Slow Flight Revision

Another Friday morning off work and off for a flying lesson. I'd been practicing my circuit walk though quite a lot, however since the weather finally favoured it Tony suggested a revision in slow flight at 2-3000ft. He did a longish brief running though the theory and exercises, I was left to alpha check G-JJAN, we hopped aboard and we were off, heading north west towards Newbury.


He gave me a go at calling Farnborough radar which I messed up entirely. Still that matched the very poor captain's take-off brief.

He ran through changing altitude, heading and speed several times which was confusion to my poor brain. I seem to cope with things in a very serial fashion - height or speed or heading!

Anyway the basic theory he was trying to drum into me is:

• If we're too slow, put the nose down.
• If we're too fast, raise the nose.
• If we need to gain height add power.
• If we need to descend reduce power.
• Don't forget we lose height when turning.

The work cycle is height, heading, speed.

Regular FREDA checks - Fuel, Radio, Engines, Direction, Altitude.

And of course we haven't learned our pre-landing checks either:

• Brakes
• Undercarriage
• Mixture
• Fuel - check there's enough to perform a go around if necessary, fuel pump ON
• Flaps - select landing or descending flap
• Carb heat - apply and check for icing
• Hatches and Harness