Been lurking for a while and actually have some thing useful to contribute in this case
Have done the this (reduce flaps) few times now where i'm being taught...
And it has been VERY helpful in terms of practicing how to adjust the glide path in different conditions - where i'm learning it seems like the one constant is that the conditions are substantially different EVERY bloody time
The weekend before last, the Wx was fairly rough 10-15kt S-SE blowing, we were doing some circuits in the Sportstar - Downwind at 1000ft AGL and the instructor pulled the engine - OK no worries i think we complete the circuit normally if we play our cards right.
Established best glide, tightened up the circuit abit and turned final looking fairly good but got the flaps on abit too early considering the fairly strong headwind, at about 350ft suggested bleading the flaps off which i did SLOWLY and we cleared the trees over the fence and managed a slightly faster flapless landing without having to add power.
Weekend just gone the Wx was absolutely
terrible, rip roaring 20-25kt SE blowing, w/sock fully extended - Been looking to get in some solo time but the conditions haven't really been favorable, but the instructor said it would be "Good Practice" for me in any case (haha)!!
On the ground before even starting the A/C, the airspeed indicator needle was being pushed off the stop by the wind gusts
and i was thinking this will be fun.
In the circuit doing about 110kt D/wind we were motoring along very quickly indeed but turning final, it felt as if someone had suddenly attached a boat anchor to the tail as we were doing about 60kt IAS but the GPS was showing only barely 20kt ground speed.
If a normal approach profile is like descending down a comfortable flight of stairs, this approach was like going down a ladder forwards whilst staring down at the ground almost vertically. With only idle power on we got 2 stage of flaps (30deg), on then 3 stages (40deg) and we were coming down at about 1000fpm and Looking OK but as we got abit lower the wind intensity was reducing and the instructor suggested going back to the 2nd stage flaps and carrying abit more speed to the runway to ensure we were less vulnerable to changes in the wind, which was now coming from about 20deg to the left (X-wind) to make life even more interesting.
Despite the changes going on i did manage to hold the IAS reasonably constant the whole way down, even if the angle was crazy and so the approach felt stable which earned me a compliment from the instructor.
Fortunately the Adelaide weather forecast is looking good for this weekend so maybe i'll be able able to build some more solo time, but with those experiences under my belt perhaps i'll be slightly better prepared for what might come my way...