A perfect day for flying and practicing landings! The circuit was less busy than last week, but still enough planes to keep it interesting.
I am extremely happy that I ended this lesson with conquering another hurdle. I was able to flare and land the plane with no input from my FI. This was the first time that she didn’t need to keep her hands on the controls either.
*does a little dance*
Looking back I can identify two problems:
1. “Dive bombing” (as my FI put it). Instead of a smooth transition from the approach into the flare, I would wait too late before realizing I’d have to flare. By that time my flare ended up turning into a “don’t smash into the ground” maneuver. There would be no time between the flair and the stage where you would let the plane bleed off speed and start to sink.
2. If I did flare at the right time.. I wouldn’t keep the sink rate from increasing, and my FI would have to take over (otherwise we’d land on all three wheels at the same time). Learning how to judge how much back pressure you need to stop from sinking too fast was difficult.
The idea is to level out the plane a few feed above the ground (called the flare). In order to keep the same altitude above the runway, you will need to keep putting back pressure on the yoke. This results in a higher and higher nose up attitude as you slow down. Your two main wheels will hit the ground first, then your nose will drop and land on your nose wheel.
I was able to overcome both of those problems today. I hope to be able to do the same tomorrow. The weather for tomorrow is looking to be a mirror of today.
An another note, an air traffic controller decided to propose to his girlfriend over the radio. Cute.
Back to studying… I have all four finals to write next week.
