im 3 hours into PPL, what advice and useful info could you give me on flying the circuit, particularly base and final (not forgetting flare as everytime i have landed i have bounced)
3 things:
watch your speed
watch your speed
watch your speed
and always
trim the plane for the desired speed; don't just hold it there with some combination of power and pulling/pushing the yoke. A correctly trimmed plane should fly at the desired speed with your hands
off the yoke.
And find out what speeds you should be flying at on downwind, base, and final.
Basically, unless you do something really daft (like flying into a hill), the only way you will ever crash if you allow the speed to decay into the stall region. All the time you have
speed, you have a controllable aircraft.
I was never taught any of the above in my PPL, but think it's a useful summary.
I hope you aren't flying a Tomahawk though. My 20 hours in those is remembered for it having no working trim.