Circuit Tips?

[John Farley]

Redbird

I do feel your understandable cry for help has not been addressed as simply as it might.

There are two tasks going on when you fly a circuit – handling the aircraft and operating the aircraft. The two things are in no way connected and each can be mastered as a separate topic before they are then combined.

Handling the aircraft is about controlling the speed, height, flight path, size and shape of pattern, use of flaps and the associate power settings, the flare and so on.

All the other stuff is about operating the aircraft - checks, dealing with aircraft systems, lookout and ATC matters.

Personally if I had a student who was struggling I would try and decide which of the two tasks was giving them the most trouble and I would then carry out that task leaving the student free to concentrate on the other. Once my student was happy with one task I would take that over and get them to do the other.

If in doubt (both tasks are giving you problems) try and master the handling first until you can ‘fly’ the circuit really well with your instructor doing all the operating stuff. Then ask him to ‘fly’ the circuit while you master the operational tasks.

This is aimed at avoiding that overloaded feeling which results in people making a mess of both tasks and therefore making little apparent progress. Especially if they are faced with long periods between lessons.

So far as your point about what to think about between lessons the above may give you some food for thought. It is perfectly possible to draw a circuit pattern out on a sheet of paper and annotate it with the information to carry out EITHER the handing OR the operation. Use a separate drawing for each topic as an aid to memorising the info.

A final tip would be to remember that at different parts of the circuit the priority you have to give to each task will vary. For example in the flare over the numbers you should not let ATC chatter distract you, but just before you turn base news of three aircraft ahead when you only thought there were two may have to be dealt with at once.

JF

[ModernDinosaur]

Hear hear, JF. As always, an excellent post.

[llanfairpg]

Its good but its already been said in previous posts

[DeeCee]

To the original poster;

I cannot believe some of the total rubbish that has been posted here in response to your first statement.

There are some helpful comments, if you can pick them out........

Listen to your Instructor and do what he tells you. Everybody struggles at first, but it comes right after a while.

Have fun.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

There are some helpful comments, if you can pick them out........

Could you please pick out the helpful comments so we can ignore the total rubbish?


Listen to your Instructor and do what he tells you.

But what if your instructor is a very poor instructor who does not understand how to fly let alone teach same?

[llanfairpg]

OK Chuck

How about

Never trust one man, one engine or one gauge.

Works on forums too!

[Chuck Ellsworth]

AAhhhh, how true....

...however responding to others opinions is why a forum remains in use...

And if you are prepared to insult a group be prepared to support your comments.

[Skysurfer1]

Hey,
What I did for circuts was simple. Not in any particular order. And

1st...Don't panic.

2nd.... Follow your checklists and I found that kept me calm and in control.

3rd....Don't rush anything. If it takes two or three times to hear the ATIS, fine!

4th....Be clear and consise on the radio. Don't ever hog the radio. When your in the circut, keep in mind where everyone is.

5th....Keep the circut in raceish trackish pattern (More like a rectangle). Its good practice, because those joining the circut know where everyone should be. As my instructor said "Keep everything square". When you take off, maintain runway heading then turn 90 degrees for base, then 90 more for downwind etc...

6th....Know what heights you should be at, at certain landmarks! On base, turing final, I should be at 1000' at the apartments. Instructors can help you with this when your first learning.

7th...LOOK OUT!!! Know exactly where everyone is.

8th...Don't wander too far away from the circut, the instructor/examiner could pull an engine failure and you (I hope) want to make the runway and/or field.

9th...Don't forget any of your landing checks...for a twin GUMP checks were good....I sometimes forgot landing flaps or carb heat...not a biggie, but shouldn't be missed . We all get fluffed up at the end with concentration on landing perfectly, that we sometimes forget something.

10th...KEEP LANDING SPEED... 70kts...70kts...70kts....lol.

11th...as soon as you land....full power, flaps to take off and carb heat. Rotate!

12th...dont' forget crosswind imputs!

Most of all HAVE FUN! Circuts are my favorite excercise. They always called me Queen of the Circut at my school! SO MUCH FUN!

That's all I can think of. Oh practice soft field/short field take offs and landings instead of normal landings, thats easy...do something a bit harder each time.

Hope this somewhat helps!

[Penguina]

How are you getting on now, Redbird? (Or is the weather holding you up?)

Apologies is it's already been said somewhere, but if you're finding height control taking up too much time, make sure you're taking the time to level off properly, allowing the speed to build before reducing power and holding the attitude firmly while you do. So many of my students set themselves up wrong and then spend the whole of the rest of the circuit being preoccupied with needing constant changes of power and attitude - on top of everything else they need to do.

Orientate yourself by looking at the runway and memorise the DI headings for each leg in case you lose your bearings. It helps.

If I think of any other common things that come up, I'll let you know!

[Skysurfer1]

Hey again,

I would let your instructor know the difficulities first. Are you a solo student yet? I'm sorry, I have not read any of the postings on here.

Then I would maybe go to the practice area and work on your straight and level flight and while your out there, get some of your excercies in. Also you should know the power settings for each part of the circut. Once your at the power setting, TRIM! I also never fly with two hands. I use my left hand for the stick and then my right hand if free for the throttles etc... But remember practice makes perfect. Also, its difficult to keep altitude if there are a lot of thermals around, which this time of year where I live are non existant! I once encountered a thermal that shot me up 300'!!! If that happens and your in an exam, don't worry, they know the conditions of that day .

Relax up there! Enjoy what you are doing and it will soon come to you!

[Proof Reader]

Redbird

I note that you have received a lot of advice but I would repeat the sound advice given by various people that you should listen to your Instructor.
When you are learning to fly you are in the hands of your instructor. He/she is your guru and, unless you have some reason to request a change of instructor, it is his/her advice and instruction to which you should listen. Pose your query to your instructor and try to take his/her advice without question to improve your skills and get your license. You can then join in the debate about whether the advice and instruction you were given was the best.

I also note Penguina's post of yesterday asking how you are getting on now as we haven't heard from you whether you have found any of the advice helpful since the 4th December.

[Redbird72]

I'm still here - had a little trip away for the weekend, so am catching up on posts now!

Still very grateful for all the input - I can't believe it's still running.
A good combination of things to chew over myself (such as getting the sequence off pat in my head - memorising the numbers and dare I say it, the mnemonics) and some to discuss with my instructor.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to have another go until the weekend after next - thus the consulting with the pprune oracle rather than the man in the r/h seat. Still, the way the weather's been, I don't think I'd have got any practice this weekend, even if I'd booked!

[Redbird72]

I got my second bash today, a bit sooner than expected due to a cancellation. It went sooo much better.
I revised the headings, speeds, checks and RT calls over brekkie, was slightly disturbed to find we were going the other way down the runway but managed to relax and give it my best shot. Being a left hand circuit may have been a help (on the usual rwy direction we have a right hander for noise abatement), the view was certainly better.
I don't know whether it was the advice or simply airing my worries and getting them out of my head, but whatever; thanks prooners

[bjornhall]

Awesome!

[PompeyPaul]

Bumffpich

Had an interesting spin on this, the other night whilst doing night circuits. All the cabin lights were switched off to simulate failure. I whistled through the checks as I normall do

Breaks off
Undercarriage is down
Mixture is rich
Flaps as required
Fuel pump on, landing light on
Propeller fixed
Instruments, ah fuggit, I can't see a thing, it all sounds about right
Carb heat on
Hatches \ harnesses secure.

The thing is, missing out the 'I' part it threw the rest of the chain out, took a while to get used to.

Amazing how it's possible to fly circuits purely on the attitude and sound of the engine. It's nice to get the instruments back, but I do wonder if sometimes they are just a bit of a distraction ?

Night flying, it's da mutz

[Pitts2112]

Pompey Paul,

NOW you're learning how to fly, as opposed to how to drive an airoplane. Yes, you can not only fly circuits, but you can pretty much just fly based on attitude and sound. You need a few more things along the way (altitude is tough to guage by eye), but for the most part, once you become really familiar with an airoplane, you find yourself using the instruments just to verify what you already know from look, sound, and feel. Disclaimer here is talking about VFR flying only (IMC is a bit of a different issue and a bit harder to do without instruments. )

[MidgetBoy]

Try doing circuits for 6 hours straight. You'll get used to it.. =P

[RatherBeFlying]

Where I fly power (single engine, fuel on both or just on,fixed gear and prop), we have the checklists on laminated cards and follow them religiously on the ground.

On downwind, we just do a flow from left to right that touches and calls out everything of concern and finally a tap on the brakes.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Try doing circuits for 6 hours straight. You'll get used to it..

Even better would be to do one minute circuits with some breaks in the six hours, that will give you 360 touch and goes.

Versus six hours at some of todays airports where training is being done, where you may only get around 25 circuits.

[thirtysomething]

First days in the circuit

To the original poster. Dont worry Chap , the first circuit was a head flap for me also. I constantly felt behind the curve and pressured for time

• What checks you have been instructed to do , learn on the ground. I also found it useful to get out to the aircraft early and practice them as if I were flying before doing the pre-flight checks.

• Visualize each segment of the circuit also ( again practicing this in the plane before start helped me ) Ask questions in advance about power / attitude / trim / flap settings etc if your not clear .. doing that meant I spent less concentration on asking things like that on the fly.

• I found it helpful to pick out points to fly over especially when turning from one leg to the next. Where exactly you are and where you should be turning are things you can cross of the " worry list " fairly quickly.

• Dont expect too much of yourself. I seen many people , myself included get fustrated with slow progress and waste time and money bashing away when calling it a day might have been better. I think less time spread out is better than a higher condensed quantity. I think this is a place where more people throw away good money after bad. ( just my opinion )

• Somebody mentioned trim , the better you can do that the easier your life will be as you wont be chasing the plane about the sky as it wanders randomly.

• It took me a while to " sit back " and relax , I was leaning over the control collum , like i was driving round a hair pin at first. Took a conscious effort from me at first.
  
  Slowly but surely my experience was that you start to feel on top of things and have moments of joy when you nail it ( in my case quickly followed by a f### up to remind me to keep trying harder ) .
  
  Pretty much everything came for me with time and now circuits are what im looking forward to the most in my flying. Everybody finds em tough in the beginning as i could see and did.

Goes without saying , enjoy it , its all leading to many magic firsts..