Michael’s Flight Training Diary

Hours flown today: 1.2

Practice all skills test stuff except circuits. Fuelled up and departed. Must do checks in the precise order they’re stated in the book. Flight at best rate of climb, flight at best angle of climb, trim for 80 knot cruise, trim for 90 knot cruise, dodging edge of low cloud.

Stalls: HASELL = height, airframe, security, engine, location, lookout. Power-off, remember to deselect carb heat at 70kts, pull all the way back, remember right rudder on applying throttle to counteract torque and propwash. Fine balancing act between pitching down too much and re-stalling, but got it well.

Stalls: power-on, approach config with 2 stages flap. Recover as soon as stall warner goes off, pitch to horizon and flap away when +ve ROC seen.

Steep turns - don’t need full throttle, otherwise it tends to climb. Just a little more.

PFLs: if I don’t select the 1000ft and 2000ft reference points, it all goes wrong and I land short. Particular problem when doing one from into-wind track. Turn to make sure I’ve seen suitable fields under the nose. Check CFMPMT = carb heat on, fuel (tank, pump), mixture rich, primer locked, mags on, throttle slightly open, restart. Mayday: “Mayday Mayday Mayday Oxford Approach G-xxxx is a PA28 with engine failure making a forced landing (location) VFR 2POB”. Expect an EFATO on any PFL recovery.

Recovered to Oxford, standard overhead join for 29 in hefty north-westerly wind. ATC directed to descend directly to downwind, but I cut the corner and ended up being blown too far downwind: was late downwind before at circuit height. Base turn was late, approach was long but stable. Landing came as a rough surprise: failed to flare, bounced down the runway! When reaching the right height above the runway, pull back to fly level, look to the end of the runway, every little descent detected in peripheral vision should be matched with pulling back slightly more. Must do better next time.

flying time today 1.1

Briefing from assertive Scotsman got bogged down by my questioning the merits of a dive to lose height versus flying slower than optimal to lose height. But anyway: point is to use one reference ~500m from target field boundary (1000ft AGL mark), and another reference ~1km from that as a 2000ft point. Good if these references are on a curved path towards the field. Aiming point in the middle. Aim to be 500ft above the near hedge until over the 1000ft point, then judge glide and headwind and add flap to taste. Sideslips can be dodgy, so be careful.

Departed with fractional tailwind, but otherwise unremarkable. Departed to northwest, 3000ft. Demonstrated descent rate in turn: roughly 400ft per 90 degrees, and after 360 degrees was nearly a mile downwind. Useful to note! Surveyed an arrangement of field, house (1000ft points) and pond (2000ft point), just north of Great Tew. Circled back to pond, chopped power and went for it. Interestingly no engine warmers. All went perfectly, trimmed for 80. No flap needed going into headwind. This instructor left the go-around very late, claiming we were exempt from the 500ft rule. Worrying!

Next up: near Barford St. John, field to the north-east. Was rather high over 1000ft point so went wider, but again it worked nicely. Just climbing away, instructor pulls power - nose down immediately! Must be reflex response.

Next: near Deddington, instructor pulls power without warning this time. Pretending wind is from north to avoid dazzling in the westerly sun. Heading west, had two suitable parallel fields leading off to my right, so could turn base for either. But in fact, both were too far away, and I put it into one 200m closer. Still worked nicely though, lots of options.

Climbed out to the west, cruising along, and instructor pulls power as soon as 3000ft reached. Looking not just for a field, but a field with obvious reference points in the right places. Find one parallel and slightly ahead to the right, so turn immediate hard right in an S-bend onto course, then left to final. Heights work out just right. At about 500ft, instructor points out power line in the field, fortunately running parallel, so we can still make it. Field is upslope which should reduce landing roll. Bit worried about very low go-around into an upslope, tree tops looked awfully close as we pulled away. But we would have made it.

Learning points: look for the 1000ft and 2000ft references. Try to maintain constant shape/position of landing spot on final glide. Put third-stage flap away immediately on go-around. Expect the power to be pulled away on climb-out: lower nose immediately.

Set course back to Oxford. Standard overhead join, went all the way around the airfield because must fly over the downwind numbers to enter deadside for descent on the test. Instructor recommends descending in a straight line for 400-500ft on crossing the numbers, to avoid being too high over upwind numbers. Turned earlier than he wanted but was still bang-on circuit height over upwind numbers. Circuit and approach was good, slightly high on approach, put in third flap at 300ft, thought it was too steep and gave it power: should have pulled power away quickly because it put me too high. Flared OK, should have pulled back more in the hold-off, but touch-down was gentle. Not bad.