Solo Circuits - October 13

Partway through the day (today is Canadian Thanksgiving) I checked the flight school's booking system, and saw that there was both instructor and aircraft availability. So I phoned them up, made a booking, and went flying.

Another great day - minimal wind, very high ceilings, fall colours, and only a few thermals.

Two circuits with David, as warm-up and check ride. Very busy... when I did my full stop to let David off there were three aircraft behind me also doing a full stop.

Today's (self-set) objectives:

• Circuits are to be crisp - fly the rectangle, don't blast through circuit altitude on the climb out, maintain altitude in the circuit regardless of what else is happening (radio, pre-landing checklist, etc).
• Practice the flare and touchdown - know there is going to be float, be patient, do not balloon, do not bounce.

In all, I was better today than yesterday.

• Circuit headings were crisp,
• Altitudes were tracked (within 50' - need to get a bit better),
• I blew through circuit altitude only a few times, and in only a minor fashion,
• Did a runway change... I was on base for runway 28 at 1100, and the aircraft departing radioed and noted that the windsock was slightly favouring runway 10 - so I did a radio call declaring crosswind for runway 10, climbed up to circuit altitude and continued,
• On two final approaches I let my speed bleed to 50 knots before putting in some horses - stall is 34kt so there was no danger, but the CFI-mandated airspeed is 60kt,
• Saw the numbers tracking up/down the windshield much easier. Seeing the peripheral things is an indicator of higher available bandwidth, which in turn is an indicator that it is taking fewer cycles to do the basics.
• Flared at a lower height (yesterday I overly-cautious and much too high),
• Was gentle with pulling back the stick, didn't rotate through cruise to nose up (OK, I think there was one balloon),
• Flew for a long time in ground effect - several times - waiting for speed to bleed. Was patient,
• Was better at getting down earlier, working for as close to the threshold as possible, thus maximizing the remaining runway,
• I was feeling the descent better - that first post-flare sinking movement when the airplane signals it wants to go down, and which is the time when you start to pull the stick back to control the rate of descent. If you're too slow in recognizing this movement then it will likely be a hard(er) landing.

With the exception of one greaser of a landing (which was right of centre, alas), the remaining landings involved a few bounces, no scary drops, some gentle nose-ups to manage the descent rate, and a few where I got the nose up too fast and then ballooned. Landings were not pretty, but none were scary, all were comfortably on the mains, with minimal or no yaw, and all were on or near the centre line.

I had one approach where I was slow to idle the engine and get the flaps out, and so I called an overshoot rather than doing a salvage. On another I was also slow to get down, but when I was plenty high I put in a forward slip and landed only a little bit long.

As I was climbing out on one of the later circuits, I noticed that I had to think through my radio calls or else I was going to verbally stumble, an indicator of getting tired. I was thinking full stop, but traffic got on my tail so I did a touch&go, then did my full stop on the next circuit.

Next objectives:

• Maintain the crispness in the circuit
• Keep working on gentle flares - rotate to cruise only
• ** When the aircraft starts to sink, gently pull the nose up - no balloons!

Time: 0.4 dual, 1.3 solo
Landings: 2 dual, 11 solo, 1 overshoot