June 8/9 - Forced Approach
FINALLY back in a plane doing a flight lessons after, well, yes, SIX MONTHS!!! My last lesson was Christmas Eve, 2012! And with a plan in place to complete my training during the first three weeks of July before heading out to PEI for the summer, I am praying for good health and good weather, and dusting off my wings with a few refresher flights. The first of these were this weekend, June 8 & 9, with a revisit of forced approaches.
Saturday was okay; I was a bit rusty, but with so little traffic in the practice area, we were able to really focus on the exercise. I've flown ex 22 before, both in 2011, and again in 2012, so the procedures were not foreign to me. The tricky part was flying a fairly advanced exercise after not having really flown at all for several months. Needless to say, I did NOT make radio calls during the forced, but rather, focused on making the field. I succeeded in that pretty much every time, but it wasn't elegant, not even once. Mainly, I was too high. Judging where to land in advance at best glide was tricky, for sure, and I was hesitant to slip, focusing more on flap, which has its limitations. I also found it difficult to estimate best glide. I focus too much on the instruments, chasing around the airspeed needle. Typical rookie mistake.
The original plan was to practise dual on Sat., then I go solo on Sunday, but realistically, I was so rusty after 6 months of not flying, that we flew dual again together the next day. This would have been a great time to consolidate the skills picked up the day before, but for the insane traffic in the practice area that day -- some poor schmuck was on his first solo, and didn't seem at all sure where he was. Furthermore, a number of planes seemed to be flying about without making position reports of any kind, and we narrowly avoided two mid-air collisions (remember LOOK OUT, people!)
I did get more comfortable with slip; it's actually pretty fun to just drop the sucker without any flap at all! And just being back in the plane, listening to the very busy radio at CYTZ, and making a few calls, and looking at the ground from 2000-3000 ft AGL once again was good practice.
Next is a revisitation of precautionary and diversions, with a possible solo circuit session, the weekend of the 22/23, in order to prepare for my cross country west the weekend after. Once that's out of the way, it'll be all about preparing for the flight test in earnest!!!
Saturday was okay; I was a bit rusty, but with so little traffic in the practice area, we were able to really focus on the exercise. I've flown ex 22 before, both in 2011, and again in 2012, so the procedures were not foreign to me. The tricky part was flying a fairly advanced exercise after not having really flown at all for several months. Needless to say, I did NOT make radio calls during the forced, but rather, focused on making the field. I succeeded in that pretty much every time, but it wasn't elegant, not even once. Mainly, I was too high. Judging where to land in advance at best glide was tricky, for sure, and I was hesitant to slip, focusing more on flap, which has its limitations. I also found it difficult to estimate best glide. I focus too much on the instruments, chasing around the airspeed needle. Typical rookie mistake.
The original plan was to practise dual on Sat., then I go solo on Sunday, but realistically, I was so rusty after 6 months of not flying, that we flew dual again together the next day. This would have been a great time to consolidate the skills picked up the day before, but for the insane traffic in the practice area that day -- some poor schmuck was on his first solo, and didn't seem at all sure where he was. Furthermore, a number of planes seemed to be flying about without making position reports of any kind, and we narrowly avoided two mid-air collisions (remember LOOK OUT, people!)
I did get more comfortable with slip; it's actually pretty fun to just drop the sucker without any flap at all! And just being back in the plane, listening to the very busy radio at CYTZ, and making a few calls, and looking at the ground from 2000-3000 ft AGL once again was good practice.
Next is a revisitation of precautionary and diversions, with a possible solo circuit session, the weekend of the 22/23, in order to prepare for my cross country west the weekend after. Once that's out of the way, it'll be all about preparing for the flight test in earnest!!!