May 13 - Forced Approach (Solo Practice)
What an incredible day for flying -- very light wind, right down the runway, so smooth take off from 08, and then off I flew out to the practice area. Not much traffic (I guess everyone was having dinner with their Ma!) made for a very manageable radio workload, too.
I did three force approaches: The first one I just concentrated on making the field; pulled out the power at 3000 ft. Then the next two I worked on the whole procedure. Tatiana's "4s" approach really helped (see my previous lesson), and I easily remembered what to do. In terms of making the field, the first one was a little low (I started at 2500 instead of 3000 ft this time, that may have been a contributing factor, but hey, when you have a real life engine failure, you could be at any altitude!!!) but the next one was decent.
One thing I have to work on still is making concious use of my visual cues: I know I am supposed to pick a spot and watch if it is moving up (won't make the field) or down (overshooting--drop the plane!), but I always forget, and just look at the "bigger picture". Ugh!
I felt a lot more comfortable with Nav this time -- easily found the town of Brougham, with its landmark "wobbly" intersection, and the zoo is no problem now.
On the way home, I was feeling confident, so I tried a steep turn. It was quite awful, with me climbing and descending within the same turn, and in fact almost going into a spiral dive!! So I tried another, and that one was a little better.
Once back in the circuit, I found myself with about 11 minutes to spare, so I decided to do a touch and go or two. The first one was very strange... couldn't figure out why the plane wasn't climbing!?! Then I realised I had carb heat on -- oops! So I turned that off, but the plane still wasn't climbing very well. Suddenly it hit me -- 40 DEGREES OF FLAP STILL DOWN!!! Duh! How embarassing! So I raised them in stages, and got better control of the plane. The next touch and go was considerably better, but it was already getting dark, so I had to make the third landing a full stop and get back to the hangar.
With any luck, tomorrow's weather will be decent, and I can fly one more time before taking another break (next weekend is PEI!!! Yay!)
I did three force approaches: The first one I just concentrated on making the field; pulled out the power at 3000 ft. Then the next two I worked on the whole procedure. Tatiana's "4s" approach really helped (see my previous lesson), and I easily remembered what to do. In terms of making the field, the first one was a little low (I started at 2500 instead of 3000 ft this time, that may have been a contributing factor, but hey, when you have a real life engine failure, you could be at any altitude!!!) but the next one was decent.
One thing I have to work on still is making concious use of my visual cues: I know I am supposed to pick a spot and watch if it is moving up (won't make the field) or down (overshooting--drop the plane!), but I always forget, and just look at the "bigger picture". Ugh!
I felt a lot more comfortable with Nav this time -- easily found the town of Brougham, with its landmark "wobbly" intersection, and the zoo is no problem now.
On the way home, I was feeling confident, so I tried a steep turn. It was quite awful, with me climbing and descending within the same turn, and in fact almost going into a spiral dive!! So I tried another, and that one was a little better.
Once back in the circuit, I found myself with about 11 minutes to spare, so I decided to do a touch and go or two. The first one was very strange... couldn't figure out why the plane wasn't climbing!?! Then I realised I had carb heat on -- oops! So I turned that off, but the plane still wasn't climbing very well. Suddenly it hit me -- 40 DEGREES OF FLAP STILL DOWN!!! Duh! How embarassing! So I raised them in stages, and got better control of the plane. The next touch and go was considerably better, but it was already getting dark, so I had to make the third landing a full stop and get back to the hangar.
With any luck, tomorrow's weather will be decent, and I can fly one more time before taking another break (next weekend is PEI!!! Yay!)