After a couple of cancelled lessons, followed by a week on holiday, it had been a while since my last lesson. Too long! The weather forecast was for light cloud and plenty of wind, which isn’t exactly what you’d hope for. Luckily enough, although the weather wasn’t great, it was good enough for circuits, so I headed to the airport and had the pre-flight brief.

The standard circuit direction is left hand, meaning you’d take off, turn to the left, left again, fly parallel with the runway before turning left and left on to final approach:

The active runway today was 22, with a right-hand circuit, so we’d be doing the opposite. Right hand circuits are harder than left-hand, primarily because as the pilot (in the left hand seat) has a restricted view whilst turning right (you are up high). Surface wind was fairly strong, coming from 210degrees at 18knots, gusting higher.

Whilst talking about the wind, I was introduced to the max drift calculation. When flying with wind, unless the wind is directly behind or ahead of you, it will be blowing you off-course. Without correction, the stronger the wind blows, the more off-course you’ll be from your desired heading.  The maximum drift correction calculation enables you (unsurprisingly!) calculate the maximum angle you’ll drift, given your air speed and wind speed. To calculate:

max drift = (60 / air speed) * wind speed

For example, if we were cruising at 90kts, with a wind speed of 21:

max drift = 60/90 * 21 = 14 degrees

Maximum drift applies if the wind is blowing at 90 degrees to the plane (eg if it is blowing at you directly sideways). We know that if the wind is blowing head-on (or directly from behind), no correction is required. Therefore we need a way to calculate the correct drift correction amount (which could vary between 0 and the max drift) for when the wind is between 0 and 90 degrees to the plane.

There are various ways to calculate this, although for me I think the easiest will be using the clock rule:

15º = quarter past therefore ¼ the drift
30º = half past therefore half the drift
45º = quarter to, therefore ¾ the drift
60º or more –  apply all the drift

When on final approach, the standard approach is 3º. To roughly calculate the descent speed required for a 3º approach, we can use:

ft/min descent = 5 x ground speed in knots

So, if we are on final approach at a ground speed of 50 knots, we’d need to descend at 5 x 50 = 250 ft/min to be on a 3º glidepath.

Note that this is ground speed – not airspeed!

Another thing I learnt today is that airfield windsocks are typically calibrated to show wind speed, as well as direction. When fully extended (eg blowing 90º parallel to the ground) the speed is at or above 25 knots. You can therefore approximate the speed if it’s between 0 and 25 by looking at the angle to the ground.

For my first lesson of circuits, I’d be concentrating on flying the aircraft. My instructor would handle the radio and the checklists.

After the pre-flight briefing, we went out to the hangar and performed the usual pre-flight inspections. Everything ok, so we taxyed out and got up in the air.  It was very bumpy up there with the wind, and it was fairly hard keeping straight and level. My first circuit was pretty wonky to say the least, but it did seem to improve with each touch and go.

After 6, I was pretty exhausted so we decided to call it a day. A lot happens in a very short space of time (it’s about 5 – 7 minutes per circuit) so it can be quite stressful! I was lucky I didn’t have to worry about the radio and checklists this lesson – no doubt that will be even more difficult when I’m ready to try that.

My other instructor is off work with a bad back (ouch!) so my next few lessons have been cancelled. Weather-depending, my next lesson will be a week today and we’ll either be doing more circuits or stalling part 2.

Unfortunately, the GoPro decided to stop recording before we’d taken off, so I didn’t capture any video from this lesson. However, I did capture our flight using the GPS in my iPhone, so here are my first circuits:

I’d booked a double-lesson slot, so I just about had time for a quick drink after lesson 5 and then we went straight in to the pre-brief for lesson 6.

The first part of the lesson will be about slow flight. It’s not designed to encourage slow flight, but rather make you aware of symptoms of flight at critically low airspeeds, and being able to control the aircraft safely at a slow airspeed whilst accelerating to faster airspeed (such as when recovering from an unintentional loss of airspeed).

Before attempting the flying exercise, I had to learn (another!) acronym, which we’ll use as a checklist in the air – HASELL:

• Height – we must be sufficiently high enough to recover by at least 3000ft AGL
• Airframe – trim and flaps as required, brakes off
• Security – seat belts secure, no loose items
• Engine – temperatures and pressures, mixture rich, carb heat hot, fuel pump on
• Location – clear of airspace, built-up areas, cloud, danger areas
• Lookout – turn to check area is clear (especially below), do a 360 or two x 180 turns

After the first HASELL checks, subsequent checks can be reduced to HELL.

The intro to the stalling exercise in my learning to fly book has this great quote:

A well-known aviation writer was once asked what he considered the three most important factors in flight safety. He replied “Airspeed, airspeed and airspeed”; and he’s got a point.

The standard stall recovery is to lower the nose and apply full power. If one wing drops, do not attempt to use the ailerons to level the wings – this will make things worse. Use opposite rudder whilst keeping the control column centralised.

You don’t even need to use power to recover from a stall – pushing the nose forward is enough. However, power can be used to accelerate the recovery and reduce height loss. Power should always be a secondary measure (to lowering the nose).

I’ll be doing some more radio in this flight too.

So, pre-flight briefing complete, it’s back out to the apron and in to the plane, and another round of checks.

Startup checks complete, and it was time to make my first ever radio call to request taxi. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on RTF (radio telephony) in preparation so I was clear in my head what needed to be said:

“Gloucester Tower, Aeros 52 at Apron with Information Hotel, QNH 1020 request taxi”

I waited for a suitable gap in the radio, pressed transmit and made my transmission – saying everything correct except the QNH. In the heat of the moment, for some reason I said “Q-N-H ten-twenty”. What I should have said (and I do know this from all the revision I’ve been doing) is “Q-N-H one-zero-two-zero” but I got it wrong. Luckily they understood what I meant and the response clarified I had the correct QNH by saying “Aeros 52, Gloucester Tower, QNH one zero two zero, taxy alpha one”.  Ten twenty – it’s as if I was telling the time. What an idiot!

After taxying to near the holding point, we did our pre-take off vital actions and power checks. Everything good, so I was back on the radio saying “Aeros five two, alpha one, ready for departure”. Soon after that, we were cleared to take-off, we were on the runaway and I was pulling back on the yoke.

I forgot to switch on the GoPro until mid-flight, but from memory we did our HASEL checks, several exercises at slow speed (remembering to turn with a very small angle of bank – 10 degrees or so, we don’t want to stall!) and then moved on to the stall exercises after doing a FREDA check. 

We experienced quite a lot of turbulence around the Malverns, making for a rather bumpy and unpleasant flight until we turned away and in to some better space. This was a fairly short lesson so after the instructor was happy that I’d done everything correctly, we headed back towards the airfield and joined the circuit on right base. I turned to final, set full flaps and altered attitude to maintain 65kts, using power to control the descent. I was too low this time – four reds on the PAPI – so increased power to correct things. Height corrected, the wind was blowing (12 kts) which made for a trickier landing than any I’ve done before. I was ok down to about 50 feet then the instructor took over as I had lost a bit of airspeed – I think the wind was distracting me (or causing some effect I have not yet learnt about!?).

Back safely on the ground, we taxyed to the fuel pumps, refuelled and had a quick de-brief. The instructor was happy with my performance in the exercises but reminded me again to keep my hand on the throttle during take-off. Must really try not to make this mistake again next time.

Next lesson will be stalling part two, then we’ll be moving on to circuits!

I thought it was a little weird to be learning turning in lesson 5, as we had already been turning in previous lessons. This lesson is more of a revision lesson to cover everything that we’ve learnt so far, so it covers climbing, descending and turning – including turning whilst climbing and turning whilst descending.

I arrived a little early for my lesson, so I made a coffee (or, more accurately, Alice, the wonderful office manager) made one for me, and I had a chat with a chap called Adam who was in on work experience whilst studying for his GCSEs. He wanted to be a commercial pilot so was really keen to discover what goes on in flight training. He asked if he could sit in the back seat for my lesson, which I had no problem with – so he was happy.

This was my first lesson with a different instructor. My regular instructor up until now only works on Saturdays, and today’s lesson was mid-week. I was a bit apprehensive after getting on so well with my instructor and worried about potentially re-covering old ground but I needn’t have worried. In my learners file, my instructor had left good notes about what we had covered so far, and what he suggested should be next.

In the pre-flight briefing, I learnt that when turning straight and level, it’s normal to use 30 degrees angle of bank. It’s also ok (and expected) to use 30 degrees of bank in descending turns, except when turning on to final, which should be limited to 20 because of the slower airspeed and increase stall speed (more about that later).

Climbing turns should be limited to 15 degrees of bank to maintain airspeed.

Before starting a turn, it’s critical to have a good lookout. This involves looking across the full 180 degrees, starting from behind your shoulder on the opposite side to where you’re turning, across to end up looking at where you’ll be turning in to. If it’s all clear, start the turn.

Whilst in a climbing or descending turn, just like when climbing or descending when straight, it’s important to DABLE every 500ft.

I taxyed from the apron to the holding point, then ran through the pre-flight checklist. I missed the fuel pump check (it needs to go on) – exactly the same mistake I’d made last lesson. I must make a mental note to double-check this from now on! I also made the mistake of braking whilst power was on. Just like we don’t brake with our foot on the accelerator in a car, we should always reduce power to idle before using the brake. I’d not picked up on this in previous lessons, so I’ve noted it ready for next time.

I made the ‘ready for departure’ radio call, and we received clearance to take-off.

Then we ran through the ‘on runway’ part of the checklist, which is something the instructor had been doing for me up until now. There are four elements in this list:

• Anti-collision lights – on
• Transponder – set to ALT
• Pitot heat – as required (from what I can remember reading, pitot heat is used to prevent icing of the pitot tube, which is used to measure air speed. Only needed if it’s cold outside)
• Landing light – on

Checks done, and it’s time to take-off. We rotated at 60, climbed at 80 and then (because we were on runway 27) turned to the right for noise abatement. Up until now, I’d been turning right using the specified heading (of 280 degrees) but hadn’t been able to look down below to see what we’re avoiding. So we took this opportunity for the instructor to take control, giving me a chance to have a look down. There’s a housing estate to the left, and a village to the right. By turning this way, we avoid flying over either, and hopefully do our bit to keeping the neighbours happy. My instructor reminded me that noise abatement procedures aren’t something you legally have to follow – so if in an emergency situation we needed to head in that direction then that would be ok – but obviously normally it’s good airmanship to take obey them. Here’s a grab from the GoPro showing the housing estate on the left, and the village church on the right. Notice how we’re avoiding them both:

I also learnt that I should keep my right hand on the  throttle until we reach at least 300ft AGL. I have a tendency to put both hands on the yoke as soon as we’ve rotated, which is a bad habit I need to get out of. It’s important to keep one hand on the throttle incase it accidentally slips back (it could be loose) as a quick reaction would be necessary to re-apply full power to prevent a nasty ending.

After a couple of level turns, I did a couple of climbing and descending turns. Nothing too different from when when I’d turned in previous lessons, although I was trying to improve my lookout technique, which did seem to improve.

We’d now been up in the air around 15 minutes and so I did a  FREDA check, which first came up in lesson 2. I learnt that I’d been missing a couple of checks, specifically:

• Fuel – is the fuel pump on? should it be? (Above 1000 ft, it can normally be off. When switching it off, check that fuel pressure is maintained. If it goes down, switch it back on. Switch fuel pump on before changing tank & off after changing – checking pressure is maintained.)
• Engine – carb heat check – turn to hot for around 10 seconds, check the drop in rpm and make sure it returns to normal after switching it back to cold.

We should always do a FREDA check at the top of a climb, and every 15 minutes or so. My instructor recommended switching fuel tank every 30 minutes.

After practicing some more turns, the instructor demonstrated a stall in preparation for next lesson. A lot of people dread the word ‘stall’ and fear can strike upon hearing it. The purpose of the demonstration was to show that stalling doesn’t feel like some torturous experience and can be recovered from relatively easily. Sure enough, as we airspeed decreased and edged towards 50kts, the stall warning alarm sounded. Normally that would be the sign to prevent the stall, but for the purposes of this demonstration we continued to lose airspeed and went in to a stall. We recovered and noted that we’d lost about 200ft altitude in the stall. It didn’t feel that bad – it certainly wasn’t anything like being on the Tower of Terror at Disney!

Finally, we headed back towards the airfield and requested a standard overhead join, a first for me as up previous joins have been direct on to final approach. I’ve been reading up on circuits and rejoining the circuit and had the theory in my head, but was keen to see it in practice.

When joining the circuit with a standard overhead join, you fly towards the airfield at 1000ft above circuit level (standard circuit level, and at Gloucester, is 1000ft, so fly at 2000ft AGL) looking for the active runway. A right-hand circuit was in operation, so I had to keep the airfield on my right at all times. My instructor said something which I found really helpful – imagine the airfield is a roundabout (if you were in a car), and you need to go around it looking for your exit – the active runway. So that’s what I did, I found runway 27, flew over the ’27’ numbers and entered the dead side. Whilst on the deadside, we need to descend down to circuit height at the end of the dead side leg, ready to turn crosswind. I used 1500rpm and a fairly wide arc to turn us, flying over the ’09’ numbers at the other end of the runway at 1000ft. At 1000ft, I increased power back to the cruise setting of 2350, flying at 95kts. After flying straight for a bit, I made a 90 degree turn (level, so 30 degrees of bank) and flew downwind – parallel to the runway.

When turning in the circuit, it really helps to use outside references for turning so that we can focus on lookout and flying the plane rather than spending too much time looking at the direction indicator. Circuits can be very busy and demand total attention and concentration. I then turned (level, with 30 degrees of bank) on to base leg and as soon as the wings were level, checked we’re below Vfe (max flap speed) and selected 2 stages of flap (25 degrees), adjusting attitude for 75kts.

As you approach being 90degrees to the runway, turn on to final remembering to use a maximum 20 degrees of bank (because of flaps and the lower airspeed) then select full flap and adjust attitude for 65kts.

Another acronym: TCP checks:

• Toes – clear of the brake pedals
• Carb heat – cold
• Permission – do we have permission to land?

The landing went well – really smooth in fact – the instructor said “I didn’t even notice we touched the ground”.  Beginners luck? We’ll see. After landing, we had permission to backtrack (turn around and go back up the runway to vacate it), which the instructor did whilst I got my checklist and prepared for the after landing checks. So many checks!

Something I’ve tripped up with a couple of times now is the confusing terminology around flaps. In the closing down checklist, it says Flaps Up. In the Warrior, flaps are controlled using a lever that’s a bit like a handbrake in a car. When the lever is up, the flaps are down (eg. extended). When the lever is down and touching the floor, flaps are up. Flaps Up in the checklist sense means make sure the flaps are up and the lever is down – which makes sense when you think about why we are doing this as a post-landing check. However, for the second time I read “flaps up”, saw the lever was up and said “flaps are up”, before being corrected by my instructor. Silly mistake to make and something else to watch out for in future flights. In my day job, I spend a lot of time talking about usability (of websites) and a big part of that is about designing-away ambiguity. I get the impression that User Centred Design wasn’t a big part of the Piper Warrior design process back in 1970.

Here’s a video clip of me doing the landing, starting from the overhead join:

Next lesson (I’d booked a double lesson, so next lesson starts almost immediately) is slow flight & stalling part one.