Have you tried looking at a few cockpit videos of people landing a Cessna 150, 152 or 172? It might help if you ask your instructor to fly a couple of touch and goes with you taking a video through the windscreen from start of base leg to climb out after the touch down. If you can get audio as well he or she could describe what is going on e.g. “I’ve increase engine revs by 200 to reduce rate of decent, holding nose pointing just right of runway into cross wind . . .etc” This may help you get the picture out the windscreen and the actions needed to keep it looking right.
While it will be tough on your self esteem you could ask the instructor to video you making a couple of landings as well for replay in the lesson debriefing and so you can get a better idea of what you are actually doing. In the high workload situation of trying to learn to land it can be difficult to take in everything that’s going on.
I saw a documentary recently where the Red Arrows were using this technique of video analysis of performance as part of their training for new pilots learning display routines. In the documentary it looked to be very effective but harsh for the pilots concerned since their every minor mistake was being chewed over and widely exposed to everyone involved in the display team.
Most of all relax and enjoy flying. You are not in a race for who can go solo in the shortest time and you have one hell of a way to go yet before you will beat the longest time. The key is to solo when you are ready for it, this will come with practice and training.
Last edited by Saab Dastard; 24th August 2009 at 10:19.