Son of a gun, it is coming together!!!
The low-level practice, and having patience, is making all the difference. Several dozen (several hundred? it seems that way) landings ago I was alarmed at seeing the ground rushing up at me, and landing was a great big panic. Now it seems to proceed along quite nicely, there is lots of time, I think I know what to do, and there is lots of time to control the aircraft.
Wx was light occasional rain, ceiling variable between 1200 and 1500 feet above ground level. Several aircraft in the circuit.
Today's first takeoff was one of my best. Tracking the centre line dead-on. Rotate the nose, and let the plane fly when it is ready. I had been doing some reading, and the suggestion was to get the nose up and keep accelerating down the runway - the plane will fly when it is ready. It works! And is very smooth.
Circuits good. Some days (when distracted) I blast right through 1000 AGL, or don't track. Today went well.
Had one aircraft arriving from the north, crossing over the airport and joining the mid-left downwind. He announced as being over the airport as I was coming in on the downwind (having stayed in the circuit after takeoff), we I couldn't see him, and we were both closing in on the join between the downwind and the mid-left entry point. This is no time to keep sky-searching, so I called a 360 and did an orbit, then re-joined the downwind. Unfortunately I ended up doing the downwind rather close to the airport, but still shed the altitude by getting out the boards, getting the speed down to 60 knots (best L/D is 73 knots), and had a glide right in to the touch&go. Instructor approved the decisiveness when faced with the uncertain position of the closing aircraft.
I landed on the centre line a few times, greased a few landings, but had a few mild bounces.
On one landing the instructor added some right rudder to counter-act yaw, and there was another realization.... I didn't think the aircraft needed any rudder, when what actually happened was that I didn't need to add any rudder because it was being added for me. So we did the remaining 5-6 circuits with a running commentary from me.. I just talked about what I was seeing, what I was doing about it, so the instructor could determine what I wasn't doing, and what I wasn't doing yet. That way, he could determine what I was missing (and apply correction to keep us safe and minimize the wear&tear on the aircraft), and avoided having him try to guess what needed to be done (when maybe I just hadn't done it yet).
One uglier landing: I flared through cruise and into nose-up, gained some altitude, and applied a tiny bit of power since the aircraft needed the energy to have a gentle descent. Unfortunately, it needed a slightly bigger nudge of power. As we were coming down I just gave it more and more nose-up, the timing was decent, and so the landing was a bit harder, and no bounce.
Easiest and nicest landings were ones where I carried lots of altitude and eased the power to idle, then just glided in to a landing.
A few times I carried some altitude to the threshold and then eased off, had the altitude to handle the power cut, solidify the new attitude and flare through the landing.
I had one landing where I eased off the power while rotating through the flare - and that worked not too badly. Must practice that some more - there will be landings where you need to add power to get to the runway, and then have to ease off the throttle at a low altitude and low speed.
I did one landing where I started the flare comfortably high, but it was nice and slow, and that was a good landing. Landing is a good time to not rush things.
For the final landing I suggested a simulated forced landing at the airport. Chopped power, pointed at the threshold, traded airspeed for altitude, got to best cruise, did the cause check (oh my, throttle is at idle), had lots of altitude so went to full flaps, then kicked in a forward slip and rode that down from 1100AGL down to 200AGL. We crossed the threshold perhaps 300 feet AGL, lined up with the runway, smoothly removed the slip, and glided in to a decent landing.
Landings: 8
Time: 1.2
I'm buzzed. It is coming together.
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3 comments:
Small world - on Sunday afternoon, I suspect that was probably my student and I coming down from Quyon practising low-level diversions. I saw you on downwind and was asking my student about his options when we saw you turn away from the downwind and orbit. We only did one touch & go, and then returned to Rockliffe. The weather was great for low level work, such as diversions to Arnprior and Carp.
Tony
It was indeed - you had announced a bit earlier that you were over Carp at 2000 descending to 1400, and the timing was about right that you could be over the field and approaching the mid-left downwind... and I was heading at the same intersection.
Neither my instructor nor I could see you, I wasn't sure where you were, I was sure that we were heading for the same point, I figured I had more options than you did, and if you were in the worst possible place then this wasn't the time to start chattering on the radio and searching the sky, so I just turned right to do a 360.
Didn't even ask the instructor what to do.... because the answer was we didn't have sufficient information to know that proceeding was safe, so the right option was to make it safe.
Next lesson is Saturday 10-12. Followed by the pot-luck at the CFA... come fly-in.
Small world.
In those situations, someone usually has to orbit or turn behind the other guy. You are right, whatever action is taken should be early, not waiting until it gets exciting. With a low ceiling, it's always harder to see the other guy. I have a hard time seeing the white Diamonds against low cloud. I think it was your lights that I saw first.
I remember we called when we were over the field and asked where you were, but the CFA aircraft on the runway answered instead. At that moment my student and I saw you and a couple seconds later I saw you bank away. I'm glad it worked out. If you had not been turning, I would have slowed and turned right to join downwind behind you.
"Next lesson is Saturday 10-12. Followed by the pot-luck at the CFA... come fly-in."
Perhaps I will see you there. I won't have to fly far though - I keep my own Husky hangared at Carp. I'm not instructing Saturday so it is my personal "fly day".
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