Circuits

So a sunny Saturday evening and what more could you want then to fly once again.... Today instructor mike decided he wanted to take me into the circuit to practise takeoffs and landings.

Now take-off is pretty simple full power, keep the thing on the centre line using the rudder pedals and then slowly pull back about 60 knots to start climbing into the air, climbing at about 80 knots and a climb rate of 600 to 700 feet per min. Next for the circuit we turned left perpendicular to the end of the runway and up to 1000ft for the circuit height. After a specified distance we then turned left again to enter the downwind section running perpendicular to the runway and again once we reach a specified distance past the end of the runway we turn 90 degrees left again onto the base leg. Here we slow the a/c and extend the flaps before turning left again onto finals.

Heres the really tricky part - on finals we aim for the runway and balance the speed, pitch, trim and rate of descent to arrive at the threshold at the rite speed and height, then rotating the nose up to fly level and about a foot above the runway before reducing power raising the nose slightly and dropping onto the tarmac main wheels first.....Sounds easy doesn't it.

First one went quite well apart from dropping on all wheels at the same time....Second was pretty good by my standards but then life went down hill and the next 2 were a bit rubbish. I think it was all down to the number of things having to concentrate on at the same time and also the way in which the pitch and throttle have to be used to change the approach.

So ok it didn't go fantastically but on the other hand, I made two decent landings all by myself after only flying an a/c for just 4 hours. This is apparently really quick by most standards - so I must be doing ok!! The other thing is that now that i've done it come away and thought about it all for a night, that now hopefully next time i'll be able to nail every single one of them :-)