Blog – Solo PPL Exercises 06/10/2024

My plan was to practice the following:

Whilst the flight was rather bumpy, it made me concentrate harder so good training.

After a good climb out from runway 24, I turned and climbed towards the training area.

At 3000ft, I levelled off and went thru my HASELL checks ( Height, Airframe, Security, Engine, Location, Lookout)

Once I had completed my clearing turns, I commenced my first steep turn, keeping the angle at 45 deg, adding power after 30 deg, and checking my nose was correct to stay at height. I really put myself thru the ringer by ending one turn and immediately rolling into the opposite turn. Quite hard but awesome fun to do.

Once I had completed several of these I practiced a few stalls, including standard and powered on.

Once this was completed I practiced slow flight (flaps at 20 deg and 60kts)

So far so good!. I then cleaned up the aircraft, did another set of clearing turns and whipped into some more medium and steep turns. Can you tell I was have fun?

The weather today was quite blustery so I set course for Bennetts Hill where I hoped the air was a bit nicer. My hunch was correct.

In this area I continued to practice both medium and steep turns, using the sight picture outside and reenforcing my height with the instruments. I was keeping within about 20ft and 5deg so I was super happy.

I also ran thru in a couple of forced landings just to mix it up a bit.

All too soon it was time to return to Hood and do an overhead join. As I was coming in from the North East, I flew at 1900 until in was in the non-traffic side of the field. I then descended to circuit height, crossed the 06 threshold and joined downwind for 24 grass.

I set up for an almost perfect crosswind landing at 60kts. However a wind gust got me about 10ft off the ground and dumped me onto the grass. Not the way I wanted to finish off but I was just too slow to apply power when needed to ease the drop.

This solo session in the training area was fantastic. I’m so happy that I have hit this milestone and can enjoy going further afield.

Until next time…..

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Blog – Solo PPL Exercises 06/10/2024