoyment, but that is the nature of the frustration I suppose. :cry:
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By Mz Hedy
#1872034
@tr7v8 I typed a long post then inadvertently deleted it, probably for the best.

In brief - after the bouncy weather in summer and the doldrums and poor vis of autumn, winter weather is usually much smoother and calmer, and easier to fly in. As long as you can afford it, I'd suggest you keep trying for another six months.

I can't remember where I originally saw it but someone once said "you can't fly until you can relax whilst flying"; but it's hard to relax when you still believe you can't fly. Metaphores abound, such as it's like learning to stay balanced when riding a bike: for ages you can't do it then suddenly you can.

I used to remind my students when we got to about 200 ft on final approach that it would really help if they breathed. It often resulted in a gasp, a smile and a good landing.

Also, don't forget that all this flying you've been doing is adding to your pot of experience. When you get your licence you'll be more experienced than someone who got their licence in the minimum hours.

Good luck - and remember the fun bits too.
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By T6Harvard
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872047
Yes, your instructor was correct..... something was going on in your head. You were in 2 minds about the whole thing, and you also thought you may not get it right those few seconds immediately before and after the fence.

If you reflect on all your approaches and then reflect on all your landings my guess is you will have done some decent ones, right?
So you can do it, right?

Now it is 'just' a question of not beating yourself up, actually accepting deep down that you can do it, and my bet is that if next lesson is other than circuits you'll rejoin and fly a decent approach and landing because you have taken the pressure off yourself.

PS, with regards to OH's sensitivities, yep, I realised it isn't a good idea to talk about stall recovery or a wing dropping at home :shock:
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By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872063
tr7v8 wrote:I cannot believe I am getting stressed over something you do for enjoyment, but that is the nature of the frustration I suppose. :cry:

I can so relate to this. When I was learning to fly, I wanted it a lot. Possibly more than I'd wanted anything else. As a consequence, I put myself under a lot of pressure, and when I couldn't learn it all as instantly as I wanted to, I experienced a lot of stress, at one time almost to the point of giving up.

I'd often go home from the airfield completely knackered and with a blinding headache. I often couldn't sleep the night before flying.

So getting stressed, more than anything else, reflects your motivation, but if it affects you like this, it can make things harder - it certainly did for me.

Longer term, though, worry not - it will all work out fine.

poor speed control especially over the threshold. Still landing too flat.

Imagine a runway 20 miles long. Now imagine an approach at 100 knots. Obviously neither of these is reality, but bear with me. In this imaginary flight, you fly down the approach, close the throttle, and round out. You fly, initially at 100 knots, along the runway at a height of 1 foot.

Are you going to land it like that? Of course not, you'd be mad to.

So what happens? Gradually the aeroplane slows down, and as the wings generate less lift, you need to gradually raise the nose to keep it flying. This extra angle of attack increases the lift, so the lift is still equal to the weight, so you keep flying level at a height of 1 foot.

The drag increases too with the extra AoA, so the aeroplane slows down some more, so you raise the nose some more to keep flying.

So you keep slowing down, and you keep raising the nose. Eventually - maybe a mile down this 20 mile runway - you will raise the nose to the stalling angle, and the aircraft will land and start rolling along on its main wheels. It will be a perfect, fully held-off landing, despite a ridiculously fast threshold speed.

If you land it before this, ie flat, you are landing too fast - while it still has flying speed - and you risk all the bad consequences we've discussed before.

Where am I going with this?

You need to separate the notion of approach speed from touchdown speed. They are not related. You can approach as fast as you like, provided that you allow the aircraft to slow down enough for the wing to stop flying.

In reality of course, if you approach too fast, you will often run out of runway before the aircraft slows down enough to land. The correct action in that case is to go around, and approach more slowly next time. Not, absolutely not, to land it flat.

So... as I hinted last night, poor speed control on final is not the cause of a flat landing. The cause of a flat landing (ie at too high a speed) is impatience.

Impatience, as in not waiting for the speed to decay enough for the aircraft to land itself. If by being patient, you run out of runway, then go around instead of landing, and get the speed under better control next time.
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By lobstaboy
#1872070
TopCat wrote:So getting stressed, more than anything else, reflects your motivation.


How very Nietzschean of you @TopCat ! Spot on though.
So, use the correct approach speed - too fast makes it all much more difficult.
The flatter the approach, the harder it is to judge where on the runway you are going to get to - that's simple geometry, try looking at a piece of paper on a table top from low down or high up and think about the angles.
Then, realise that you've actually got plenty of time for the round out and hold off. And keep flying the aeroplane until it's stopped moving. You've still got aerodynamic control even though some of the wheels are on the ground.
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By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1872074
tr7v8 wrote:Back to being really depressed at lack of progress. Now done 33 odd hours of circuits and its still Carp with the same faults as I had 20 hours ago.

What does your instructor say about this?

If you do the same thing, you'll get the same outcome, so I'm very concerned that your instructor isn't getting you to do something different.

I'm starting to get the same suspicion I had when @T6Harvard had a period with little progress. Suffice it to say that it wasn't her fault, and a change of instructor made all the difference.

If your instructor is insisting on a perfect circuit and a perfect approach speed, and not sorting out what you actually do after rounding out, then it's not surprising if the part of the landing where the problem really is, doesn't improve.

If you can drive a car safely, I find it very difficult to believe that you don't have the physical coordination ability required, and you're obviously not an idiot.

So the cause has to be somewhere else.I would wager a small amount of actual cash that it isn't you.
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By JAFO
#1872091
I'd echo what @TopCat said.

If you've been flying circuits for 33 hours and don't feel like you're making progress, something is very, very wrong and I too find it hard to believe that you are the thing that is wrong. I've been reading the thread and watching your hours clock up and expecting something to happen but you just seem to be flying the same hour over and over again.

If you're going to continue then I think that something has to change, even if it's just for a short interlude. I can fully understand your frustration but nothing is going to change by doing another twenty hours in the same circuit with the same instructor in the same aircraft at the same airfield getting the same result.

After all the time, money and hard work you've put in, you owe it to yourself to spend money on a couple of hours doing something different or doing the same thing with a different instructor/aircraft/school/airfield. Even if you end up going somewhere else and not logging it, it doesn't matter, you're not going to be short of hours at the end.

Just my two penn'orth. Best of luck, mate.
TopCat, T6Harvard, Milty liked this
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