Flying Lesson 8-9 Getting Dizzy!

Well today was a new one! We were practicing circuits and we did quite a few of them! Seven touch and goes during the first lesson and the same during the lesson after.

A circuit around an aerodrome is exactly what it says on the tin. The pilot has to abide by the rules of the circuit and the direction that the circuit is travelling in. There is a route that the aeroplane has to take if they are doing circuits. Some aerodromes have a large circuit but luckily Denham has a small one, which was really great as it gave me the opportunity to practice taking off and landing a lot!

The first take off was nice and smooth, and as we flew low over the trees just after the runway a real sense of exhilaration went though me! Once over the M25, which is right after the runway, I banked right to run at 90degrees to the runway, my instructor pointed out a landmark which was a huge warehouse on the ground and once again I banked right around it to then run parallel with the runway. At this stage I was maintaining an altitude of 750ft.

I passed over the start of an area of lakes and as my instructor directed put in another turn to the right. I then put the engine to idle and we started to descend. After this I added two stages of flaps. I maintained the attitude of the nose of the aircraft to reduce our speed and put in a final turn to line us up with the runway. I called the tower to say we were on final and then adjusted the trims of the aircraft as necessary.

We began to descend nicely and I lined up an area on the windscreen with the numbers at the start of the runway. As we got closer, the ground sure started to whizz by faster! As soon as the numbers disappeared I levelled out and let the aircraft descend herself to the ground to ensure a smooth landing. We touched down with a bigger jolt than I’d have liked and I was quick to criticise myself but as we lifted off and I spoke to my instructor about it he said to stop criticising myself, as it was only our first circuit!

I repeated this exercise 6 more times and certainly improved a lot which pleased me tremendously. I was really chuffed to hear that I’m apparently ‘a very quick learner’.

My next lesson with Liam was almost identical to this one, however we also covered landing without any flaps and also talked through what would happen if the aircraft stalled during final approach. Not a good thing to happen!

Even after flying today I’m still itching to get up there again!

Mike