Guys
On Saturday I went up with 2 friends in the 172 (PPL: 10 hrs on type, 50 on Cessnas TT). It was a fantastic clear and calm day. We did a few orbits over the city, headed out to the countryside, low level 350 feet!!! Over some lakes and then back for a touch and go and eventual landing.
The touch and go initially was fine though It balloon, that’s ok, normally they are easy to correct but then it went haywire - the mistake I made (I think) was I didn’t control the rudder properly which turned into a very freaky experience – that is, the pedals going crazy – jumping up and down all by themselves left right left right and I had to bring the plane to a full stop to stop this, it was difficult to apply the brakes as the pedals were jumping up and down all by themselves! Once I got it sorted I applied full power and rolled, at 60 kts I pulled back, the nose lifted then went down again!! I had the trim so far back I could not raise the nose!! Luckily, and not very far from the end (yikes!) the plane lifted itself and we were airborne! It was very freaky indeed.
2 lessons: wash off more speed before flaring/touchdown and main positive pressure on rudder pedals when on the ground i.e. don’t let them move by themselves. I guess I had trimmed out too much aswell - cripes! Luckily my pax didn’t notice how scared I was!! The landing afterwards was uneventful - i.e. great!
Is there anything else I should have done? any other lessons I could have learned?
I love flying, you always walk away from the aircraft with something new learned.
Cheers
