Wave to your Audience - September 1

I didn't have a few of the required tools to perform consistently smooth landings, so The last few lessons were with the Chief Flight Instructor (CFI), a level 1 instructor. I wanted to bust through the plateau, and a change in teaching methodology is one way to do that.

And so today (12 days after the last lesson), in mid-afternoon (usually the height of the daily thermal activity and usually with increasing winds), we went flying again.

I was concerned with the layoff, so I did some reading and some visualizing, to reactivate the little grey cells.

Pre-flight, taxi, take-off, flying, radio work, all were fine. There were a few thermals, and a bit of mechanical turbulence, but they were easy to handle. I found a balloon in the final if at a higher altitude, and sink at lower altitudes. The centre line tracked reasonably well, yaw on approach and landing was much less (but not yet zero), flare was at a decent height, never did a stick-push, and added a nudge of power if we bounced or flared upward to minimize the descent rate.

For the first time I had enough bandwidth on final approach to easily see the runway numbers track up and down the windscreen, so I could adjust power and pitch to maintain a landing target. Until now I had been doing this as an approximation - and it was hard to do anyway when bouncing and yawing down the approach.

When we started there was no traffic - we actually sat on the threshold at the take-off position for a minute doing a visual re-acquaintance with cruise attitude, yaw (over the nose) and looking at the wings' angle with the side of the runway. This had been a glorious long weekend here in Ottawa, so maybe everyone was at the cottage, park or in their backyard?

As circuits progressed we were joined by lots of traffic. Approaches from all angles, different aircraft. Wayyyyyy back that I couldn't do radio calls and fly at the same time, now there is a visual acquisition to be performed, while tracking altitude and direction, making a mental inventory of traffic, remembering call signs, and making radio calls.... while the pre-landing checklist is completed.

I greased the first landing. Several were performed with no reminders or coaching. All were near the centre line. One had the nosewheel on the centre line. Most had minimal or no yaw.

Time: 1.2
Landings: 7

Things to improve next time:

• Power management - easing off the power earlier, or doing it in the flare itself if I need the power to get to the runway.
• We had a few mild bounces as I ran out of energy before I ran out of altitude.
• Keeping in the rudder, to eradicate the yaw right to touchdown. I have a habit of releasing the rudder as we're about to land.
• On the whole, I'm just a bit behind the activity on the landings. Something happens, it takes a wee bit of a time to react. That reaction time is decreasing, but needs to decrease further.

What I did well:

• The flare - the timing is getting pretty decent. Nothing scary today, and a few landings were slick.
• If the nose gets up during the landing, a nudge of power and continue to land the plane. No stick-pushes.
• Final approach - not quite on rails, but only minor control inputs were required. There was a bit of mechanical turbulence today that I reacted to - a bit late, rather than as it happened.
• Power and attitude management on final.

As for the "Wave to your Audience" title - I was trying to land the plane. Wrong method. Correct method is to fly the plane (at a very low altitude) until it lands. After flying to cruise attitude, sometimes this means being very patient as speed and altitude bleed off and the nose comes up - and this is where my instructor coined the "wave to your audience" phrase. What I was doing was getting the plane on the ground. What I needed to do was to just be patient, keep flying, and let it land.

All in all, it was a very re-assuring, and good, day.

At the debrief, the CFI was well-pleased. Apparently I have all the tools, and what I now need is practice. I'm back to my primary instructor for the next few lessons, then a checkride with the CFI, then solo.