Up until this point in my training, each maneuver was at the direct instruction of Carl, my CFI. During my fifth flight, it slowly became apparent to me this way of flying was over.A friend of mine tagged along and snapped some pictures on this flight.
I did the preflight, again as Carl walked away to tend to other things. I’m confident that my preflight is complete, and with just a couple of questions to check that I really did everything I was supposed to do, we jump in and start on the checklists.
The process of running through the checklists is much more familiar now, and as Carl chatted with our passenger, I quickly and confidently prepared the aircraft for take-off. The level of confidence, and the ability to be satisfied with myself, in that I know I’m doing the proper procedure and I know I can depend on myself to make it a safe flight is reassuring.
Not my best take-off, I over-corrected for the left-turning tenancy of the aircraft when I pulled the nosewheel off the ground. I corrected for it, and the climb was very smooth.
Out at the practice area, Carl introduced me to ground-reference maneuvers which include turns around a point, rectangular course, and s-turns. Each of these is designed to give the pilot a sense of how the wind will play with you as you maneuver around. The turn around a point involves “sticking” the wing on a point and making a equidistant 360 degree turn around it. I found this relatively easy, as the skill comes in adjusting the bank angle to compensate for increasing/decreasing ground speed.
Rectangular course is a practice maneuver for the pattern around a runway. Again, the maneuver prepares the pilot to deal with wind as he or she approaches a runway. This time using crab to keep the aircraft the same distance from the reference point rather than bank angle. Again, this maneuver was not difficult to do, and I felt relatively confident in my execution of it.
On to the s-turns. This maneuver is a back and forth S turn across a road, making sure that you complete the 180 degree turn and level the wings directly over the road. If turns around a point and rectangular course were easy, s-turns were anything but. Not that the maneuver is hard, but the skill necessary to perform it is higher, and this being my first attempt, it was far from perfect. Carl’s advice to find a point and fly it like a half a turn around that point is very helpful, but I’ll need more practice.
After this, we did some more steep turns, and some slow flight, today in turbulence for the first time. My steep turns are definitely better, but still need some work.
With what felt like 30 minutes of flying, we headed back to the airport. Carl asked if I wanted to land, and I turned him down. On base, as we approached the runway, he made no mention of putting in flaps, or turning final. I put in the first notch (10 degrees) of flaps when I should have, and continued the descent, but as I passed the point where I should have turned final, Carl stayed quiet.
“Uh oh,” he said, with a glance towards the runway. I realized at this point that the time had come when I would be making the calls, and he was along to correct any mistakes. I quickly rolled into a 30 degree turn and corrected for my over-shoot and straightened out on the runway. About 100 feet off the ground, he took over and made a smooth landing.
With a video of this landing, I’ve reviewed it and decided I’ve figured out what I’ve done wrong. With that knowledge in hand, I’m hoping to grease a landing attempt next time. We’re flying again in a week, and I can’t wait.