Dec 4, 2008

Solo Circuits

I was back from holiday, and the weather was good, with light winds and good visibility. So my instructor told me to go off and fly some circuits...on my own!

Now, I must have flown hundreds of circuits by then. But doing them solo, now that was another matter. So off I went...check out the aircraft, make sure there's enough fuel, climb in and start up, pre-flight checks, taxi, pre-take-off checks... I 'd done it all loads of times, but doing it alone, and knowing I'm totally responsible for it all, really concentrates the mind.

Then I was off, and flying. And of course it all went well till I came to land. Well, actually my landings weren't that bad. About a third of them were quite good. Another third were a bit shaky, and the final third were so bad I had to do a go-around - ie put on the power and go round the circuit again for another shot at it.

I did this for about an hour, then came in, tired but actually very happy. My instructor was waiting for me, and it turned out he'd been up in the tower watching everything. "Do you know how to make a good landing", he asked. I sort of shrugged, and he continued: "You need a good approach. When your approach was good, the landing was good. If the approach was off, so was your landing".

He was, of course, quite right. And over the next few sessions I improved my approaches, and therefore my landings got better too.

And now...we were going to do some cross country flying...and navigation...