PPL Lesson 8 – Weather stalls lesson
Exercise 10 A & B – Slow flying and stalls
Well slow flying and stall’s is what is supposed to be happening today. I have been keeping a close eye on the weather this week. We have been experiencing some very good weather recently, even Wimbledon has gone to plan without delays. We have stormy weather predicted for the weekend, so the forecast for this lesson was rain and temps in the mid 20’s. That translates to humid conditions and a low cloud base, not good enough for stall practice. We will require at least 3000 feet.
I mention to my FI that I think he will be doing the landing today!
will we – won’t we ?
Woke up this morning to rain, Damn! Lets hope it blows over or maybe the weather is much better over at the airfield. The airfield is 28 miles away and I often see a lot of weather variations when driving over.
I leave home and its started raining again, but it soon clears and the remaining 20 miles are dry. Even the roads are dry, no rain here, things are looking up. I arrive at the airfield and the clouds look low, but we have some patches of blue trying to break through. I speak with my FI and he says that if I’m happy to go up and see what the conditions are, then we go. Lets go for it I reply, we may find some higher patches and if not, it’s all flying and I can work on previous lessons.
Pre Flight
With the external pre-flight checks done, we need to push the aircraft out of its usual parking spot. This monring it’s being hemmed in a little by an overnight stop over, a De Havilland Vampire. The De Havilland Vampire was the second jet fighter (after the Gloster Meteor), produced after the second world war. The last thing I want to do is clip wings with that whilst taxiing out. So, internal pre-flight checks done, and a radio transmission to the tower for clearance. I’m becoming much more confident on the radio now, and clearance is given to taxi. Lets see how my rudder action is today, are my brain and feet going to co-ordinate today? Well I can definitely say it’s getting better, as are my power setting and steering.
Take off
Power checks done and it’s time for take off and I line up much better than previous attempts. But I still struggle applying brakes without letting the aircraft turn left a little.
So off we go, little bit of left aileron into wind (12-15 knots gusting 20 crosswind today) and a good boot of right rudder as the power is increased. I’m still tentative on the power, I keep stopping or staging the power. I need to focus on applying full power in a nice steady 1-2-3 count. Then it is one thing less for me to concentrate on doing whilst I keep the aircraft straight. I keeep an eye on the speed and start to pull back for a nice clean lift…
That is something that did not happen today! All was going okay up until close to rotation, where I started to turn the aileron right and not pull back on the column. This put weight on the front wheel and that’s not a good scenario. It could easily and quickly turn into a wheelbarrow effect and the propeller striking the concrete runway. A quick rectification from my FI got it back together and we were up and climbing, soon hitting the crosswinds!
The weather wins
The wind on the ground can be very very different at heights over 100 feet and reducing as you reach 4000. The aircraft is all over the place, I mention to my FI that I think he will be doing the landing today! We start to climb out and see what height we can get to before we start to clip the underside of the cloud, we reach 1700 feet. That’s as far as we can go and we look around for any pockets of blue sky, we see nothing but heavy rain showers all around. Stalls and slow flying are definitely out today. So my FI takes me through some more 30 degree turns and we decide to head back to the airfield. Once again my FI gets me used to turning onto and flying the circuit for landing. This is all good practice for when I reach that stage of training where I will spend quite some time just doing circuits.
Circuits
I will quickly touch on circuits, there will be much more on these to come as I start doing them as lessons. The ‘circuit’ is basically the procedure you have to fly when approaching the airfield and lining up for landing. You don’t just turn up and point your aircraft at the runway, there is a set procedure in place that must be followed. Very basically, its based alongside the runway in use. You approach the airfield over 1000 feet, you then descend on what is called ‘deadside’. For this example lets say the right of the runway, you then make a series of left turns until you are now flying alongside the runway but now going 180 degrees in the opposite direction. This is the ‘downwind’ leg and is where you do your pre-landing checks. There are more, but such as under carriage – engine temps and pressures – carb heat. Next you make a 90 degree left turn, onto what is known as the ‘base leg’. This is where you start to apply your two stages of flap and set yourself up into a decent. keeping an eye on the end of the runway, which should be approaching your 10 O’clock position, is when you then make a left turn onto ‘final’. You are now pointing down the runway, got that? it’s okay, most don’t at first.
Watch an learn
Anyway, back to the lesson and descending deadside to 1000 feet, then joining the circuit. This is all good stuff, descending turns, 30 degree turns and application of flaps and checks. All subjects of previous lessons and you begin to realise that they are all part of setting up to land. Once we reach base leg, my FI request control so he can get a feel of how the weather is on the aircraft before turning ‘final’. This could be a very interesting landing with gusts of 20 knots 45 degrees to our left. I keep a keen eye on the rudder pedals this time around, as I want to see how much input is being used. This should help me in the future as to whether I need to put in a good boot full or lots of small adjustments. I am surprised to see that not a lot of movement was required, just lots of small adjustments.
Down on the ground and time for some more much needed rudder and taxiing practice. As we track back down the runway to the apron, I am feeling a lot more confident on the rudder today. I think the decision I made right at the start of the lesson has paid off! I paid a lot of attention to my seating position today and I decided to move the seat further forward. This would be the third time I have adjusted my seating position since I started my lessons. Moving your seat forward does not just make the peddles easier to reach and press. It also completely changes your frontal view over the engine, it is pretty much the same as sitting on a booster cushion to increase your height.
Conclusion
So, not a lot of flying today, but what little there was, was good. I now have more taxi and rudder practice, take off and circuit work, plus I managed to practice my 30 degree turns again. It may have only been 35 minutes (probably 20-25 in the air), but it was a good 35 minutes in many ways. Two weeks before my next lesson, lets hope it goes as well as today.
This Lesson
12-07-15 : PA28-161 : G-BOZI : PUT : Conington to Conington : 10:55 : 11:30 : 0.35
Total time : 7 hours 10 mins