Blog – Handling Exercises 08/06/2024

Well what a difference a week can make!

Today I went out with a new FI to get his opinion on things. He had me do “flat turns” using just rudder and keeping wings level with opposite rudder. A really weird feeling but made you use your feet like crazy.

It was a light bulb moment and suddenly I was keeping the ball steady and was flying with beautiful coordination!

We used a “singing pneumonic” (Apologies to The Hokey Pokey) to use rudder when changing power – “You put your right foot in when the powers in, then ease it out when the powers out”. Sounds really crazy when on the ground but in the air, saying this in my head worked a treat!. In more than an hours flying, I was un-coordinated for about a minute.

We were doing slow flight, slow turns, glide approaches, all with nice co-ordinated flying. This was a revelation! Also we sorted out my cramming in the glide approach easily by putting the field in the wingti, then just turning in with the field glued to the wing tip. Any height issue could then be sorted by extending or doing S-turns.

Beautiful! We did about 5 circuits using this method and the all just worked! (Admittedly I was high and not too confident on doing S-turns at low hight but that will come). It was like night and day from last weeks abomination and I couldn’t of been more happy. Hopefully I can repeat this next flight and finally put forced landings to bed.

Happy Days!

Until next time…..

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Blog – Handling Exercises 08/06/2024