Originally Posted by
Flyingheels
Hi Everyone,
I am here almost in tears. Have been on the road to PPL since August 2020. Lots of stop-and-go because of lockdowns. I have about 30 hours but very inconsistent flying as I did not fly at all between November 20 and March 21 with the lockdown.
I have passed all theory and radio with ease and I fly well. I am not struggling with turns, keeping altitude, nor with navigation. However, I have not been cleared to fly solo due to landings. I am extremely frustrated as, though not perfect, I can land and for the most part keep my speeds.
I have not had one instructor consistently but, instead, my school keeps giving me a different one every time and also changing them in the last minute (happened just this morning). There has been no master plan for the practical training, no one sat with me to tell me what I should achieve by when, there is no guidance on how much I should fly. I keep trying to figure this all out on my own.
I have asked them to book me with one or two instructors only for the sake of someone keeping (and hopefully caring about) track of my progress. However, I was told that this is best and their way of teaching is to switch instructors. I think they are just milking me and do not care about my progress. I am a quick learner and normally pick things up very quickly. What to do?
Thank you in advance for any guidance or words of wisdom.
Ask your instructor to show you a landing again. I have the impression, that after very few demonstrations most students are almost always in control during landing and donīt get to see a proper landing including real-time explanation anymore. Donīt be afraid of letting the instructor do the landing on your money, itīs well spent.
We teach to approach at a shallow angle, more or less 3deg, using a bit of power. Much easier that the power-off approaches that some teachers prefer. If you have to do these (because you misjudged height, the preference of your instructor or because youīre in a glider) try to divide the final stage of the landing into two parts.. First try to perform an initial "pre-flare" (well above the ground, a couple of feet) where you just pull up the nose a degree or two to decrease your sinkrate. I find it much easier and safer to start holding off the airplane after that because you donīt have to do it in one move. One single move of the stick can be very tricky, if you donīt time it correctly youīll either hit the ground harder and possibly with the nose-wheel first or b) pull too hard because the ground is rushing at you and start ballooning.
If possible sit down in the plane on your home runway and have the instructor push down the tail from the outside to the landing attitude. Hard-wire the sight picture into your brain. Itīs only accurate on this particular runway in this particular plane, but it might help you getting across that invisible bar of soloing the airplane.