Sunday Morning

A bright and early start for me on Sunday morning. Tony had a spare slot at 9am which he called to offer so I jumped at the chance. I had a pretty good night's sleep unlike Friday and was feeling more on the ball. Once again we're in Tango-Echo - Islam picked up Alpha-November for her service while I was alpha checking. Hopefully she'll be back for next Friday.

This morning was a visually impressive day to fly. Black clouds with showers dotted around the landscape along with excellent visibility (London was clear on the horizon) meant a great morning to be up there. There was a 10-12kt wind blowing straight down the runway for the most part and the temperature was around 15ºC. All of which meant Tango-Echo was climbing very well, especially compared to Friday.

After two lessons in Tango-Echo I'm much more used to her ways. A 70kt descent matches 80mph on the air speed indicator and the left hand tank fuel gauge doesn't work.

The lesson itself felt pretty good. I feel very much in charge for 90% of the circuit with everything up to turning finals pretty smooth. I'm still having a few little problems keeping the speed up and judging the approach. Tony advised checking out some cockpit POV landings on YouTube. Judging the flare was a bit bad too - again probably one good landing. Tony was full of praise for my pre-landing checks and most of the handling and airmanship. I'm handling most of the radio work now which I'm pleased with and I'm also able to stumble through the pre-flight briefing. One of the YouTube videos I found was an airline pre-flight brief and I get a better idea of how this fits in.

This week's acronym is ATPL - the checks just before calling the tower at the runway holding point.

A - Approach (clear)
T - Transponder to ALT
P - Pitot heat (not always required)
L - Lights (recognition strobe)

I feel happier and increasingly confident now. I've been reading around and checking the flight manual for landing advice. Reading the instructions? Whatever next. The Thinking Pilot's Flight Manual by Rick Durden is a great read and in one of his examples about a PA28 pilot's landing problems I couldn't help but see the same symptoms I was having. I'll re-read before my lesson next time.