Flight was scheduled at 1100hrs, I was the first student in the house to fly circuits and so didn't have any advice or pointers from anyone. Kind of worried about the workload that I'll be subjected to during a circuit. Tried my best in preparing for it by studying the various steps and stages plus some mental flying.
When I went to my instructor for flight brief, he gave me a marker and asked me to show him on the board everything that I know about flying circuits. Thank god I did my studying and didn't report for flight with poor knowledge. He seemed satisfied with whatever I've drawn out, and out we went for circuits flying.
The first round was flown by the instructor, demonstrating everything to me in detail. I had to absorb and learn very fast. With so much to monitor and control, it is by no means easy. I'll run through step by step what was shown to me, from the beginning till the end of one circuit.
1. Full throttle, rudder right to keep on centre line. Rotate at 55kt.
2. Keep horizon just below the dashboard after lifting off, maintaining climbing speeds at 74-80kt.
3. While climbing in up-wind leg, retract flaps when 200ft above ground level after checking Temperatures and Pressures of engine are good, and there is a positive rate of climb. Trim wheel twice.
4. Maintaining speed, attitude and heading while climbing, look out for traffic at 500ft above ground before making a 15-20degrees climbing turn into cross-wind leg. If there is traffic, continue climbing in up-wind and follow behind the traffic
5. Continue climbing in cross-wind leg and level out at 1000ft above ground level. Set Straight&Level attitude, pull back power to 2300rpm and trim wheel.
6. 45degrees to runway threshold, make down-wind leg radio call and make a 30degrees right hand turn while maintaining altitude, taking note on which heading to level out.
7. Make pre-landing checks in down-wind leg, maintain height and heading. Take a breather.
8. 45degrees to runway threshold, make base leg radio call, throttle down to 1700rpm, hold the altitude and make a 30degrees right hand turn into base leg while maintain height with a lot of back pressure, losing a huge amount of airspeed, taking note on which heading to level out.
9. With airspeed decreasing, check that it is below 85kt before extending 20degrees of flaps, then start descend with correct attitude.
10. Continue descend at base leg with speed of 75kt, maintaining heading and checking on runway position to prepare for final approach turn.
11. Make a 30degrees right hand descending turn into final leg when wing roughly "touches" runway from sight.
12. Control throttle, heading and attitude in final leg, aiming for third dash line on runway, aligning it with top of dashboard compass. Keep eyes outside of cockpit and on the runway to adjust throttle accordingly. Set flaps to full.
13. Once aircraft reaches close to housing height above runway, idle throttle and start pulling back as aircraft sinks, landing with main wheels first before slowly lowering nose to land the front wheel.
14. Once fully landed, set flaps to 10degrees, full throttle and take off again to continue circuit.
SO MANY things to do right? It really takes a lot of focus to fly circuits properly and safely. It takes quite a bit of skill to do it perfectly too. My trouble this time was with the climbing as I had to look out for traffic, turn, check heading and maintain attitude all at the same time. It can get quite overwhelming. Then at the descending, I always couldn't seem to extend flaps early enough as my airspeed is still too high. The high airspeed was due to me failing to pull back hard enough, causing the plane to nose-down and gaining speed.
The final approach was rough, winds and turbulence blowing me everywhere, throwing my direction into disarray. I had to constantly make minute adjustments to everything in order to aim for the correct point on the runway. My landings were assisted by my instructor but they were not beautiful at all. Bumping around on the tarmac before all three wheels were landed.
The good thing about circuit flying is the number of chances to correct whatever mistakes you've committed in the previous rounds of circuit. Round after round, I got more used to it and was also able to handle it more comfortably. My take-offs were getting better too after many touch-and-go but my landings weren't up to standard yet from the way I looked.
Funny moments in flight when I went "woahhhhh" whenever being hit by turbulence or gust which threw my wings off-level. The instructor said "Don't woahhhh, correct it. I'm gonna call you Mr Sound Effects. Your woahhh is making me uneasy". HAHA!! From then on, I curbed all that sound effects.
Lesson ended after about 6 rounds of circuit. Instructor was actually quite happy with my first circuit, complimented that I should be proud of myself for the performance I've displayed. Wow, that was really great encouragement. Nevertheless, still a lot of mistakes to rectify and many aspects of my flying to perfect.
Thursday
Back to flying on Boxing Day after a boring Christmas Day which went just like any other ordinary day. Flight was in the early morning of 1030hrs. Cloud base seemed a little low with cumulus clouds prowling near the circuit skies, but my "new" instructor wasn't very bothered by it, so up we went for my second circuit training.
Once again, different instructor, different standards. Therefore, I had to adjust my flying style as compared to my first circuit flying to fit into his standards. Took me about two rounds of circuit to fit into his taste of flying. This sortie was about the same as the previous one, but with more workload and less guidance, unless I commit mistakes. I was making almost all the radio calls, checking all the traffic, and almost landing.
The feeling for this sortie wasn't as good as the previous one though. This time round it's a left hand circuit. Turbulent and gusty as always, I was drifting once I lifted off eventhough my heading was rather consistent. My downwind leg always looked too close to the circuit, my final leg was always too high and I kept forgetting about extending to full flaps on final leg.
The biggest problem of them all was my landing flare. What seemed so easy on the surface actually involves lots of skills, judgement and control. My mistake was applying too much back pressure too early, which ended up having my plane floating and somewhat even climbing. That, according to my instructor, can be very dangerous and hard to control, and I experienced it myself on my final landing.
I pulled the throttle to idle to begin the flare and started pulling back the yoke. Force was too much, airspeed very low, controls were sluggish, plane was tilting and the instructor took over at the final moments to prevent a heavy impact. Even he was struggling to clean up my mess and blurted out "jesus christ" while sorting out the bad landing.
It definitely didn't feel good for me to display such a horrendous piece of landing. Making my passenger feel unsafe is the last thing I'll wanna do. The key in correcting this mistake is to maintain Straight&Level attitude once I go into idle throttle, and with every sink I feel, I'd pull back a little and hold it there until my wheels touch the ground.
I'm determine to rectify this in my next circuit training, which was the following day's afternoon. I had a lot to review and think about at night so as not to allow my passenger to feel unsafe again.
Friday
I reported for flight scheduled at 1345hrs with my mind running through circuits all the time since my previous flight. I will need to really sort out that crappy landing of mine. Spoke to my third different instructor for my third circuit training and it was nice he assured me that landing is the hardest part of them all. He added that I should be more relaxed about it and let it come more naturally, I will get it eventually.
And so, up we went. Once again, I have to adjust my flying to meet his expectations. Climbing was good, with my heading fairly consistent. The climbing turn to cross-wind wasn't as good, but I made improvements gradually. Downwind is fine, but turning base wasn't that ideal, with my speeds too high once again, end up I have to adopt a high nose attitude to reduce my speed to below 85kt for 20degrees flap extension.
Final approach was alright with me able to keep to my aim point. Finally to the flare which I had SO MUCH trouble the day before. Recognising the problem I had, my instructor let me have a feel of exactly how much back pressure is needed for the flare. After a few more landings, I'm slowly getting some idea of it, but my flare timing and force were still not up to standard. I get the occasional bounces and bumpy landing which annoyed me quite a lot.
The circuits are busy and bumpy like every other day, and it really drains me very much when I was looking out for traffic all the time. I got to do go-arounds too when the runway is not available for landing. It's basically full power and retracting of flaps one stage at a time after checking for positive rate of climb. Next to do is to climb to circuit height and do an early crosswind turn. My eyes have to be on sharp alert to prevent my plane from colliding with traffic in the downwind leg, and at the mean time check my heading, distance from runway and do my radio call.
Massive amount of multi-tasking skill is needed. Your mind has to think ahead to keep yourself prepared for what's coming next. Exhausting stuff I must say. Next flight planned for the following day, my fourth sortie of the week, shall see how will my flaring go.
Saturday
Saw the METAR and TAF before reporting for flight knowing that it is most likely to be cancelled due to strong crosswind. Indeed, the conditions didn't improve even after I've spent some time doing the pre-flight checks. So ya, it's sad that I have to give it a miss, but such things happen all the time.
A very busy week with almost four flights until the last one got cancelled. It has been pretty exhausting flying circuit training for this whole week. The amount of focus and work load is quite demanding, there is no time to relax and dream. Overall I will say I did ok, but the flaring part is worrying me quite greatly as I don't usually take so long to get things right, made worse by the fact that landing practice is quite limited, sometimes I had to do a go-around due to traffic.
Next week's flying will be very crucial and will determine whether I'm cut out to fly solo. If I can't land safely, I can never go solo. Current total hours on the C172S is already 11hours, I'll have to learn quick as the average hour count where others clear their first solo is 15, and that will take me another 2-3 flights to hit. There's not much time left to learn slowly anymore.
 |
| Lunch 231213 |
 |
| Look at the number of things to control and monitor in a circuit |
 |
| Aussie has many little lives that likes to visit houses. Snail in my toilet bowl which I have no idea how it got there |
 |
| Some cheap wine to loosen up after a week of tense circuit training |
 |
| Landing flare is hard to control |
 |
| SATC2 on TV!! |
 |
| It's cute that Aussie KFC has their wet wipes packed like condoms |
 |
| Spending some bonding time with the machine. Lifestyle here is like a dream come true. Huge landed residence, cheap beemer n washing it with a hose+sprinkler, occasionally fly an aircraft, great scenery of mountains. It feels like retirement. |
 |
| Every take-off is a new beginning I promise myself to rectify previously committed mistakes, as far as possible |
Happy New Year to everyone, may 2014 be an awesome year!
No comments:
Post a Comment