Sloppy Flying...

I tried to get in some landing practice during lunch today.  It turned out the battery in the plane was dead.  Someone had left the master switch on overnight.  So, we put a charger on it and went to lunch while it charged.  Having the cowling off was an educational experience in itself because I got to poke around the engine bay.

All this meant we didn't have a lot of time to fly -- about 30 minutes.  But it was enough for a few touch-and-goes at our home airport.

I just couldn't get into a groove.  My takeoff climbs were a bit sloppy.  I wasn't trimming for a consistent climb pitch attitude and so I was chasing the airspeed indicator.  I don't think the FAA examiner would have approved.

There were a lot of birds soaring around the airport and at one point my instructor had to make an evasive turn and dive to avoid one (it's still hard for me to gauge the relative distance of a soaring bird versus my plane).

I couldn't seem to fly a crisp pattern into the landing.  I kept over-extending the downwind, ending up too low on base and final.  Some of this is due to the fact I don't do a lot of landings at this airport and this runway so the visual cues are different.  But this is the point of this practice -- pilots need to develop their visual sense of the pattern and landing based only on the runway -- not the surrounding area since you can't take the surrounding area with you to a new airport.

My instructor made some key points today:

• Fly the pattern a bit above the glide slope so that if you lose your engine on final, you can glide to the airport.  If not, you may wind up landing short and "break your leg or wreck some motorist's car..."
• Think through the turns and crab angle of the pattern so that you fly a nice square pattern
• Stay on the pattern altitude before the descent starts -- being a little low just makes it that much harder to get to the right altitude on final
• Use the base leg as a point of "key decision" because at that point you can correct many approach problems while it is still easy to do so:  more flaps if you are high, more power if you are low, timing the turn to final to accommodate the wind.
• Don't add more flaps until you can make the runway on a glide.
• If you can't tell if you are a little high or a little low it probably means you are just right.  

I have come to truly appreciate the point he is making in learning to fly the pattern and land without the instruments as a crutch.  Judging altitude, descent rate, speed, distance and timing by visual cues and feel is important because you never know when you'll be without your instruments at a crucial time.

Hopefully I'll make progress this weekend...