Words of wisdom appreciated

[mewsie]

Hi folks!

Firstly, this is my first post on this board so apologies for any faux pas, and I hope this question doesn't come up so often you want to slap me upside the head, but I would really appreciate some opinions.

I am about 31 hours into my PPL (15 of which have been circuits), and stuck, and struggling.

Ground school, theory, exams are all good and I've 100%-ed on all so far, but I am struggling and appear to be stuck at the circuit stage in physical flying.

My instructor is wonderful and has been flying 40+ years and has a superb sucess rate, but in recent weeks I feel that she is perhaps losing her patience with me and my lack of progress. As a result lessons are becoming tense for me, and it only takes a couple of poor landings to get me tense and on-edge, which is affecting the remainder. A few times she has mentioned that she has never had a preference for teaching highly academic students, and although I don't think it was directed at me, I can't help feeling I fit into this category.

I suppose I am looking for a sounding board of folks who may have been through something similar, or can help me decide what to do next.

First, what I consider myself to be struggling with other than the odd bits and bobs that come up in the circuit.

Finals, and the flare. I just don't seem to be 'feeling' it. Instructor is still having to take over at the last few seconds. Ballooning a lot and although I can feel it going wrong, I'm still not correcting it (or avoiding it in the first place!). Struggling to keep straight on the runway centreline on finals, and again, athough I can SEE I'm not straight, I just don't seem to be quite getting the right changes to correct it.

Yesterday for the first time I asked to make a full stop rather than another touch&go as I was starting to get upset by the situation, and the air was not a good place to be.

Afterwards I spent a good while considering whether I am perhaps just not cut out for this.

Perhaps I should consider another instructor, although I am very fond of my current one. I do plan to discuss this with her at the next session, but wanted to get some thoughts or try and get my head straight before I do so. If she's getting ratty with me because I'm being a poor student, I don't think swapping to another will help all that much.

Sorry this is a little vague, and apologies if this is the umpteenth time you have read a similar post, but I am grateful for your time and any advice.

[Pilot DAR]

Mewsie, Welcome.

Have a heart to heart chat with your instructor in a relaxed environment (not the plane!). You are both people, and can chat as mentor and charge, so as to best guide your effort. We all have plateaus in our learning, and that's okay, sometimes you just must reflect on what you have learned, while practicing to cement those skills, before moving on.

If you are having trouble mastering landings, focus on what you know you are being asked to do. Then sit for hours and watch other landings. Picture for yourself what is good and not so good about them, and what you would do for each to make it better. After 40 years of flying, I still do this at the restaurant at the flying club.

Then, when flying, remember that to plane is much more controllable than you think. You are flying, fly it to where you want to to be on approach, and keep it there - don't let it fly you!

Tell your instructor about your concerns, and ask how you can find other ways to learn what is being taught, there are other learning tools, if your instructor knows what you need. Also, consider a running patter to your instructor as you approach to land, speak everything you are thinking and doing. You and your instructor may find that something which would be helpful to you is not in your thought process, or not when it should be.

Good luck!

[Fly4Business]

Struggling at this point is normal and I guess almost everybody was there before and 31 into it is quite common for it to appear. I suspect you flew the 31 hours with one instructor? Then my word'a'wisdom is a quite easy one, you may spend too much awareness to the instructor after that time. Just try, get another one for the next 5 hours and probability is high you manage the cliff, as we all did.

[BackPacker]

At your first upcoming lesson, tell your instructor you want to fly to a different field for a cup of coffee. No rush, no lesson, no pushing, no teaching, just a pleasure flight to a field maybe some 20 minutes away. Of course you will need to do a bit of navigation, but keep it simple. Follow line features, or even the magenta line on the GPS. One full stop landing, a cup of coffee, smalltalk, and a relaxed flight home. Flying is supposed to be fun, so you need to bring that back and release some of the tension. And don't forget to enjoy the scenery.

If you have an active club that does flyouts or rallies, you can even tell your instructor you want to participate in such an event, together with him/her. As long as you have a pleasure flight, not a lesson. The instructor is just there to make it all legal.

Next lesson, try the following:
- Approach the runway but do not attempt a landing. Keep the flaps up, don't use carb heat, use a speed at least 1.5 Vs0. That equates to maybe some 50% power or 1800-2000 RPM. Fly over the runway, without touching it, in that configuration maybe 20 feet above the runway.
- Next, do the same but use your rudder to compensate for any x-wind, and aileron to maintain the centerline. Don't touch the runway, but go a little lower this time. Maybe 10 feet, or even 3 feet if you feel like it.
- Next, do the same but with the aircraft in the landing configuration. Full flaps, 1.3 Vs0, carb heat on, maybe something like 1700 RPM. But again, the objective is NOT to land, but to fly along the runway as low as you dare. (At the end of the runway, perform a go-around: Full power, carb heat off, slowly raise flaps & pitch for Vy.)
- Repeat the last item a few times until you feel comfortable flying at a very low altitude, and in the landing configuration along the runway. Properly cross-controlled to compensate for any x-wind. But again, do not touch the runway.
- Now do the same thing but as you are again established, slowly close the throttle. Keep the aircraft flying one feet above the ground in the proper configuration for as long as you can. As soon as you hear the stall warner, freeze the controls in pitch only. Do not pitch up any further, but keep on playing with roll and yaw to compensate for the crosswind. You will probably pull off your best landing ever this time.

Using this technique will use a bit more runway than necessary, but it will help you get the right sight picture. As you get more experience you can approach slower, close the throttle earlier and be at or near your touchdown speed when you flare. But you won't be overcontrolling the flare anymore.

[India Four Two]

mewsie,

Welcome to PPRuNe. Lots of good advice above.

You mention that you are ballooning a lot. Is it possible you are moving the yoke too quickly or possibly jerking it? My advice is to ask your instructor to tell you when to start the flare and then start easing the yoke back until, ideally, you have the yoke all the way back just as the main wheels touch the ground. Try to mentally note the sight-picture when your instructor tells you to flare.

You don't say what aircraft you are flying, but if the seat height is adjustable, make sure you have set it as high as is comfortable, so that you can see more of the runway.

If you touch down earlier, then don't worry about that, just keep easing the stick back, to keep the nosewheel off the ground for as long as possible. Do not jerk the aircraft back into the air, if you touchdown earlier then planned.

Soemthing that you could try, if you haven't done it already, is to get your instructor to do a landing, talking to you as she does it and have you follow-through on the controls, so that you can get a feel for the rate and degree of control movement.

Landing is one of those things that everyone finds difficult to some degree, when they are learning. One day, it will suddenly 'click' and you will wonder why you found it so difficult. Eventually, you will find that flying the aircraft is 'automatic', and you can concentrate on other traffic, the weather, navigation or just enjoying the view.

There is a lot of good advice in other threads on Private Flying. As a start, try a search using the keywords 'landing' and 'advice'.

PS A small correction, meant in the friendliest possible way - it's 'final', not 'finals'. ;)

[Piltdown Man]

I'll not take anything away from the others. Their advice is good. But can I ask a question? Are you looking in or out? I'm going to guess you are trying for 'to the number' perfection. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but that is achieved through experience. Instead aim for TLAR. Set a sensible power setting, fly the track and monitor your airspeed. As you get closer to the ground, LOOK OUTSIDE. The airspeed will be OK, the rate of descent should be OK and your speed should be alright. Then name sure you look down to the far end of the runway and let your peripheral vision do the work.

Happy landings.

PM

[Johnm]

There's a very good book called "making perfect landings in small airplanes" Google it and buy it.

If you are of an academic turn of mind it will probably help to understand that landing is multiphase activity.

Get established on final at the right speed and with the numbers about a third of the way up the windscreen. Use aileron and Rudder to keep that picture constant

As you get over the runway threshold stop looking at the numbers and look at the far end of the runway, pull gently back on the yoke to get the picture level in the window, close the throttle and then continue to pull very slowly back on the yoke as the aircraft sinks and when you touch down you should have pulled all the way back.

As you roll out keep straight with rudder and gently release the yoke until the nose wheel settles and then steer as desired.

Have that multistage process in your head and get the picture at each stage clear from practice

Good luck it

[MrAverage]

Are you training at Oxford? If so you're having to learn with a xwind more often than not which is bound to make things more difficult. Ask to be taken somewhere quieter and into wind.


Whichever airfield it is, talk to your instructor about the problem and or the CFI.

[Heliplane]

Try a different instructor for a few flights - or even a couple of different instructors. That doesn't mean that you won't still fly with your current instructor but the change of personality, atmosphere and teaching style may help to make things click. There's no disloyalty to your current instructor in doing so and, if anything, she should encourage it.

I actually think all students should fly with different instructors during their training as a matter of course.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

I think this thread has covered all the usual answers to this common problem in record time :-)


- This happens to many people
- Do a couple of cross-countries, leave the circuit for a while
- See if a different instructor can use different words that are helpful


and various hints on how to land.

[fujii]

These questions come up a number of times each year. You're not the first and you won't be the last. Everyone progresses at his/her own pace. You'll get get there. As for "finals and flare," try limiting yourself to one final per flare.

[Maoraigh1]

After soloing in 3 hours, (previous gliding experience), my landings deteriorated. My instructor chopped the lesson, saying he could do nothing, and passed me to a more experienced instructor, who identified my problem, and gave me instructions to fix it. I was back with the original Instructor that afternoon.
What you need is an instructor who can figure out your problem, and give you instructions to fix it.
(30 hour PPL course on DH82 Jackeroo variant at Thruxton in 1964)

[rans6andrew]

I went through a patch of turning a perfect final into a poor touchdown when converting from rotary to fw tricycle uc. The major problem was difficulty judging the height once the ground detail came into focus. The helicopter taxi height (seat to ground) was higher than my fixed wing flying machine but it was lower when actually parked on terra firma. In the fixed wing I just couldn't flair and hold off at the correct height. My instructor figured this out and as I turned onto the runway to take off he stopped me and stopped the engine. We sat looking down the runway for a few minutes and he instructed me to just take in the view, particularly how the far end looks from my eye level after touchdown. The far end is where I should be looking. When landing I should aim to keep just above this point of view until the nose is pointing at the sky and the stick is fully back. After all of the lessons I had done this was the first time I had actually seen what I the site picture should look like. After that it just started to happen, l relaxed, it got better, easy peasy.

[Jetblu]

mewsie

All good advice here, which I'm sure you take away and learn from.

We've all been there, including myself. One day, I had a change of instructor whilst on circuit work. The same 'ballooning' happened. I went around. Immediately the new instructor [RAF] questioned why I hadn't arrested the balloon with easing the yoke slightly forward. I answered his question by saying that I had never been taught. Upon going around in the circuit to the next flair and partial balloon, from that moment on, the technique was mastered.

Hope it helps, and remember, not all landings should be with the yoke back to the stops.

[Gentoo]

mewsie

I am also a PPL student and I was slow to get to grips with the circuit side of things. It took me longer than I thought to get to solo stage and even now it is an area that needs work.

Until you get to the stage where the majority of your approaches are 'good' you don't get a sense of whether the approach you are on 'looks wrong'.

The good news is that over time you will get better, then it should click into place. Also, because you are getting better at the different stages of the circuit, you will start to be a bit more 'ahead of the game' and not having one thing after another to deal with.

Basically I believe that anyone can get there with practice. However as you are finding, for some people it takes longer (and hence costs more).

The thing to remember is that you chose to learn how to fly so that you could fly planes, and you are still flying a plane, you are just having to have an instructor there for a bit longer than the 'average' (whatever that is).

If you feel you want more from your hobby than circuits then ask to do some navigation exercises once in a while.

[Lou Scannon]

Yes, it's challenging...but have you noticed how everyone else on this thread has had a similar problem in the past and they have eventually managed it?

I would suggest that you ask for a different instructor for a while. Not only will you unwind a touch but he or she may pick up on what you need to get the landings sorted.

[n5296s]

My 2c...

Landing is hard. I had a lot of trouble making good landings when I did my tailwheel conversion. I switched to a different (much better) instructor and in three lessons I had nailed it and was checked out to solo the Citabria. Even if there is absolutely nothing wrong with your present instructor, a different viewpoint will help.

It's impossible to make a good landing when you're tense and stressed. Unfortunately it's a very stressful thing to do... In my tailwheel conversion I got into that state, I was practically in tears of frustration before I even got in the aircraft. Changing instructors fixed that.

One exercise you should definitely try to do: not landing. Descend to within a foot or two of the runway then with just a little power, hold that altitude for the length of the runway (well, not if you have a 12000 foot runway). Obviously your instructor needs to know what you are doing and probably to show you.

It is very helpful to have the instructor demonstrate something while you follow on the controls. This is very different from yelling "your aircraft" when three feet off the runway.

Hope some of this large collection of advice helps...

[mewsie]

Wow - this response has been incredible, it means a lot, thank you all.

Just knowing that I am not alone helps (somehow). Getting an answer to the question 'how am I doing, really?' is like getting blood out of a stone with my instructor, and it is reassuring hearing that taking some time is common.

Fantastic suggestions from you all. The concept of trying some not-landings is excellent and I can really see how this would help me a great deal. I love this and will suggest it!

I think getting a cross country in to another environment (with coffee and cake) is a good start. I do feel as though tapping back in to my reasons for doing this will help greatly, and will remove us from the high-pressure of my normal busy airfield. (@MrAverage, I am learning at Staverton/Gloucestershire)

As far as getting some lessons in with an alternative instructor, I agree. I think a fresh set of eyes will help, and the perfect timing is coming up in June when my usual instructor is away on holiday. I will use this as an opportunity to ask for a session with another instructor I have in mind.

Feeling a lot more positive about my future as a pilot now, and less like bashing my head against a wall. Glad to have found this forum - thanks for the warm welcome.

@Johnm - thank you for the book recommendation, thanks to Amazon it arrived this morning, so I'll be sticking my head into this later.

@India Four Two re: "finals" thank you for pointing this out! Not sure where I picked that up from, but glad to correct it!

[Martin_123]

I fully agree with all the advice here, just wanted to add a bit of my own experience:

what really helped me to progress through circuits rather quickly is that the school have a full motion sim. This way instructor can pause the sim any time he sees you making a mistake and talk it through. Seeing how great it was, I went on and ordered a Saitek yoke, pedals, trim wheel and the TPM box from amazon, got it working with my home PC, spent another bit on FSX flight simulator and few decent addon aircraft.. as a result for about 300 euros I had a nice sim setup at home where I could practice circuits every night after work. My biggest issue was over-controlling the elevator, often completely forgetting about throttle control, but having this setup at home really helped me to get back on track. I solo'ed rather late, but after these sim sessions I was able to finish my PPL in near minimum hours

[mewsie]

What a good idea - I've been searching around for the various components, the rudder pedals are hard to come by! (and pricey, you must have got a bargain!)

Reckon this is worth a try. Did you get the Cessna components, by the way? Or their more generic ones?

[Martin_123]

What a good idea - I've been searching around for the various components, the rudder pedals are hard to come by! (and pricey, you must have got a bargain!)

Reckon this is worth a try. Did you get the Cessna components, by the way? Or their more generic ones?
Yes, I have the cessna yoke and pedals. Looking back at amazon reciepts - no I did pay more than that - pedals were 114, yoke another 100 ish, + 100 for the TPM + trim was 37. Now the yoke it self was a bit of a let down initially because there was some resistance near the neutral position which was very annoying at start, but it wore off, it's gone now. Another little tool I couldn't go without is the FSUIPC. I need it to calibrate the yoke sensitivity make it work like a real thing. Without calibration it is too sensitive for small GA planes.. Shop around anyway, maybe there's something better than saitek that comes fully ready out of the box. Getting the TPM module to work was an incredible pain too, but once you get it running.. well worth it

[barit1]

I have not read the whole thread - but a tactic my father used 75 years ago (and which I've borrowed) is to put circuits and landings to the side for a while, instead go out to the practice area and do some slow flight practice. Gentle handling skills down in the 1.1 to 1.3 Vso range; No rush, make speed changes slowly. Linger at 1.3 Vso for a good 5 minutes at a time, gentle turns, get really comfortable in this regime.

Then come back into the circuit and see if you can apply these skills in the approach & landing phase. All the advice in earlier posts is still good, but now you have a broader skill set. :)

[Heston]

You asked for words of wisdom? FFS dont spend your money on sim gear - spend it on flying lessons!

[Fly4Business]

Money for sim and equipment ??? ??? ???
Do you have an inflatable girlfriend also?

Simple comment - don't do that!
Next you go pay2fly and eat children.

Ok, finally left "words'o'wisdom" ...

[Martin_123]

Heston, Fly4Business, do you care to elaborate on your comments? I was only sharing my own experience in regard to what helped me. If you're thinking my experience is somehow invalid, the very least you could do is to explain why.

[horizon flyer]

Eye line height can make a big difference . May be better if the seat can be raised so your head hits the roof then moved down a little. Also are you learning on grass or tarmac, with the later there are runway edge cues in you peripheral vision, on grass it is harder. Those that learn on tarmac nearly always bounce on the first grass landing with out the cues. Another trick is get your instructor to fly down the runway in ground effect several times, then you do the same a couple of times can help. Another action I don't agree with is closing the throttle coming over the hedge adds extra work load , bad habit to form if flying higher wing loaded machines they will sink dangerously not good. Fly to the flare close once you have. Can give your instructor a bit of shock, but you will have more control but don't leave it late. One last thing in any training it is normal to have these flat spots, some time it is best to stop have a short break then when you come back it just works. So have fun take heart it will just click one day and landings feel like they last for ever. Remember if you can drive a car down a motorway at 70 with your right ear a foot from the barrier you can land an aircraft.

[Johnm]

@mewsie I see you are learning at Glos it would be interesting to know who with as I'm based there!

[n5296s]

I wouldn't put it quite as brutally as Fly4Business did, but I've never found PC type sims to be of the slightest help for anything. Actually I've never successfully landed an aircraft with one. It's a totally different skill from flying the real thing. Different story if you can use a proper sim with wrap around screens and simulated motion.

One thing I meant to say earlier is, don't do touch and goes. I don't like doing them now, with 1700 hours under my belt. They put way too much stress into the situation, since you've barely landed and now you have to reconfigure the aircraft and switch mental gears to do something quite different. If you have enough runway, do stop and goes. If not, stop and taxi back. Yes, it'll add a bit to your cost, but as you said you're not really getting value for your money at the moment anyway.

[mewsie]

@fly4business - haha! No inflatable girlfriends, regular boring standard female here, although do occasionally eat small children: decent source of protein. The way I'm thinking is, money-wise, if sims and kit save me even 2 lessons, they've paid for themselves. Instructor has been nagging me to fly circuits in my head in evenings - is flying a sim one step more useful than that do you think? The steps of the circuit are not really the problem for me. I know what I am supposed to do at each stage, but my problem is with feeling the aircraft, flying the circuit in my head just seems like listing things, without the feel.

@horizon flyer - funnily enough this was a bit of a challenge we had a month or so ago. I had the seat positioned high as I have proportionately short legs and long torso and there was a parallax issue with the ASI. Instructor was yelping at me to watch my speed, which I was seeing as (for example) 65kts, yet from her position was below 60. So we dropped my seat back down and mucked about with cushions for a while but it's still something that comes up! I'm learning on tarmac. I hope with all this advice that I can relax and start having fun with it again...

@barit1 - good idea, and means taking it out of the pressure of the busy circuit too.

@n5296s - a good point actually, especially if the landing hasn't been quite centre, it doesn't take much during takeoff to end up in a less-than-desirable position, and a stressful landing followed immediately by a stressful takeoff just compounds the situation. The airfield is very busy and has tightened up on the rules around booking circuits, so I am not sure how easy it will be to fit this in, but I will suggest it.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

I've never found PC type sims to be of the slightest help for anything.
I'm one of those who likes RANT for the procedural and SA aspects of instrument flying.
One thing I meant to say earlier is, don't do touch and goes. I don't like doing them now, with 1700 hours under my belt. They put way too much stress into the situation, since you've barely landed and now you have to reconfigure the aircraft and switch mental gears to do something quite different.
I was doing touch-and-goes on water last week - a new one on me, didn't know you could do that. It takes three hands working different controls at the same time, so the instructor did the flaps.


(Neither of which is likely to be of much immediate interest to the OP.)

[Fly4Business]

I do not say sims are useless for everything, they just don't help building flying skills. A sim does provide a nice, easy and cheap way to get acquainted with how to operate flight accompanying electronic equipment and procedures, some of which even whole planes are flown off (my daily workplace as well), and train for operators skills. It is a very welcome affordable aid to learn i.e. IFR handling of electronics on reduced risk on the ground, which is often only little more then being a pax with buttons in front, but not more - myexperience.

[Armchairflyer]

Based on a few years of leisure experience with both PC sim and actual flying, my conclusion is that PC sim flying is potentially useful for the "headwork" part (procedures, checklist discipline, understanding principles of flight, even R/T if flying online, and navigation if you have a decent scenery pack). For the "airwork" part, its value is very limited IMHO. It is fun, immersive, and delightfully cheap, weather-independent and hassle-free (as soon as you got a running system, not immediately obvious with MSFS), but in my experience there is no appreciable aircraft handling skill transfer to real-life flying.

[Licence to Learn]

I had my hour with an instructor to sign my SEP rating off last year after some time away from flying and even though I've been flying on and off for 14 years I found myself doing exactly what you said.

Not getting the flare right, ballooning and even having the instructor grab the controls when I flared a little too much...

These things come with practice, and in a situation where you're going through your PPL where it's all new you'll find yourself trying really hard to remember everything at once, which ultimately makes you tired and frustrated really quickly.

Upon looking back on my experience, this fatigue made my concentration dwindle quite quickly and therefore because I was making sure I'd done by downwind checks, kept the right speed, put on the carb, right flap setting etc. I was finding that my lapse of concentration lead to me not actually concentrating on actually making the aircraft fly where I wanted it to. I'd find myself on finals either too high, too low, too fast etc.

This point has been mentioned before but when turning final make a mental note that you have to take control of the aircraft. Say to yourself "It's here that I normally screw up, so while I have the space firmly but safely fly the aircraft to where you want it to be".

The rest is down to flying the right speed. I don't know what type you're flying but say your approach speed is 65kts... if you've flown the aircraft in to the correct approach position, when your speed settles it will float right down to the numbers and you won't balloon because the physics that some brainy engineer figured out will mean the aircraft will gentle sit on the runway.

Then there's the cross wind landing! :8

Don't worry, you'll get it.

[Gentoo]

I found that using a simulator (a home PC with FSX and also XPlane) actually reversed some progress I had made.

The reason is that I was learning to fly the 'sim' aircraft and the simulators are not very good at the physics of the ground effect, the changes in control authority and the 'sense' you get from peripheral vision related to the flare.

In fact I have made a decision to avoid the simulator except maybe for some messing about with 'Nav' (which is a bit silly on the simulators as they tend to have the one obvious landmark standing out massively and then loads of generic trees and buildings everywhere else.

[mstram]

>but I've never found PC type sims to be of the slightest help for anything. >Actually I've never successfully landed an aircraft with one. It's a totally >different skill from flying the real thing.

Totally different? Did you have to push the yoke to climb ? Turn the yoke left to go right ?:cool:

I disagree with all the negative comments re "no flight skills transferred / achieved" with sims.

The sight picture when landing is the same in a sim as the real plane.

When I was having difficulty with my landings, the chief instructor told me to stand up and look down at the table we were sitting at.

Then he said to slowly squat down while observing the "shape" / sight picture of the table, and notice how it "flattens out.".

That's exactly what you are looking for when landing.

@mewsie, what are you thinking about when you start the flare ?

A good thought is that you are just going to fly the plane along the runway as long as possible (power off or minimal) while feeling and adjusting for the sink rate.

As for your ballooning, you should be just trying to level the plane from it's descending attitude, then as you close the throttle, matching the sink rate by increasing the yoke pressure. You don't want to climb, just descend as slowly as possible.

[cbmatheson]

It's worth remembering that training at Gloucester is hard, what with 6 different runways to get used to, different noise abatements on each, a complex airport layout, full ATC, very busy traffic, occasional long hold times, frequent requests to orbit/extend downwind/report before downwind/turn early to stay ahead of instrument traffic, and a lot of other pilots in the circuit who don't know the procedures as well as they should. You don't have to worry about all of this when you first go out as the tower will know you're a solo student, but it does mean there's a lot more to take in during training. Also, these old pprune threads with people bragging about solo-ing in 4 hours really don't help - I'm sure the people who take longer are in the majority but they don't tend to post to these threads!

I do think BackPacker's advice is brilliant - ask to go out and do something else for a bit and remind yourself why you're doing this whole flying thing. I did beat myself up a lot during the circuits stage but I wonder if I might have done better if I'd managed to relax some more. I think I may have trained at the same place as you and I flew with a few different instructors prior to going solo - they're all fantastic there and they all helped in slightly different ways. Circuits was hard for me but once you go solo the course really starts getting exciting, and having trained at Gloucester landing anywhere else will be a breeze!

[India Four Two]

it is still mandatory in EASA land to do several take offs and landings in a real aeroplane before the type rating is issued.Is that old-fashioned "base-training" in an empty aircraft or takeoffs and landings during line-flying with a training captain?

[300hrWannaB]

Mewsie
As others have said, you are not alone. Like you, I got well and truly stuck in the circuit practice phase. The instructor is following the book that says you must perfect your landing technique, then go solo, then introduce complexities of navigation, and single pilot management of the aircraft.
My issue was that I could only fly every other week, and winter weather often got in the way of that. I got rusty. It took a concerted effort to increase the frequency of flying sessions. Eventually we got there.

I think that I detect your challenge is during the flare phase? Are you flying low wing aircraft? They balloon worse than high wing, but once you crack the technique you can land anything. Slow speed handling is different to high speed, coarser, you have to adapt. Airspeed management is critical. If you approach at 75 when it's supposed to be 70 you need to lose that speed before you can ask the plane's permission to consider re-acquainting itself with Mother Earth.

In simple terms you fly at approach speed, descending towards the threshold. Level off a few feet above the ground, close the power and watch out the window. DON'T YANK THE STICK BACK. You've got to watch your attitude. As the speed decays (and it will), you try and keep it flying level, against all the odds, until she can't stay in the air any more. That's called a landing. You know it. I know it.

Meanwhile, if it's any consolation, I'll admit to not being proud of my capabilities. My second landing is usually my best, ie the one after the bounce. But today I feel good. A perfect 3-pointer.

[BackPacker]

Airspeed management is critical. If you approach at 75 when it's supposed to be 70 you need to lose that speed before you can ask the plane's permission to consider re-acquainting itself with Mother Earth.

Plus, at higher speeds your elevator is more effective. So less elevator input needed for the same pitch up moment. In other words: A pitch input which would be perfect at a proper Vref, will lead to a balloon at Vref+5.

Nail the speed at the POH recommended speed (and don't blindly add 5 knots for the instructor and another 5 for the wife and kids) and you are halfway to a good landing.

[foxmoth]

When experienced pilots do a type rating in a simulator, and I'm talking a full motion, multi million dollar simulator here, it is still mandatory in EASA land to do several take offs and landings in a real aeroplane before the type rating is issued. This is because these multi million dollar simulators are not considered an adequate model of a real landing. It's different.


Not so - we now have zero flight time training, the type rating is issued never having flown the real aircraft, the first time it is flown these days is with a training Captain in the other seat and paying passengers in the back!

[Helicopterdriverguy]

I wouldn't put it quite as brutally as Fly4Business did, but I've never found PC type sims to be of the slightest help for anything. Actually I've never successfully landed an aircraft with one. It's a totally different skill from flying the real thing. Different story if you can use a proper sim with wrap around screens and simulated motion.

One thing I meant to say earlier is, don't do touch and goes. I don't like doing them now, with 1700 hours under my belt. They put way too much stress into the situation, since you've barely landed and now you have to reconfigure the aircraft and switch mental gears to do something quite different. If you have enough runway, do stop and goes. If not, stop and taxi back. Yes, it'll add a bit to your cost, but as you said you're not really getting value for your money at the moment anyway.
Touch and goes are much more common here. I can see your view with perhaps the density altitude making things difficult occasionally, but luckily, we don't have to calculate that as much, if not at all here. My view, operating here is if you land the aircraft with less flap to allow the performance to climb away again, touch and goes are perfectly safe and at a busy airport/airfield. I would rather have someone touch and go ahead. rather than slow down, stop and vacate.