Lesson 28 - wheel up

Lesson: 28

06/III/2011

• Lesson time: dual - 0.7h,solo - nope.


• Total time: 23.6h (0.7h solo)


• Location: EGAD


• Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)


• Instructor: David P

 

Got in the club to the club early morning. DavidP was on the phone so with the Cesar's thumb up/down gesture I requested the go/no go info. Thumbs up.

Got the key, went for a preflight.

[gallery columns="1"]

David got soon after I sat down inside comfortably. Wind was favouring rwy 16 which I have never flew a circuit on so a bit new experience. There's a police station antennae mast to fly over when you approach the 16 for landing and I knew that (from other blog and also from looking at the vfr plate for EGAD ).

I managed to turn with the wind to do my power checks, clearly a stilly mistake. But David very calmly hinted me about it.

Off I went to backtrack 16, and got ready to roll. The day was murky, clouds were at around 1500 ft so David asked me to turn the landing or taxing light on so we're bit more visible.

Put the power in, and off we went. I managed to under turn first crosswind turn aiming for visual point that I would aim for if I flew rwy 22. I usually use DI and try to think about the wind at the same time, but after my last lesson I was so tensed up that I simply didn't. Nothing that I couldn't fix later on.

Few usual mistakes, like forgetting the downwind call. I was told to slap myself for making the downwind call too early on the next circuit. Clearly something that has to do with multiple instructors. David told me to make the call when I'm abeam the runway threshold. And so I will stick to that method.

I got so very fixated on trying to avoid the mast when turning from base to finals, that I started to fly very wide trying to keep the mast to the port side and only correcting the approach once I was clear of it. Obviously not a good idea. David nicely demonstrated how it can be done, basically trying to turn just before the mast and use it as sort of a pivot point. It worked very well (as you can see from the gps track at the end).

On one of the circuits I was so busy talking about something boring, that I forgot to put the 3rd stage of flaps on finals - monkey. Obviously had to self-slap myself for that.

Oh, one neat trick David taught me and he probably would not mind me sharing here. When turning base, I would pull the carb heat on, reduced the power, and as soon as ASI is over the white arc I would start setting the flaps. Well, there's just one problem with it. You get this bumpy sort of reaction from the aircraft when you do that. So the trick David showed me, was to slow the aircraft down quite a bit before applying flaps. Everything's much more relaxed and no bumps.

For the last one circuit David asked me if we could land it on the grass. On the left hand side of runway 16 there's a patch of grass that can be used for grass landing practice (dunno about t/o) . David thought I tried grass before at the Trim aerodrome (see that 'episode' for more info).

Strange experience landing on the grass. For one, that bit of grass is half the length of the runway 16 and right behind it is another hard surfaced runway. So if you don't stop on time, your wheels are going to stay on the grass :)

But all in all landing on the grass was quite nice. Certainly more gentle and cushioned. Weird thing tho was that I had to keep the yoke pretty much pulled towards me all the time. Felt like one wheel motorcycle stunt.

Obviously following my last lesson stunt, asking for a solo would be really rude, so in all honesty I didn't count on it at all. David's only remark was that I somehow don't feel as confident as I used to. Probably true, last lesson did show me that over confidence is not a really good idea.

As they say "Two steps forward, one step back".

If I had to summarise the whole lesson, it was a very relaxing experience. Pretty much a bliss. David does tolerate my jabbering much better then most instructors and hence why I probably prefer him over so many others. He is also very patient and doesn't rush things too much.

And at the end I was promised a solo next time. Well, I bloody hope I will get some solo time otherwise in that pace it will take another 10 hours to get required 3 hours solo circuit consolidation :)

 



 

• Route: T/O RWY16 circuits, last landing on the 16 grass.


• Milestones: Grass landing, regained a bit more confidence.


• Exercises covered: circuits.


• Weather: bit windy, lowish cloud base.