Lesson #15 The Circuit VI

I'm getting worse...

Over my last few lessons I've been getting use to the circuit, and for the most part I've gotten them down pat except for the flair. Now during most of my time in the circuit I've had to deal with alot of wind, my last lesson was no exception. But even with a stiff headwind I was able to make six decent circuits all be myself, my FI never touched the yoke once during any of my flairs... I was pretty pumped up afterwards to say the least.

Fast forward to today's lesson and I think that everyone will agree that I had good cause to feel optomistic. I'm not saying solo yet... but I'm thinking that if I keep up the good work it'll be soon.

Today was a beautiful day for flying, warm and sunny, not a hint of the nasty wind.

First circuit - Takeoff and climbout was good, Fern was surprisingly sluggish - must have been the warm day. Everything went well but my final was way high, the plane just did not want to sink for me. Dave suggested that we overshoot and try again, which is what I did. I dunno, I could have done a slideslip but I didn't... coulda, shoulda, but didn't... good grief.

Next circuit - My approach was good but I flaired too much, too early and floated back up. I then added too much power and didn't keep it on long enough. Dave assisted and kept us from hitting too hard. I've got to remember to look at the end of the runway not directly in front of the plane, and I didn't really need to add power anyways since we only came up a foot or two.

Next circuit - everything went fine but I didn't keep enough back pressure on the yoke after touch down, as a result we got a awful shudder from the front wheel. Dave quickly fed back pressure in and the problem went away.

It just seemed to be one thing after another during this lesson... very frustrating to say the least. After about an hour of this I was ready to call it a day.

The only saving grace was that my last circuit was perfect and my landing was smack on, decent flair at the numbers.... with just a chirp of the tires after what seemed like 10 seconds or so of flair with the stall warning screaming the whole time.

Even with my last circuit being a good one I left the airport feeling bummed out. Dave says that I should concentrate more on the stuff that I'm doing right and not dwell so much on my mistakes. I really can't stand not doing something well and these stupid mistakes tend to eat at me... I need to relax more.

I have identified a few areas where I'm still making mistakes from time to time, and I will work on not making them anymore... sounds pretty simple, lets hope I can get my head around this concept.