3rd flight, or "PPRuNe Dispatcher does it slowwwwwly.. and tries to land."
After finding out that I can get a PA-28 to go up, down and round in circles, it was time for slow flight and stalls. Again it was a lovely evening, very calm indeed.
Practicing slow flight and stalls in a PA-28-161 is (relatively) easy and isn't anything to be frightened of. Anyone who has flown a PA-28-161 knows that in that aircraft stalls are very gentle so long as the standard recovery action is correct, i.e. nose down (or more correctly, release back pressure!) and apply full power. I'd had the usual excellent briefing, I'd read up on what was going to happen so after a bit of practice I found I quite enjoyed slow flight and stalls in various configurations (landing config, flapless, in a turn etc). Preventing further wing drop by using the rudder instead of ailerons is something I managed - but I can see that stalling and airspeed awareness is something that requires practice as a stall at low level could still kill me even in a benign aircraft like the Warrior.
(BTW, John Farley has written some excellent articles on stalls and spins in the latest two issues of "Flyer".)
On the way back I asked the instructor if I could land the aircraft instead of just following through on the controls. I thought I heard him snicker as he said "of course". I had been told the speeds for the approach, but found out that being told them and really knowing them were different things.
With the instructor giving directions I flew the overhead rejoin and entered downwind. It still felt like just going around in ever-decreasing circles but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it one day..
The first attempt : lined up OK, a bit high, a bit fast, so I applied final stage of flap and I held the nose up to slow down to 80-ish (!!!), came over the fence at about 200' and very quickly decided that this was going to be a go-around.
Second attempt : lined up OK, height OK but a bit fast. I knew that it's not good practice to force an aircraft onto the ground before it's ready to land so I was flying a few feet off the grass... and still flying a few feet off the grass... and STILL flying a few feet off the grass... and the instructor said "what do you think?" "Going around!" "Good decision" Humm... how do you land a light aircraft when you've only got 1100 meters?
If the instructor hadn't taken over at that point I think we'd still be flying over the runway at five feet and warp 8...
Still, not bad for just three lessons!
[ 22 December 2001: Message edited by: PPRuNe Dispatcher ]</p>