Circuits

I was supposed to be doing dual nav 3 today, however by the time the morning mist had cleared sufficiently to get us above minimums, and then due to a delay while the runway was inspected to check out some potential damage, we ran out of time.

I had a choice at this point whether to just give up and taxy back, or just do some circuits. I decided as I hadn’t done any in a while that this would be a good chance to practise, and try to work on my technique.

Once airborne I was glad we didn’t decide to do the nav, the visibility was quite poor, such that I’d have struggled to make out landmarks that were any sort of distance ahead or to the sides of us (in fact I think if we had tried to do it we’d have turned round and come back anyway as I wouldn’t have learnt anything from it).

The first circuit was a normal one, which other than making my turn from base to finals late and having to go further round to get back on the centre line, was nice. The second I ended up quite high so it was quite a steep approach, however the touchdown was alright and I think I got the flare correct.

The final one I opted to do flapless as I hadn’t done one for a while (and there’s always a chance of having to do a flapless should I have an electrical or flaps failure) – I was a little faster than I was supposed to be on final approach, and so the touchdown was a little fast, leading to us having quite a long backtrack to get off the runway (luckily there was nothing else in the circuit).

All 3 circuits were safe, but I did have a tendency to touch down on one wheel at first – I think as I pull back to flare I’m accidentally raising my hand a little bit as well, causing us to roll very slightly to the right, and thus touch down on the right hand wheel first, this is something I’ll try to keep an eye on and make sure I avoid in future.