Lesson 10, Stalls and Circuits

I did not have a lesson scheduled for today however Antonio called me and asked if I wanted a lesson late in the day. I naturally could not refuse! :-). The weather today has been much better with the wind dying down and CAVOK conditions, in fact it is forecast to improve over the next few days further.

I arrived at Blackbushe and Antonio had just returned with his previous student. While I was waiting around we met and compared notes as to how we were doing, he has more hours than me currently at 25 hours but has yet to solo, I wished him luck and went out to preflight the Katana carrying out the transit checks.

The lesson plan today was changed because the conditions were good for having a second stalls lesson and we hoped to get in a couple of touch-and-goes at the end. Previously my stalls were ok although I had yet to nail the recovery in a full flap banking configuration, so I hoped I could remember the technique.

I took the aircraft out to the practice area and climbed to 3500ft AMSL and carried out the necessary 'HASSLE' checks, all was good so.. carb heat on, reduce power, full flap and banking at 30 degrees, raising the noise all the time and holding the bank angle with the rudder. Recover, carb heat cold, full power roll out with the rudder and raise nose. Sounds easy right? well it should be, but for some reason although my brain knew what to do, my body was non-compliant. I kept instinctively trying to roll out with the stick, this caused more height loss.

My second attempt was no better, Antonio then demonstrated the recovery and my third again was poor. This went on for a little while, either I was not holding the bank angle of 30 degrees with the rudder, not pulling back far enough or recovering badly. Finally I did one which was a vast improvement. It was frustrating because I KNEW what I was doing wrong on each failure yet repeated the mistake again, therefore I asked that I get another lesson on these to get it right.

We made our way back to Blackbushe avoiding alot of other traffic around and joined the circuit for a touch-and-go. The circuit today was very busy today so this added some pressure to get things right. Luckily my circuit was perfect and the approach was good and amazingly a very soft and straight landing just beyond the numbers. I took off again and went around for another go, again all was fine although had two amusing incidents on downwind, the first was the radio call. Today I was flying a different Katana 'G-BWFV' from my usual 'G-BWLS' and when making the call I kind of went "GOLF LIIFREFOXTROT VIERRA, I mean VICTOR! hahaha.. for landing on downwind", I am not sure what was worse, my radio call or the fact that Antonio was laughing and shaking his head. I received a response from Blackbushe tower of, "GOLF FOXTROT VICTOR, have you been drinking?". Anyway with both of us laughing I started turning base and Antonio said "there is a crosswind so we will do a flaps up landing" to which I replied "ya, ok" and then immediately selected one stage of flap out of habit! Antonio then went into hysterical laughter and pointed out my mistake, we laughed all the way to the landing.

All in all was a very good lesson despite how it sounds, I need to be sure for myself and Antonio that I am comfortable with stall recovery when in that configuration, and despite the frustration it highlighted my need to practice this more. Two more landings and good circuits were however encouraging along with my general flight handling. The funny moments at least leave me with a smile on my face.

Next lesson is tomorrow morning.