Hi all,
I started learning to fly last year and truly got bitten by the flying bug! It's amazing! Unfortunately I was only able to have 8 hours of lessons until various things came up in my life in the winter which put a temporary stop to it. I've finally managed to get myself booked back in again after several months away, and am very excited but also nervous about it! As it's been several months I was wondering if someone would kindly give me a few tips to help me get back into the swing of things again quickly? My worry is that with such a long time away, I may end up back at square one
My last training exercise was circuits and I'd had a couple of lessons for this and it's proved to be the hardest part so far! I would like to go through the landing process all in my mind and have the sequence for a normal landing completely memorised and set, so I feel confident in what I'm doing. But with such a big gap I'm finding it hard to remember the whole sequence, so hoping some kind person could break it down for me??? (Oh and I'm learning in a Cessna 152 if that helps) Here's what I remember....
1) I use a left hand circuit. I go full power down the runway, take off, turn left, then turn left again to go back on myself. I travel downwind of the circuit and when approx half way down the runway I radio in, name the plane and say downwind.. e.g. "lima delta downwind" , to which I get a response acknowledging.
2) I continue down and once the start of the runway is at 8 o'clock of the wing tips, I turn left down base.
3) As I'm going down base leg I reduce power and pull back gently to keep the plane level, then trim. I think at this point it's 'carburetta on'
4) When the landing strip is again to my left, just past my shoulder I think 45 degrees, I turn left again and aim for the runway, centre line.
5) I reduce power again aiming for I think 70 knots, pull back again to keep the nose up and plane level and trim.
6) With the speed in the 'white arc' I can now put the flaps down 20 degrees. Feeling stable and steady the flaps go down a further 20 degrees.
7) At this point low down, trying to aim for centre of the runway, and pulling back gently on the control stick to keep the nose up
8) I then attempt to fly parallel with the runway, gently slowing down and getting lower, to then gently put the wheels on the runway.
How far off am I from memory?! And please be gentle!
