Lesson Number 3, Slow Flight

The weather today was quite calm winds (10knts) with scattered cloud between 3,000 and 5,000 feet, again I arrived way too early and my dad came along to watch out of interest.

Todays lesson was practicing slow flight and climbing and descending with flaps. The briefing went well and I understood the concepts of what we going to be doing once in the air. This time it was entirely up to me to carry out the take off, this made me a little apprehensive because I am not yet confident with the rudder. The resultant take-off was pretty bad, I ended up overcorrecting on the rudder continually so we weaved down the runway from side to side, I put it down to the fact that my dad was watching. I also was not keeping an eye on the airspeed because I was correcting so much. I notice that we are now at 65knts (10knts over our rotate speed) so pull back a little further than I intended to be treated to the stall warning sound. I correct and we return to a Vy climb speed of 70knts. Phew! Ok lessons learnt here:

1. Use gentle rudder pressure and give the aircraft time to adjust to the rudder, rather than expecting instant results.


2. Watch airspeed.


3. Gentle stick movements, especially at low speed/altitude.

I noticed that the wind was a little stronger than I was used to and climbing through 1000 to 2000 the air was pretty rough, with gusts buffeting the plane. I had to keep a fair amount of right rudder to stay on course to the practice area.

We used the greenham common airstrip as a visual reference and practiced the lesson. The first circuit I did well, although when it came time to do a go-around it was a little shaky. By the way we were practicing at 3000 feet and pretending that 2000 was ground level, giving plenty of room for error (luckily!). Today I had alot more difficulty in coordinating my brain with my muscles and on each trip round I kept fighting the airspeed and the sequence (carb heat, power, attitude, trim), occasionally leaving carb heat on when trying to go around (aborted landing). Antonio kept telling me to apply the sequence but when it came to do it I was messing up.

After several goes around we returned back to blackbushe and Antonio carried out the landing after I lined up. This was a little different to the previous landings I have experienced, there was by this time a fairly strong and steady crosswind of around 15knts. Antonio expertly brought the katana down, flying into the wind. I taxied and this time found it a little easier, at least I seem to be getting better at that.

Todays lesson was for me a little dissappointing, although Antonio advised me that for my third lesson I was doing exceptionally well (I wonder if he means it!). I just was a little frustrated as I knew what I was doing wrong but couldn't seem to actually do it right the next attempt. Oh well all part of the learning process! I am hoping I can improve on Thursday for my next lesson and am looking forward to trying all this again.