Lesson #24 Low Level Diversions (Solo)

Actually low level diversions was only one of the things I wanted to do during this solo flight.

In fact I had so many things that I wanted to practise today that I actually sat down before the flight and listed everything out on a piece of paper. I then ordered them in a way to make best possible use of my time. When I arrived at the airport I chatted with Dave before I went out to preflight Fern, we went quickly over my list and he seemed satisfied with everything.

A few minutes later I climbed out of the zone headed north, I leveled off at 3,000 ft and performed a HASEL before jumping into some power off stalls (3), next I did some power on stalls (3), during one of these I got a some wing drop but I was expecting it so I was able to bring it back up quickly with some rudder.

I checked my task list and next up was some 30 degrees of bank turns, both left and right. After that it was some steep turns at 45 degrees of bank, I had to add power during these to keep my speed up. I was able to do all my turns while keeping my altitude to within 50 feet of my starting height.

I was still at 3,000 ft I so I transisition into some slow flight for practise, I really had to watch the altimetre to make sure that I didn't loose any altitude. I still need more practise with this as I have a habit of not feeding in enough power early enough, and I sometimes loose more than 100 feet.

Next up on the list was a forced approach. I pulled the power all the way back to idle and pulled the carb heat on and trimmed for an 80 mph glide. I ran through my cause checks, mayday calls, passenger brief and restart procedures. I made my chosen field with the help of some forward slip but I forget to simulate turning everything off and opening the doors prior to touchdown. I need to practise going through everything in my head a few more times to get it all down perfect.

I climbed back up to 1,000 ft and start planning my diversion. A few minutes later I began my little 19 nauticle mile trip. This diversion went exactly as planned. My seat off the pants heading adjustment for the wind at the beginning was bang on, but I reached my destination a couple of minutes late though, still... not bad for a first attempt.

On the way back to the airport I flew over my friend house and then I followed route 2 back to the airport. At about the halfway point I used a private strip to practise a precautionary landing. My low pass was a little high at 700 ft since I didn't want to scare the livestock in the field next to the strip.

I joined the downwind for the active and proceeded to do a soft field landing with 40 degrees of flaps, this time I left a little more power on right till the end, touchdown was nice and soft. I then did another circuit and practised a short field landing which went really well too.

Another great solo flight. I got everything done that was on my list and my diversion was pretty well bang on. My turns are getting much better and the stalls are a non issue. I still want to do more work on my slow flight and I'd like to practise some more crosswind landings as well.

I accomplished all of the above with 1.4 hours on the hobbs.