PPL Lesson 7 – Turns out better
Exercise 9 – Turns
Todays targets
After an awful time in the last lesson, it was back to turns.
The turns lesson encompasses:
- Medium level turns
- Climbing turns
- Descending turns
- Gliding turns
- Ppower turns
- Descending turns with flaps
- Turning onto selected headings
And you thought turning was… well just turning ! Plenty to get to grips with today, but can I get to grips with myself and stop it turning out like the last trip out?
Pre-Flight
Pre-flight checks complete and concious of my last lesson, I get my mind set for the flight ahead. One thing I don’t think I have mentioned in previous lessons is use of the radio. I think my FI first had me call up in lesson 5, I made a bit of a hash of it and was reading off his crib sheet. Lots of trainee pilots do have problems with Radio Transmissions (RT) and I understand why. Why it is your mind goes blank as soon as you press the button to transmit. That concious part of your brain shouting “you’re going to mess this up and it’s all going to come out backwards”.
Today I have a post-it note stuck to my check list with the transmission text required. “Conington radio, Golf-Bravo Oscar Zulu India requesting radio check and airfield information, Local flight, 2 POB” and I call up and get clearance to taxi. I taxi out much more confidently than before, power check and make yet another RT call. “Golf-Zulu India ready for departure”. “Golf-Zulu India cleared for take off, runway 28,wind 250 10 knots”, replies the tower. I take her out onto the runway an line her up. I get my mind set for steering with my feet and the FI tells me to increase the power and keep her straight. I start to bring the power up and adjust for the yaw with some right rudder, I then bring in more power of which requires more rudder. I find myself concentrating too much on steering and my FI is telling me to get to full power, to which I do. As the speed increases you need less rudder so I ease off a little, my mind is concentrating so hard on these two actions that the next I hear is my FI telling me to pull back on the column. More, bit more and then we were up. This was to turn out to be my first credited take off and another ‘NEW’ in my log book. A good start to the lesson, although I didn’t know that at the time.
It’s coming together
My FI instructs me to climb to 2500 feet. I call on my lessons 4 & 5 for climbs and descents and ensure I drop the nose every 500 feet for a quick look out and then continue up. My FI once again demonstrates a level medium turn and I use reference points in the windscreen as to where the horizon should be. We have great visibility today and a good horizon line to work with. We then spend the next 15 minutes making turns to set headings selected by the FI. At the same time trying to ensure I come out of the turn at the heading requested, without using the instruments all the way through the turn. I need to look for a point of reference in the general direction I intend to turn onto and then make the turn keeping my eyesight outside the aircraft. The ‘view’ I have of the horizon and how it looks should tell me if I’m turning at 30 degrees and not gaining or loosing height. All without looking at the instruments until that point of reference comes into view, where I glance down for my heading and roll out accordingly. Piece of cake! yeah, of course it isn’t.
It gets better as the lesson goes on and we then turn our attention to climbing and descending turns. These go okay and we introduce some different amounts of flap into the descending turns also. The weather today is great for flying, the sun is out, we have a good defined horizon and best of all, there is no turbulence! This is the first flight I have done with absolutely no buffeting, the flying is as smooth as.
Bring her home
Once again my FI vectors me to the airfield circuit, whilst giving out instructions for more turn practice. We start a descending turn on the dead side, the airfield to my left as I look down on the apron. Once the disused 34 runway is at our approx 10 o’clock position, I start to make a descending left turn to 160 and 1000 feet. We now run parallel to the disused runway and level at 1000 feet. I make a left turn onto 100 degree’s and run parallel to the runway we are landing on. My FI makes a RT and announces a ‘late downwind’ call. He instructs me to make another left turn and start a descent. With the turn started, I begin to back off the power to approx. 1700 rpm, maintaining a speed of approx 85 knots. Once out of the turn, two stages of flap are requested and that brings our speed down pretty quickly. So I bring in some more power and keep the descent at 75/80 knots. By this time, I have overshot the centre line of the runway and I make a final left turn to 280 degrees, the final. I start to get the aircraft lined up with the centre of the runway and I’m feeling pretty confident at that this stage and enjoying the flight. With a little guidance from my FI, I adjust power where needed and he’s happy with hows its all going. This time I stay on the controls all the way down but with my FI making all the last second adjustments and flare just as we touch down.
Once back in the club house, my FI informs me of the credited take off and that I can now put my first ever ‘1’ in the TO column of my logbook. The column where you log how many Take off’s you have made during the flight. Once I get into the circuit training I will be making 4,5,6,7 or 8 Take off and landings per lesson.
What a way to top off a great lesson and what a contrast to the last. This time I go home a very very happy chappy indeed.
This Lesson
02-07-15 : PA28-161 : G-BOZI : PUT : Conington to Conington : 10:50 : 11:50 : 1.0
Total time : 6 hours 35 mins