Blog – Handling Revision 18/09/2022
Today we practiced Normal and glide approaches in the circuit today to hone the skills. A bit of a challenging day today as there was a north-easterly around 10-15kts. A standard taxi via the runway for line up on RWY34@NZPP. Circuits is one of those “necessary evils” in that you need to fly it to get better at it.
Basically the circuit is a rectangular course flown as follows:
•Take-off to 500ft. Flaps 10deg •Left climbing turn to 1000ft No flaps
•Left level turn onto downwind staying at 1000ft and 2300rpm Flaps 10deg
•Left descending turn onto base at around 1600-1700rpm Flaps 20deg
•Left descending turn onto final at 1500rpm Flaps 30deg
•Touch and go or full stop landing at 65kts
My first standard landing was ok but I was still off centre. I continued repeating the circuit another four times. Most were ok landings but at this point in my training I am looking for on centreline and straight every time. I did about 70% of this. Always a work in progress. The last landing was very nice indeed even though the wind was gusting at about 17kts.
The next set of five were all glide approaches that simulate an engine failure.
The sequence for this manoeuvre is:
- Abeam the threshold on downwind the instructor pulls the throttle to idle simulating an engine failure
- Immediately confirm throttle to idle, pitch for 70kts, trim, and execute a 45deg turn towards runway
- Monitor height and distance against the runway
- Make a series of small turns whilst continuing to monitor height, distance, and speed
- If overshooting the 1/3 aim point decrease the turn away from the runway
- If undershooting the 1/3 aim point increase the turn towards the runway
- Once the runway is made you can stat adding flap to increase the decent rate
- Once over the threshold land as per standard operating procedures.
I have not done this exercise for a long time and it was good to revisit this. I enjoyed the challenge and managed some good approaches and landings.
Once these were completed, I fast taxied back down the runway onto “Charlie” exit, and into the Aeroclub to shutdown.
Overall, I was really happy with this flight. A good challenge and made me work hard to fly nice.
Happy days!
Aircraft: ZK-KAL (Cessna 172SP Skyhawk)
Total Time: 1.0
Landings: 9
Go-arounds: 0
Visual Approaches: 9
Until next time….
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Blog – Handling Revision 18/09/2022