Michael’s Flight Training Diary

Time flown today: (tbd)

Total time flown: (tbd)

Following last week’s successful circuits session on runway 24 in very benign winds, the instructor in the group said he’d like me to get some practice on the 06 circuit, because the noise abatement demands are very specific, and also some crosswind practice. Well, fortunately, on the very next booking the winds favoured 06, and although there was perhaps less crosswind than I would have liked, it seemed to satisfy the instructor. So off we went.

First of all, an overhead join, which at Wycombe are rather unconventional. We departed north up the Bledlow ridge to the edge of the Chilterns, then turned left to fly south along the edge, past Chinnor, watching out closely for gliders soaring over the escarpment. We turned left along the M40 at the Stokenchurch mast, taking care to keep clear of the Lewknor parachuting site which was active, crossed over to the right-hand side of the motorway since we were following a line feature, and followed the motorway south-east at 2000ft QNH until it brought us into the vicinity of the circuit, with the airfield in sight. The trick is to look for the motorway bridge just north of the two villages of Lane End and Frieth, then fly straight ahead between the two villages at that point, diverging from the motorway and following the 06 noise abatement circuit pattern but at 1500 QFE, 500ft above the circuit height. On reaching the extended runway centreline, turn left onto it (the same track as final approach), and descend to be 1200ft QFE at the runway threshold. It’s important to stay no lower than 1500ft QFE until well onto the runway centreline (final approach track), to ensure separation from circuit traffic that may have wandered a little too high. Fly along the final approach track and runway, and half-way along the runway (need to look for other references around the airfield, because you can’t see the runway from directly above it at 1200ft!), turn 90 degrees left towards the downwind leg. This track avoids noise-sensitive villages, and descend to circuit height at 1000ft QFE to intercept downwind.

On the downwind leg, look for the water tower in the woods north-west of Lane End - that’s the cue to turn downwind, between Lane End and Frieth. with the wind blowing from the north, you have to get the flaps out and power back quickly: I’d normally go for 1400rpm from the start of base, but 1200rpm works better here if I’m to avoid being too high on final. I got this wrong the first few times, ending up high and having to lose height on final: the instructor introduced the technique of diving it off. Put out full flap, and point the nose at the ground: with the barn-door-like flaps out, the speed won’t get above 90kts, while the height just reels off, quickly getting down onto the PAPI-indicated glide slope.

The same things apply as last time for the landing: bring the speed back to 60kts over the fence, and the flare works just nicely. There was a bit of crosswind - not much, but enough for me to demonstrate rudimentary ability on the rudder. Once down on the runway, there’s not as much margin on Wycombe’s runway for a touch-and-go as there is on Oxford’s. If the landing is more than slightly long, the right call is to hit the brakes and stop, as I had to once: fortunately, at Wycombe the taxyway is parallel to the runway, so you’re quickly taking off again after stopping. After the takeoff, on reaching the end of the runway, take a substantial turn left to 020 degrees for noise abatement - then on reaching 600ft QFE (which comes up very quickly), turn left again to due north, towards the Golden Ball, look out for circuit altitude… and it’s back onto downwind.

Reporting downwind, there were a number of times when Tower informed us of conflicting traffic joining base from the north. This traffic was surprisingly easy to spot, but if you see it’s going to end up too close to you in the circuit, what do you do? Well, you can either deviate slightly north of the circuit, but if that’s still going to bring you in too close behind to be confident of having a clear runway to land on, the alternative is to extend the circuit beyond Frieth, flying the 24 circuit in reverse. This is straightforward, and gives you a nice easy-going 2.5 mile final approach to get everything lined-up and stable.

In all, I did about six circuits, one of which was a go-around because I got too close to a Cessna in front of me, tootling along at barely 60 knots. The last landing was on grass, which I flared a bit late for, but fortunately my speed was right at the time (about 60 knots) and I pulled back hard enough to get the nose into the right position, so the touch-down was no more than a positive but moderate thump. Otherwise, it all worked pretty well. Although the crosswind wasn’t severe, my rudder co-ordination was adequate to put the plane down straight every time, just about every touch-down had the stall warner blaring (good), and some were quite smooth. Not bad.

And best of all, at the end of it the instructor said that now, the thing for me to do was to practice on my own! All that remains is for me to pick up the keys - and wait for WM to return from its annual - and I’ll finally have access to the plane on my own terms.

Flown today: 1h 0m

Total time to date: 72h 05m

Having done general handling, and an introduction to the 24 circuit but without much success at landing due to the hefty crosswind, my next session of familiarisation in WM was focussed on learning how to land it properly. This time, I was with a different group member who’s also an instructor, and with just a few knots of wind close to the runway heading, it was going to be a good opportunity to get to grips with landing it. I had my newly-prepared checklist to hand, which made life much easier, and I slowly and thoroughly worked my way through it, noting a few improvements and additions suggested by the instructor. Apart from the obvious problem that pressing the annunciator test button doesn’t help much before you’ve started the engine, a couple of interesting things to note were: check that both radios can receive and transmit before departing: so tune one for ground or tower and use that to request taxy, and check reception on the other by listening to something like London Volmet on 128.6. Then, at the power checks, switch to the other box and use that for requesting departure: this ensures that both boxes work. The other useful tip was to switch fuel tanks during the power checks, not before: this ensures not only that both tanks are working, but that they’ll deliver proper fuel flow at high power.

Anyway, we were ready for departure on 24, so ran through the final pre-takeoff checks, onto the runway, and we were off. The noise-abatement turn on reaching the end of the runway was shown to be more like 30 degrees than 10, turning back onto the runway heading on passing the little cottage on the edge of the woods that is the subject of the noise abatement manouevre. The circuit height of 1000ft QFE comes up quickly, and the crosswind turn soon after that to head directly towards Fingest, tucked behind a hill. Turn downwind just before Fingest onto the reciprocal heading of 060 degrees, and the Golden Ball should be visible in the distance about three miles away. Fly straight for the Golden Ball, heading just to the right of it, and with a good looking for traffic joining base, turn base and start descent, heading for the middle of the Cressex business estate. Aim to be 500ft QFE at turning final, two stages of flap and 75kts. Call final, and concentrate on the approach. At about 250ft and half a mile, final stage of flap and 65 kts, bring it back to 60 over the fence, carb heat off, and from that point the landing is really very easy indeed when it’s not blowing 15 knots perpendicular to the runway. All of my six landings were pretty respectable, and one or two were beautifully smooth. One of them, I pitched up a little too much when starting to flare, but I had twenty feet or so of height so the quick correction didn’t cause a problem beyond appearing a little cack-handed. On the penultimate circuit, the instructor suggested flapless: 80kts approach, 70kts touch-down, and that worked just fine. For the last circuit, the instructor suggested going round at cruise speed (2400 RPM), instead of the 2100 RPM/90 kts slow circuit I’d been doing to fit in with other circuit traffic. At 110kts, the plane feels really good to fly: more responsive, and the ground slides by noticeably more swiftly when it’s only 1000ft below. Feels like a going-places kind of aeroplane!

The way that the Wordpress default theme was squashing all Laura’s lovely photos of the flights in New Zealand was annoying me, so I set about trying to “fix” it… big mistake, cos I’m not a php geek. So I’m sorry the site doesn’t quite look right at the moment, but I’ll have it sorted shortly. Still, at least the photos now look nice and big!