Hi All,
I'm with FNG on this one.
I did the first half of my PPL at Speke, where they have nice PAPI's on either runway for the big chaps. I have to say that they really took the work out of the approach, which was nice, seeing as I was a wee bit busy there coping with the eternal crosswind.
Work moved me to Peterborough, so I finished my PPL at an airfield in East Anglia. Nice place. Smaller than Speke. No PAPI's. Now what?
Well, during my first circuit there, how about overshooting the runway during my first approach by over 400 feet. Not a mistyping, my height judgement really was that far off. PAPI's, you see.
Next, my instructor (bless him) pointed out that my power management during the approach was a sort of death struggle between maximum flaps and oodles of power. Why was that? 'Cos to maintain an approach down a 3 degree PAPI in a C152 you've got to drag it in. This results in low, flat approaches, a bad weather circuit, if you see what I mean.
Using PAPI's during my early training probably knocked my PPL back by about 5 hours all told.
TW