Michael’s Flight Training Diary

Time flown today: 0h 45m

Total time to date: 41h 15m

Once again, the weather was looking great for my long-awaited solo Thruxton land-away, with moderate winds, no cloud below 4000ft and 10km+ visibility forecast for the whole day. As I drove to the airport in the sun, there was a mucky greyness about the horizon that looked like haze, but the surface visibility didn’t look too bad, and I reasoned that it must be the layer of thin indistinct cloud at 4500ft causing the hazy look. The folks at PFT agreed with me, so we briefed for the solo, and prepared to go out for one dual circuit before the instructor would hop out and let me go to Thruxton.

So we quickly took the plane over to the pumps and filled up: but our subsequent request to taxi was refused by Tower, stating that PFT had told them that the visibility was inadequate for a solo sortie! How incredibly disappointing. So we trundled back, went to the office, and the PFT folks grumbled about Tower telling them what do to. Anyway, we figured that the visibility was adequate for some dual circuits, and after my recent and abruptly-curtailed circuits practice, I was keen to do some. So that was the new plan: and it’s so long that I’ve done a significant number of landings that my skills are sufficiently rusty to make it fun.

Circuits themselves aren’t that fun, actually. They’re pretty easy, and apart from a slight altitude deviation on the first downwind leg, they were accurate and stress-free. The first approach was a standard one, two stages of flap and 75 knots. The approach was good, but the hold-off was a bit short and the touch-down slightly sideways in the 8-knot crosswind, as I plonked it down ungracefully. Next up, was a flapless approach. I hadn’t done one of these in ages, but I managed to recall that the approach speed is slightly higher (80 knots), and generally lower and flatter. Well, despite being well-trimmed for accurate speed control, I made it a bit too low and flat, with the PAPIs all red for most of the approach! I should have applied more throttle earlier in the descent when the PAPIs first started to indicate I was low, and maintained adequate throttle to keep me on the glideslope. It was all too low for comfort, and I’m lucky I didn’t encounter nasty turbulence passing over the trees on short final.

After this, the instructor announced we’d do a glide approach. When I reckoned we were in position to make the field, I would cut the throttle to idle, and get us onto the runway. It was an interesting exercise in glide judgement, which I haven’t practiced for ages, and his suggestion of aiming for a particular gap in the built-up Kidlington area as a route from downwind to final was a new one to me. It ended up in me being far too high on final though, and the instructor had to prompt me to put flap in to steepen the approach. I should have gone for a longer approach, and put flap in earlier of my own volition. We dived down steeply towards the runway, hanging in the air with barn doors fully extended, and flared about a quarter of the way down the runway. Touchdown and flare wasn’t bad, but the landing was still a bit sideways because I wasn’t properly kicking-off the crab angle with rudder at touch-down.

Around once more, for the final circuit with another glide approach. I made pretty much all the same mistakes over again with the second glide approach, which was annoying. From 1200ft AGL, I need more distance than I was giving myself to get an approach at a sensible angle. But once established in my slow-motion Stuka-like dive for the runway, I was making good landings from it, and this one was even better, progressively kicking-off the crab angle until I was perfectly straight, nose-high, settling gently down onto the runway… “going to be a nice smooth one” the instructor said… CLONK went the aeroplane, as it stopped flying three feet about the runway and fell onto the tarmac. Sigh. But for a bit of finesse on my height judgement, it would have been a sweet landing.

But despite the lack of finesse, the landings were safe. And that’s good enough for a student, so it was all worthwhile practice. Now, I just have to hope I get some cross-countryable weather soon…

Time flown today: 0h 30m

Total time to date: 40h 30m

After a few weeks of bad weather and work commitments conspiring to keep me earthbound, I had high hopes for making something of the recent spell of beautiful summery weather, and doing the Thruxton solo sortie, preceded by the requisite quick bout of dual circuits in order to learn again how to land (since recent landing adventures have suggested that I’d forgotten). The day started with winds 10-15kts at 30 degrees to Oxford’s runway 01, but sadly they were forecast to veer to nearly full crosswind 15-25kts later in the morning, which is a bit dodgy for a solo student whose landings are rusty. But it was adequate for getting the dual circuits done, so off I went to the airfield.

After six weeks without flying, I was quite pleased at how well I performed. Starting, taxying and departing, I was methodical, quick and accurate, and there was no rush: I seemed to have plenty of time to get everything done, recite it out loud as I did it, and be alert for problems or failures. I departed into the circuit, and quickly settled down. How much easier it was than the last time I did circuits!

Altitude control downwind was a little wonky, losing two hundred feet towards the end of downwind before I discovered I’d left the carb heat on during downwind checks, the reduced power causing a gradual descent. I was also a bit tardy with the turn crosswind, drifting over the Railwayline Of Airspace Violation that supposedly marks the boundary of Brize Zone - I think I may have drifted fractionally into the Zone for a few seconds just as I turned final. The approach was pretty good, and I trimmed accurately for 75 knots. Having full brainpower available for a landing (contrary to my recent cross-country outings, in which the landing happens at the end of a tiring journey), I was able to note how sensitive the Cherokee’s descent profile is to tiny changes in power. A mile out, just a couple of millimetres’ throttle movement makes significant difference to the approach path. But I was identifying the changes in approach path - the relative movement of the runway on the windshield - accurately, and taking quick corrective action. Centreline was held well, despite the moderate crab-angle and increasingly bumpy air below 1000ft.

All of this was not a huge surprise - I’ve generally flown approaches reasonably well. The trick is what lies at the end of it! On short final, wrestling the aircraft slightly in the bumpy air, I’d inadvertently dropped the speed from 75 knots to about 70. Looking for the “picture” of the runway that I hazily remembered, I rounded out and brought the throttle to idle… brought the aircraft down, but the sink rate was a touch high and the airspeed a touch low, and I clonked down a little roughly and fractionally sideways, since thoughts of kicking-off the crab angle were not at the top of my priority list. Never mind, we and the aircraft were still in one piece, so full throttle, back to the centreline, carb heat off, flaps up, we’re nearly 65 knots, rotate, and we’re away again.

What went wrong? Well, I was about 5 knots slow on short final, probably because in wrestling the plane through the turbulence I’d been inadvertently applying back-pressure on the yoke, disrupting the otherwise-accurate 75-knot trim. But more importantly, I pulled the power to idle too early and high in the flare - I was maybe 30 ft off the ground, flying nearly horizontally, at idle power and 65 knots, which isn’t exactly ideal. I flew a rough flare profile, getting the aircraft to the runway in an approximately controlled manner, but I had so little airspeed by the time I got near the ground that increasing the back-pressure wasn’t really arresting the descent rate much.

Armed with this analysis, I set off again. I tried more dilligently to trim correctly on downwind, ending up 150ft high this time! Base turn was more accurate, and the final was pretty-much perfect. This time, I pulled the power off much more slowly, rounding-out progressively as I flew along the runway at a gradually-flattening angle, gradually pulling the power off. If anything, I was a little too tardy pulling the power off, carrying significant power into the flare, but there was 1500m of runway so what the hell. I bumped down a little ungracefully, a fraction sideways in the modest crosswind, and I could have pulled harder back to prolong the hold-off (although it may not have been the best idea in the crosswind).

So, let’s go again! Full throttle, centreline, carb heat off…

Carb heat lever doesn’t move.

Pull harder. Still doesn’t move. “Carb heat’s jammed”, I tell the instructor. I think he gave it a pull too, to no avail. “Nope”, I say. Time to pack it in - throttle to idle and hit the brakes, fortunately with a lot of runway in front of us. “Golf Golf Juliet, making this one a landing, will vacate the runway.” I wouldn’t have liked to do this on a 600m runway. For future reference, I technically should have said “Golf Golf Juliet stopping”, but it was an urgent situation and Tower got the message.

So we turn off the runway, and investigate. The carb heat lever is well and truly wedged in the “on” position. We trundle forlornly back to the apron. How very irritating: my circuits are good, but with only one “improving” and one “quite good” landing in the bag, it’s really not enough to be sent solo on, and I didn’t get the opportunity to practice flapless and glide approaches. Further investigation of the carb heat mechanism reveals a lack of obviously-fixable cause: the cable looks OK, and the actuator on the carburettor body resists substantial force by hand, so we fear the problem may lie inside the carb itself. No more flying today.