More circuits today - woop! Another milestone - completed the first page of me logbook.
Really great lesson, exhausting but good fun, in a rollercoaster kinda way.
It was a beautiful day, CAVOK, views out over the sea, just gorgeous. I asked for a different circuit today to shake it up so that I don't become complacent and overfamiliar with any one single approach. So we took off from 01, which became a source of great humour and humiliation throughout. Every single leg I called it as '1-0' rather than '0-1' (with an immediate correction). I have
no idea why. For some reason I got 1-0 in my head and couldn't get it out, even though there is no runway 10. We both found it funny towards the end and eventually 0-1 stuck. The r-h circuit was tricky, first circuit was all over the place, couldn't spot the runway and while visually searching for it, got behind the aeroplane with that familiar feeling of sudden overload. BUT - recovered and landed.
The turbulence was mad. As it got warmer I was getting bounced around like a leaf which never ceases to make my palms sweat and my heart beat faster. It was exhausting, no matter how I trimmed I felt out of trim, was fighting it all the way around. A lesson I learned was that if I get sweaty palms, it means I need to let go of the yolk, take a breath, and trim. Also on the r-h circuit the ground rises towards the end of base and then drops off back to the airfield, which gives the feeling of being far too low. That took some getting used to.
6 and 6, mixed bag but nothing unsafe, I was knackered and ready to call it a day (think I actually asked for a breather). Certainly I didn't think I'd be going solo with the chop, crosswind and inability to locate a runway - but FI was happy with my approaches and mistake corrections, so we put down and then off I went for 2 solo circuits. Bricking it again (does that feeling ever go away?), but the only way through the fear, I'm learning, is up.
Man, that feeling when you raise the nosewheel and suddenly realise that there is now no other option but to fly and land - it's a mix of utter exhilaration and nerves. It really is a good lesson for life in general.
And they were mostly great, a little nervy with increasing turbulence and crosswind. Approach and landing #1 - I was absolutely delighted with it. My turn to final was a little early but no great shakes. Crosswind caught me and I kicked the rudder in juuuuust right and hit my target, bang on. Straight and gentle, then up and off.
#2 was less good. Left 5 degs of flap in and didn't notice until the pre-landing checks. (Thank you checklist!). I left my final turn a little later for a better approach but it went a bit pear shaped. I was already coming in too high, so had powered back to lose some height so was at very low revs, and as I turned onto final a massive gust caught me and blew me right off track. The right wing rolled considerably, nose popped up, nerves jangled, when I straightened/levelled out I was maybe 20 degrees off the centreline so my final approach was somewhat oblique.
Not sure quite what happened. But again, corrected it back to centre, got down, ballooned it slightly but recovered before my decision point and, crucially, didn't murder the landing gear.
The big lessons for me today were climb performance, wind shear and crosswinds. Climb performance was just
awful. At 70mph we were climbing something like 200fpm (might have been a little more). Full tanks, humidity at 88%. Never felt it as sluggish as that before. Threw my turns off and was often still climbing through downwind turn. I was retracting the flaps and watching the airspeed
creep up to Vy. I need to go back to my met and flight principles book!
Descents were also weird today. Plane didn't want to go down. Even when power was backed quite a way off, the airspeed would drop away but to maintain approach speed I had to really point it downwards. This *may* have been the rising ground giving me an illusion of a slow descent.
Wind shear was a bugger. There's a treeline at the end of the runway and the wind was swirling near them. Just as I was crossing the plane would balloon upwards, then drop into a crosswind. It was exciting though, and it made things somewhat more challenging. Especially on my own.
First proper crosswind landing. The most severe as the wind picked up on the second solo circuit. I still don't feel like I'm thoroughly on top of what else is going on at the airfield, I'm concentrating so hard on the manoeuvres I am slightly worried about missing incoming radio calls from other aircraft.
Anyway, another 30 mins solo time - feel like I'm getting the hang. Properly loving it again.