I had all sorts of time booked at the aero club, the Saturday I was supposed to be in the Cessna, but that got cancelled due to high wind.   The very next day I had the Extra 200 booked for some fun flying (you can spin the Extra and I wanted to do some ‘sensible’ spins as well as get into some inverted spins for fun…….if you’ve not flown an Extra, it really is out of this world fun).

Somewhere around 10am on the day of the Extra lesson the phone rang 🙁   This is almost always bad thing……

Sure enough my Extra 200 lesson was getting called off, not for bad weather, the weather was fine – it had a puncture!   Of all the things, I’ve had a lesson where it wouldn’t start, now it had a puncture.    Every cloud has a silver lining and this one was the fact that now there was an instructor free to go ‘sensible’ flying with.

The weather was scheduled to just keep getting better, so I snapped up the offer.

Arrival at the Aero Club

One of the other club members was getting set up to do his final ground exam, my instructor was trying to get him setup while also sorting me out with keys to the plane.

A quick question amongst the rushing back and forth:

Have you got your Medical with you?

“Yes……”

“Do you know why I’m asking?”

“Oh Yes.”

While the instructor finished off sorting out getting the exam started, I took the keys to G-HERC and went to check it out.

All good except it wasn’t parked up on the grass…….ahhh there it is behind two other planes in the refueling area.   You’ve got to assume it’s about when you’re holding the keys 🙂

Internal Checks & Taxi

I haven’t flown G-HERC for weeks, if not months, it felt a bit weird getting back into it.   I’ve said it before, it’s one of 4 Cessna 172’s, but they’re all a bit different.   G-HERC has a slightly different Heading Indicator, no auto-pilot and a few other switches and dials that aren’t quite in the same places.

Just to mix it up or keep me on my toes, the artificial horizon was bust and was reading total nonsense for pitch.   In the instructors words:   “Good thing we don’t fly on instruments…”    Hmmm, I actually quite like to at least reassure myself the world outside is correct 🙂

On top of the ‘new’ plane, it was a ‘new’ instructor (or at least I haven’t flown with him in weeks) and a ‘new’ circuit (back to left hand circuits after weeks of right hand).   My instructor asked to see my medical certificate and was happy it was in order, now all we had to do was a few good landings…

Circuit #1

Take off was good, overshot the pattern height a bit, going to around 1150ft.   My normal first circuit is traditionally a bit rough and this was no exception.

The approach was as high as you like, just properly far to high and even with all the flap on and all the power off it wasn’t happening.

“Golf Romeo Charlie……..Going Around.”

🙁

Circuit #2

A fairly decent circuit, but due to traffic we were asked to extend downwind.   I’m sure I could have done the approach a bit better, but it wasn’t bad.

~70ft from touch down as the hold off began, the plane got lift and started going up.

Not wanting to balloon it……..Full power On.

“Golf Romeo Charlie……..Going Around.”

🙁

Circuit #3

My instructor assured me there wasn’t much wrong with the second circuit and I could have landed it, but it was good to see good decision making etc.    Yeah ok, but we didn’t land it, so it’s nice but there’s no points for go-arounds.

Strangely this is where I calmed down, two approaches messed up I was pretty sure that one more and it was all over for another lesson.

The circuit was a perfect 1000ft all the way around, the approach was as good as any I’ve seen or done and the landing while ok a bit flat, was like a feather touching down.  You’d have hardly have noticed the transition from air to ground – I’ve never been in a landing smoother than this one.

Flaps up, lets see if we can repeat that.

Circuit #4

Another pretty spot on circuit, finished off with a good enough landing – not quite circuit #3, but plenty good enough to keep the instructor happy.

Circuit #5 – ‘To Land’

On the downwind leg, my instructor said:

“You seem to like pressure, so how about this:   Make a good job of this landing and you can take it solo.”

Feel the pressure!

The landing was a touch flat and a touch bumpier then I’d hoped for, but my instructor was happy enough with it:   “There’s nothing unsafe about it.”

“Ok, Park up next to that jet and let me out….”

With the engine idling my instructor unplugged his headset and got out, reminding me that his chart was in the side pocket (if we needed that, we’ve done something properly wrong, but it is a legal requirement).    Followed by instructions that the plane was now:

Student Golf Hotel Echo Romeo Charlie

First Solo

At a recent aero club meeting someone I wish I could remember the name of said “Your first solo will always be engraved in your mind…”

Requesting ‘further taxi’ it was clear my radio calls would also go a bit off, the tower called back with the current QFE (pressure for setting an altimeter to read height) and the first time I might have ‘ignored’ them, not thinking they wanted it called back.   We got there though and I was cleared to taxi to Holding Point Alpha.

Power checks into wind all done, taxi light off, landing light & strobes on and final checks, double checked.

“Student Golf Romeo Charlie, ready for departure…..”

Words will never quite capture the excitement at this point, even with an instructor in the right hand seat there’s few feelings like the one you get from lining up on a runway.

………Clear for Take Off……

Trying to keep remembering to prefix ‘Student’ in front of all my radio calls, I radioed back “….clear for departure”, which is wrong, it should be “take off”.   ATC got the idea though and in a mix of adrenaline and nerves it’s easily done.

I lined it up on runway 23 and with no hesitation other then a brief pause for breath to try and capture the picture in my mind, on with full power and we were off, charging down the runway, 40kts, 50kts, 55kts…..Rotate.

The Cessna got airborne at around 60/65kts, at 200ft I remember saying to myself:  “Ok, 200ft, from now:  land it or crash….”

I’m not sure if that was reiterating reality or just something to keep everything calm, but generally on the climb up to 600ft for the first turn I was feeling amazingly relaxed and calm – more than anything I wanted to fly this circuit at 1000ft.

Turning on to the downwind leg, with a  few moments to enjoy the view, the altimeter read a perfect 1000ft the wind was being nice and I was trying to ensure I didn’t converge in the circuit so I had time to get everything sorted when I turned on to base.

Pre-Landing checks done and everything in the green, a quick radio call to tell ATC they still had a student downwind 🙂

Looking for a white house I’d been using as a reference to ensure I didn’t turn too early, I gave myself maybe an extra 100m just to ensure base and final had plenty of time.

It was strangely calm, peaceful and just an amazing feeling.  Turning onto base the enjoyment had to take a backseat because now the focus had to turn to getting the speed down into the white arc (flap extension speed), start putting on the first twenty degrees of flaps and thinking about turning onto final.

Final approach was looking pretty good, I’d given myself plenty of time to get it all trimmed up.   I kept reciting audibly “Don’t mess this up….” and at times I did wonder what I must have sounded like if my radio push-to-talk button was stuck on 😉

Final calls to ATC done and clearance to land given, it was all now down to lowering the last stage of flaps and watching two things:   Airspeed, Runway, Airspeed, Runway….

As I crossed the runway threshold I was doing 60kts, but as I went into trying to ‘stop it from landing’, I was being super careful not to do anything that would let the plane catch any wind or even think about gaining lift (begin a balloon).   The price for that was that I probably could have held it off longer with a bit more back pressure. Instead I touched down, dead on the centre line, but a bit flat and a bit hard.   It stayed on the ground and stayed straight……for my first go all on my own, I’ll take that!

Air Traffic Control came on the radio to say “G-RC, vacate next right – Congratulations”

I thought about saying thanks back to them, but thought I better stick to the script and just read back the vacate instruction.

Done……I was back on the ground safely, plane in one piece, now just the task of remembering how/where to park!

Parking and Debrief

After parking, one of my regular instructors parked a different Cessna next to me, I’d forgot she was around today.   After weeks of being told “more back pressure…”  hopefully she didn’t see that landing 😉

The instructor for today came over, congratulated me and reminded me the landing was a bit flat but in his words “There’s things I can tell you could have been technically better, but that’s not really what this is about, it’s about getting through that psychological barrier of knowing you can fly it yourself….everything else we’ll iron out with time and experience”

We were definitely through any such barriers:  Properly enjoyed that flight!

I’ve never been so thankful for a flat tyre as I was today.

Finally, first solo done, we can start pretending we know what we’re doing  🙂

I had the 9am slot booked, but at 8:40am I got the dreaded phone call that normally means only one thing:  Lesson Canceled due to…….    Sure enough that’s how the call started, but with the upshot that someone else must have cancelled because they now had an 11am slot available and did I want it?   No need to ask twice!

Upon arrival to the aero club, I discovered there were even more Olympic Games security procedures coming into play – now you can’t even get outside to the locked gate without a badge to get you through the now locked door!!   (price you pay for being one of the few airports near London that will still be open during the games).

Briefing

I’d be flying with the instructor who I did my first landing with…..at this point, with so many forgettable attempts to duplicate that lesson behind me, I can’t tell you how good this felt.

I don’t know if he’d read my file, or just wanted to give me a typical “Haven’t flown with you in a while re-cap….”   However he went through flying the circuit again in the briefing room and it went roughly like this:

Fly down to the runway…..Then Fly Over it……Keep trying to Fly Over it.

In his words “Sure, you can talk about the ‘hold-off’ and ‘flaring’ and they’re all the right terms…….but if you fly down to the runway, then level off to try and fly over it and then just keep trying to fly over it, you’ll find the flare happens naturally.   You don’t have enough power on to stay in the air, so you’re coming down, it’s a fact.”

I don’t know why it clicked, but these words just seemed to click – if I was waiting for some coin to drop, this was the speech that made it drop.

Beyond this speech, it was as simple as:   “Right, lets get you the keys……”

I’ve been flying for nearly a year now and I still enjoy being passed the keys to a plane 🙂

Taxi and Take-Off

I’ve spent a year doing left hand circuits, but for the last couple of weeks it’s all change to right hand circuits…….still at least when Air Traffic ask me to “Taxi to Delta via the grass taxi way.”   I know where it is now, I need a map of this airport 🙂

Delta is at the far end, far, far away from where the Cessna’s are parked up and the grass taxi way to it becomes a descent down a hill which would make a pretty good sledge run in the winter.    Stop thinking it’s costing £3/min to be chugging along the grass at a speed you could literally get out and walk faster and just enjoy the views and the fact you’re playing with airplanes, what could be better!

As we finish up on the power checks and set-up on the holding position of Delta my instructor points out that somewhere in the 87+ point checklist, I’ve clearly missed the step to turn the nav/strobe lights on.  Oops!   (We could argue they’re not required during the day, but lets not…..)

First Circuit of the Day

The deal was the instructor would stay quiet, I’d do the circuit and he’d see where I was at from there – I did warn him that traditionally my first circuit of the day was my worst, but we’d see.

Other then a slight moment of doubting myself on when to turn on to base having only flown a right hand circuit a couple of times, the circuit itself was pretty nice and the approach was equally ok.   I turned a bit to soon on to final, largely because of a crosswind that made it feel like there’d never be a good time to turn.

It was all going so nicely, but around 100ft I convinced myself I was too low and was going to touch down before the runway threshold.   Rather then force the landing I decided to just bail on it and go-around.

My instructor said there was actually nothing really wrong with it and was looking good, but it showed I could make safe decisions.    Yeah, feed me the  positive stuff, I’m not paying £179/hour to be depressed 🙂

Second Circuit

An all round better circuit, we’re only talking by factors of 50ft but just that bit better.

A nice final approach with a 7kt crosswind.  As the runway disappeared under us, I began the attempt to “fly over/along it”.    Taking off the remaining power as it went and bringing the nose up in the futile attempt to keep the plane flying over the runway before kicking it straight with the ruder, the main wheels touched down.

…….and that is how I did it the first time!!!!!

It’s a sensation I’d been chasing for ~6 lessons, that nice touch down where you know you’ve landed but it didn’t require medical attention to your back afterwards.   Oh at times its felt like the whole show was a joke and I’d never crack it, but eureka, it can be done!

Admittedly I could have got it a bit straighter just before touch down, but we were on the center line or thereabouts, it was decent enough.

Third Circuit

All in all as nice as the second, slight improvement on the amount of rudder used to kick it straight just before touch down and a landing that felt like a landing – rather than a crash you walked away from.

Flaps up, full power on and back up we go…..

Fourth Circuit

My instructor decided to give my emergency procedures a run and announced we’d had an engine failure on take-off (oh ok there might have been a radio call to ATC to just let them know what we were about to do, but still, not much notice….).    Set the attitude to get airspeed (70kts) and then start picking a field.

The instructor pointed out that if there’s time you can go through the motions of curing the problem.   If not, the rest of the checklist for an engine failure on take off is effectively to shut the engine down and land straight ahead if possible (the checklist says land “Straight ahead” – but maybe don’t do this if straight ahead is a house and 30 degrees to the right is a big grass field….).   The objective though is that you don’t want to be turning without an engine unless you have to and/or have sufficient height.

Fifth Circuit

I flew the circuit and my instructor decided to demonstrate that the engine doesn’t have to fail on take off.   It can decide it’s going to fail wherever it likes, so this time he ‘failed’ it three quarters of the way downwind.

Constantly asking the question “Can I make the runway” he commenced a glide in approach – in all honesty making it look far to easy.

Sixth Circuit

We must have been flying in the most unreliable plane on the planet, because it had another ‘engine failure’ on take off!   (Honestly I’m sure the book says to land it when the first one happens 🙂  ).

Another fairly nice circuit, though I did need a reminder to make a radio call for downwind – I may have become ‘inflight obsessed’ with flying it straight.

The landing was another good one…..

Seven Circuit & Final Landing

Original plan was that I was going to do a glide in approach, but unfortunately another plane beat us into the circuit by getting clearance to fly straight into final approach.

Got to partially glide in and it was another happy landing……… Go back to the start, I don’t know why this lesson clicked, whether it was just a mental confidence boost to be flying with someone I knew I’d done good landings with, the speech at the beginning or something else.   The trick will be doing it again on the next lesson.

Debriefing

The words I remember hearing were “you’re landings are good enough to go solo.”

After what feels like stacks of lessons, this becomes all you look forward to hearing 🙂

Briefing

Take off, turn, descend, land…….flaps up, full throttle and repeat.

After a shocking last lesson in cross wind my notes clearly  said we’d had some fun in crosswind.

Back flying with my ‘regular’ flight instructor (more hours with her than anyone else, but I’ve had seven instructors to date!).   We’d take G-SHWK up and see how the gods of aviation felt like playing it today.

Circuits

One general improvement to report, I no longer seem to have a map or a smiley face covering up all the instruments.

I’m not going to even attempt to remember every circuit from this lesson, it’s a blur in a mad run of lessons in May (the weather turned for the better and so I was flying faster than I could stop to write it all down).

A theme of nice circuits, really nice approaches and hard landings is occurring.

There’s no way I could ever put it into words for someone else to truly appreciate unless they’ve seen it first hand, but the last 50-60ft just felt too fast.   There’s a sort of ‘elbow stop rest’ and I keep finding myself pulling the control column back to this point and no further, which ultimately seems to result in landing “flat” rather than with a decent flare.   I’m not sure if it’s just this, a subconscious fear of ballooning (results in having to go-around) or something else going wrong.

The quest to try and figure out what I did on the first circuit lesson that was so much better just continues – oh that isn’t to say what is going wrong isn’t being explained to me.   Unfortunately if you could just read the book and then put the words into actions, learning how to fly would be a lot easier 🙂

Circuits were mixed up with a few practice emergencies and go-arounds.

Another Chance to Land on the Grass

The lesson ended with Air Traffic radioing in that runway 23 had been closed for inspection and could we land on 23 Grass?

……….we could give it a go 🙂

I’m still catching up on a back-log of flying, so this is a few weeks after the event, but in the grand scheme of the blog, it’s generally in sequence.

Briefing

We’d be flying G-SHWK.  Of the clubs planes, this one is my favorite.   Cessna, the FAA or even EASA might tell you that as the plane is certified and holds a Certificate of Airworthiness (“C of A”), that it is born equal.   In terms of at what speed it gets airborne/stalls at etc. I don’t dispute it.   However, it doesn’t squeak/creak like Charlie Bravo does.   I’ve flown it at night, I like it.

I’ve flown enough circuits now to not really need briefing on it, but with an instructor I’ve only flown with once before, we had a quick catch-up and a look at the weather:

The wind was really starting to pick up and starting to reach the limits (20kts) of a student pilot, but we’d go up and give it a go.

Taxi and Take-Off

Due to a hose pipe ban, I hadn’t flown in ~3 weeks.   Top tip to anyone taking up learning how to fly:  This is the absolute max gap you want to have between flying lessons, it’s the point where you can’t quite remember the sensation of starting the engine and it all starts to feel non-instinctive.

Circuits and Crosswind

As this was with an instructor I hadn’t flown with for a while, but had been chatting to the previous night through aero club social events, I had hoped the gods of aviation would be kind.   It was not going to happen though, the first circuit was as shocking as any I’ve ever done, the approach was just a fight and at somewhere around 200ft:

Full Power On………”Golf Whiskey Kilo, Going Around….”

That wasn’t the original game plan, but as we started to climb away, I thought “Not to worry, shows you can make safe decisions….”

Circuit #2 was nice enough, the approach was still a good old session with the wind, but better than before.   100ft to the runway still looking reasonable, with 50-100ft to go it all started to unravel and we touched down with a solid full-on WHAM!  🙁

It was so hard that the next words from my instructor was “When we get back up I’ll take control and explain what went wrong there…..”

No joking.

I can look back with weeks of hindsight and I’m convinced my arm was finding a natural ‘back rest’ and would not pull back the controls further than just about nose level.   So we were hitting the deck at 55kts or somewhere around there – it felt like it!

Circuit #3, lets just cut to the chase – the magnitude of disappointment in myself with the landing on this circuit was exhausted audibly in the cockpit with what my instructor described as a “Big Sigh.”

What you have to remember is that my first two landings were things of near perfection.   Since then, I’ve just searched to replicate them and failed, lesson after lesson……three circuits into another lesson, my subconscious was clearly starting to to ponder what the hell I was doing.

I think my instructor got the general impression that this wasn’t going to happen today and called it quits.   The next circuit was to land……..it was better, but still completely rubbish in my book.

Debriefing

My instructor said a lot of positive things about my approaches and general flying.

For my money though, this was quite simply my worst lesson to date.   Maybe because this was the 6th circuit lesson I’d had and it was a million miles worse then my first.

Blame it on the cross winds, book some more lessons and see what happens next time – not all lessons are great ones to remember.