Lesson 8, Circuits

Unfortunately I was not able to get in flight in between Tuesday and today as all slots were already taken and the weather yesterday was heavy rain and cloud. I went to sleep last night hoping the weather would improve by the morning as forecast and luckily the forecasters were correct, this morning the skies were looking fairly good and no rain.

Once I arrived at Blackbushe the cloud base was scattered at 1500AGL although was expected to rise to 2000AGL within an hour. This ruled out more Stalls practice, although Antonio expressed his satisfaction with my Stalls and felt it would be more productive to move on and concentrate on pattern work. I have been looking forward to learning the circuit in a real aircraft rather than a simulated one in FlightSim 2004, in FS2004 I have spent quite a bit of time practicing the circuit so I was hoping that would have prepared me quite well for starting circuits for my PPL.

After a briefing covering all the checks that need to be made at various points around the circuit we go out to take-off. During taxi, I suddenly notice that I had stopped even thinking about taxing, I was just doing it. Funny that something that was so difficult only a couple of weeks ago is now feeling second nature. My take-off was again improved on my previous lesson this time sticking directly to the centre line of the runway, to be honest, taking off used to make me feel a little nervous, now I find I am gaining confidence and all the nerves are gone.

Once airborne, I climb at 70knts and passing 300ft I start checks, brakes have pressure and parking brake is off, flaps are up, reduce prop speed to green sector, T’s & P’s all look good. I pass 500ft and carry out 15 degree bank to crosswind still climbing at 70knts levelling off at 800ft, the height of the circuit at Blackbushe. I turn to downwind and shortly begin downwind checks, brakes are off, landing gear is down (no undercarriage on katana), mixture is full rich (auto-mixture on katana), fuel pump is on, altimeter is set correctly and altitude is 800ft, I make radio call “GOLF LIMA SIERRA on downwind for touch and go” and receive request to report final, Carb heat check, T’s and P’s. Phew.. a lot to do! I then turn to base reducing throttle and attitude back to 70knts and set one stage of flap to descend gradually. Turning to final I set full flap, 60knts and crab to the runway (because of crosswind). Landing is good so around we go again.

Apologies to anyone reading all that in such fine detail, it helps me to recount the events to fix it in my mind. My first circuit went very well, I forgot to carry out the carb check on downwind and was reminded by Antonio and I was having problems this time around maintaining 70knts on climb, this was largely due to my mind being focussed on checks rather than actually flying the aircraft. We did several more ‘touch and go’s and the last one Antonio told me to do it without any comment from him, it went well although my final approach was bad, I was much to high.

The time went typically fast and it wasn’t long before we landed permanently. I felt elated because it went better than both I and Antonio expected, sure it wasn’t perfect but for first attempt I can not be to self critical. Antonio was very pleased and he said it was exceptionally good for first circuit lesson. I want to get back up there as I write this to continue the circuits. Apparently a few more of these with some practice aborted landings and practice forced landings and then I will be ready to solo, I am certainly in no hurry though!

I think I have four lessons scheduled next week so I hopefully will get increasingly comfortable with circuits.

Incidentally I had a couple of ‘OMG’ moments while flying today, the sudden realisation and awareness that I was flying an aircraft with a degree of confidence. It’s a good feeling. :-)