Lesson #21 Forced Approaches

Today's lesson was forced approaches, we also reviewed some upper air work.

The day started off overcast and rainy, I checked the weather as soon as I got to the office, it looked like it was going the clear up by the time my lesson rolled around at 6 PM, and it did.

I arrived at the airport early and I was able to jump right into the preflight, then we pushed Fern over for fuel and topped her up. We hopped in and I started going over the last few items before engine start when I noticed that someone had taken my headset. It turns out the Dave had forgot them in the turbo Seneca earlier in the day, so he went back in to fetch me a headset while I finished the runup. The headset he appeared with must have been the crappiest one the school had, it did nothing to drown out the engine noise. The rest of the headsets that the school have are actually pretty decent, and they're free to use. I've decided to buy my own after to get my pilot's licence.

Takeoff was normal, I made a climbing turn to the northwest and proceeded out to our training area. Dave first wanted to review some upper air work so I levelled us off at 3,500 ft and then we did some power off stalls, no problem. Next we did some slow flight (65 mph), then some turns to a specific heading. With this quick review finished we started on the new stuff.

Dave went over the procedures that I needed to learn if the engine "fails", then he demo'd a forced approach, talking me thru everything that he was doing. Luckily PEI is full of landing spots, places like farmers fields and golf courses, so there's no problem finding suitable terrain. He quickly picked out a suitable field for us to practise with, one that was into the wind, smooth and didn't look like whatever that was growing in it would rip something important off the aircraft. It took him about a minute of describing the field in question before I was able to narrow it down. Once we decided where to land we simple did a "circuit" to get us there, he did what I'd call a textbook perfect forced approach. We climbed back up to 3,500 ft and I gave it a try myself.

I ran the same circuit but found myself a bit high on final, Dave suggested full flaps in order to increase our descent. Dave's suggestion worked and we would have easily made the field without overshooting. We then climbed back up and I did another forced approach, this time using a small private landing strip beside a golf course as my target. I came in slightly high again and I added full flaps (40 degrees), we were still high so Dave took control and showed me how to do some S-turns on final to scrub off the excess altitude, this worked perfectly. This time we went much lower and he actually overflew the strip at about 40 feet. With trees to our right and the hanger to our left, it was absolutely amazing. You really get a sense of speed when your that low. We climbed back up to 700 ft, then he did a 180, pulling some Gs, and overflew the field again the other way. I was like a kid on a new carnival ride, big grin the whole time.

We climbed back up to 3,000 ft and located another private strip a few miles away. He pointed it out to me and when I finally saw it he pulled the throttle back to idle. He said that I just had another "engine failure" and that I was on my own for this one. I quickly pulled on the carb heat, set Fern up for best glide (80 mph) and ran the circuit. I made sure that I applied full power for a few seconds for every 500 ft of verticle drop, this keeps the engine warm and ensures that we have enough heat to prevent carb ice and keeps us from shock cooling the engine (which is a concern in the colder months).

I came in slightly high again and applied full flaps, Dave said that I was still too high and that I was going to land too long. I said that I knew that and asked him to be patient. I then made a couple of shallow S-turns on final and managed to scrub off the excess altitude quite nicely. We would have landed right on the spot I was shooting for. Dave asked for control at about 100 ft and did a touch and go.

Dave seemed happy with how things were going, being slightly high on final is much much better than being slightly low. If I had an engine failure I'd be able to make the field. The key is to run the circuit and hit my numbers at each leg. If I find myself low I can make my turns to base and final early to catch back up. If I'm high, I can extend each leg a bit and use things like forward slips, full flaps and even S-turns to ensure that I scrub off the excess altitude in order to make the field.

We then decided to head back to the airport, a few minutes later we joined runway 03 on the base leg. A small twin commercial was coming in at the same time from the east, he landed on runway 28 at nearly the same time as we touched down on 03. I topped off the lesson with a picture perfect landing.

Some key points from today's lesson: Pull carb heat on then trim for best glide (80 mph), 3,000 ft AGL gives me about 6 minutes. Don't forget to warm engine every 500 ft. Find a suitable field into the wind, then run the circuit hitting the numbers. It's OK to be a little high on final, things like a forward slip, full flaps and S-turns are tools that can be used to scrub off excess altitude.
The actual landing is done with full flaps. Never ever scrub off altitude unless I'm 100 percent sure that I can make the field, once it's gone... it's gone for good.

My next lesson will be more review of upper air work, then some precautionary landings with simulated radio calls. In another lesson or two I should be able to leave the airport to practise on my own!