|
8 - More stalls and PFLs
20th May
Did Stalls part 2 today, followed by PFLs (Practice Forced landings). After yesterday I pretty much knew what to expect so wasn't worried about it. The weather was not quite so good, but there were still sufficient breaks in the cloud to reach 4000 feet. Sometimes we had to use the HASELL / HELL checks to get out of the way of an oncoming cloud!
The Katana definitely has a more pronounced break with flaps & power. Mostly though we were trying to detect the incipient stall and recover before the plane stalled -- without losing any height! We did that with one stage of flaps, then two stages of flaps, and also while turning. I had to fight hard the urge to straighten up too soon when stalling in the turn -- got told off for that. Twice Still very poor at applying rudder in the climb and keeping the plane balanced - I seem to have a bit of a mental block there.
PFLs were great though - I thoroughly enjoyed them and could have kept doing them all day! Had a bit of trouble picking suitable fields to "land" in at first (power cables and fences can be tricky bu66ers to spot sometimes!), and then I kept losing the field I'd chosen and had to pick an alternate (no worse than discovering your first choice to be unsuitable though)
Getting back to Enstone (I still find it hard to spot the airfield from any distance away), I flew us into the circuit for 26, with Alistair calling out instructions, "maintain 800 feet, slow to 75 kts, keep your altitude, don't go over those trees because there's a village here, take another stage of flaps... start turning over the pig farm... " I was expecting the normal "I have control", but instead got "pull the throttle right back... keep to 60 kts... now turn... bit more throttle... aim for the numbers.. close the throttle... raise the nose..." We were down! My first proper landing! Okay so Alistair talked me right through it, and followed me through on the controlls, but he assured me he didn't have to correct anything :-) So now it's.... Circuits tomorrow! (which means I can be a "proper student", whingeing about never getting out of the circuit!)
RT was better today.
|