Fourth circuit training with my fourth different instructor. I pretty much exhausted all my designated instructors while learning to fly the toughest part of the flight training so far. I can now practically do everything quite up to standard right from the apron to the take-off runway. My taxi has also become more controlled and natural.
So, back to circuits. I did normal circuit flying, flapless landing and glide approach(no power). This time round, I can better gauge the back pressure needed to flare while landing. However, I'm still not pulling enough at the right moment to get my nose high enough. I ended up bouncing or landing flat. It's encouraging that I'm slowly getting it but disappointing that I took this long to get a slight idea of how it's gonna be like. Subsequent landings during the circuit flying didn't look very good either.
I tried glide approach with my engine power set to idle when I was in downwind leg. The attitude control is very important in this type of approach as I need to maintain as closely to 68kt as possible. I managed to get the plane quite accurately back to the landing runway, with extension of flaps only when nearing to threshold.
Flapless landing was demonstrated to me but I didn't have the chance to do it due to time constraint. I felt safer during a flapless landing though. Controls weren't sluggish, the approach was gradual but the speed was a little high. Had there been a long runway, I'd rather land in flapless configuration.
Lesson ended with a debrief with the instructor. He was double-checking for how many more flights before I'll do a solo check for my first solo. I actually have just two more lessons before I'll have my solo check. I thought I was THIS close to him asking me to redo the lesson for more landing practice.
He didn't do that in the end, but used strong words in my flight mission report: "roundout and landing must improve. Must identify and set correct landing attitude". I don't know how I will perform in my next flight, which is tomorrow, but I really want to get my landing right.
Tuesday
Mid-day flight at 1400hrs, temperatures are a bit on the high side with the sun glaring through my windscreen. We did the same thing again during the lesson with basic circuit flying and for the first time I get a repeated instructor for it.
My flaring seems to be rather stiff for something that is so dynamic. I was told that I'm sort of over controlling the aircraft and my approach profile is always too high. My descent on final is not steep enough, making my landing look like an A320 rather than a C172S. Those were the exact words from my instructor.
There isn't much I can write about this sortie other than the points above. It seems that I can never finish learning for landings as every landing is so different I have to re-learn it on every approach. My improvement is still not big enough with the instructor commenting that my progression is "OK".
Not exactly feeling very good about my performance, I asked him if my learning is too slow. He replied that I should not stress myself out too much as everyone's learning pace is different. It isn't about a race on who finishes first but about me myself being a good pilot at the end of it. I'm frustrated with my learning pace but I totally appreciate this piece of advice he has given me. Well I guess I'll have to be more relaxed on my controls and try again in my next flight.
Thursday
I actually was scheduled for a flight on Wednesday(New Year's Day), but it was cancelled due to bad weather. So I flew on Thursdays with a different lesson: Steep Turns. Taking a break from flying in congested circuits, I climbed all the way to 8500ft woo!! Flight was amazingly smooth with me relaxing on the controls while doing a very long climb at 74kt. With the aircraft trimmed, I was practically flying with two fingers on the yoke.
To the steep turns. The angle of bank is 45 degrees. Turning at such an angle requires more power as well as back pressure. If you don't feel the gravitational force then you ain't doing it right. Did a right turn, level out, then a left turn. Feels good and my turns were up to standard. Then I had to do a right-hand 45degree angle of bank for 360degrees of heading and immediately switch to 45degrees left-hand angle of bank for another 360degrees of heading.
Did it once, it was good, second round good too. By then, I started to feel air sick. Boooooo... It wasn't the turn than made me sick but rather the sensation of leveling out and sudden huge angle of bank change that caused it. Imagine from 45degrees right to 45degrees left within less than 2seconds? That's a change of 90degrees.
Lesson felt pretty short, but the feeling of going up so high again feels good. It was so stable I felt like I was on a huge airliner. The instructor flew us back to base after he saw me feeling unwell. I guess I'll have to get used to such maneuvers. On the part of flying my first solo, there seems to be no news of it, so I've decided not to be too fixated on it and take it as it comes.
Current hour count: 15.1hours
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| Dinner 301213 |
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| Over the fence where the birds are |
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| Preparing for Tuesday's flight |
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| How I spent NYE countdown |
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| My first flight of 2014 ended with me feeling air sick |
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| A fellow coursemate cleared his first solo this week |
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| Having lunch with ducks on Friday |
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| Run..... |
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| Australia outback |
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| The hills look higher from the ground than from the air |
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| Friday nights routine |
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| Hunky coursemate cooking good food |
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| Strong gusty winds on Sunday causing my flight to be cancelled |
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| Went for sims instead after flight cancellation. Check out the circuit boards behind it. |
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| Hungry Jack's for dinner to end the week |
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