More Circuits and First solo in C172

More Circuits and First solo in C172

During briefing, we discussed different types of circuits in C172, flap-less, glide, go-around, powerplant failure after take off, etc. 

Did my preflight nicely, very confident about things I should be looking for. This is mainly due to the fact, that I asked my instructor day before to do one with me - instead of just going on bravely on my own and spending 30 minutes looking for everything. 

The airfield seemed busy in the morning, but most people just departed away - so for first few circuits - we were the only aircraft in the circuit. 

First circuit was uneventful, on the climb-out from the second, instructor pulled the power on me - and walked me through the procedure as I was doing it myself. The only criticism there was the bank angle, I should keep it to really minimal if engine did indeed quit on me, and land straight ahead. 

Next few circuits were flap-less, with more or less success. The wind was strong 100ft+ above the runway, with virtually no wind on the ground, which made for tricky landings - as close to the ground indicated speed would all of the sudden drop below required. Also C172 doesn't seem to be so bad in terms of gliding abilities (albeit with milling prop and no flaps to drag us down). Few go arounds, thrown in for practice - when we were too high. 

Another thing dully noted, on touch-and-go, it is necessary to wait for flaps to go up all the way. Otherwise, there's bit of a asymmetric tendency there in controls, and aircraft starts to lift off too early. 

At the end of the last circuit, instructor asked me if I'd be happy to do one solo - the answer was obvious :-) 

I felt ok, this time I was ahead of the aircraft most the times. So decided to give it a go. "It will give you a bit of a confidence boost too!" - well, that's a good remark :-) 

Since my balance on the account is down to 0 now, every bit of confidence boost helps. 

I had to wait a bit to get airborne, quite few aircraft backtracking, on finals, or wanting to go up again in front of me. 

But once sorted, off we went. Going solo, one thing I noticed even more - is that I have this habit from flying Tecnams to use rudder at the same time I use aerlierons. 

That doesn't work in C172. The committee behind yoke has to make the decision to turn first, and then you gradually have to add more rudder into the turn. I'll get that with practice. 

Landing was rather nice. I did watch my speed, made small changes, and waited for aircraft to settle before trimming or doing any further adjustments. Of course that's much different from Tecnam which basically does what you told it to - straight away. 

Landing was pretty nice, I was too slow closer to the ground - but that was down to the same issue with the wind I noticed before. 

One thing I registered and learned Today - is that you have to resist the temptation to push the nose down when you're already too fast, and you think you're too high. 

Turns out, actually sorting out the speed (yoke aft) will actually sort out the height too - and get you down nicely. 

All in all, very enjoyable 1.2h (out of which 0.3 were solo, mostly due to the wait on the apron). 

This went quicker then I thought. I was given this sort of a Hobson's choice by CFI Yesterday - thinking it will take me another 5-6h before I go solo. But there you go, I was wrong. Of course there's still bit work to be done before I can do my QXC, but maybe not as much as I thought. 

One happy, albeit completely broke, Greg.