Hour 6, Exercise 9 - PPL lessons Log

Did the remaining part of exercise 9 over Sunday, it was a windy day and Andy took us off due to high cross winds over the runway, and he landed it too. Wish i will eventually be good enough to be able to land as confidently as he does.

As it was a windy and cloudy day, we hit patches where the plane was not able to climb, VSI firmly stuck on 0 ft/minute despite having airspeed of 80mph and an angle of attack. Upon enquiring why so Andy explained we were under a dark cloud and it acted as a sink where air was pushing down on us, and told me to anticipate some lift once we flew past onto its sunny side, and sure enough my bum felt the “bump” lifting with VSI indicating 1000ft / min, what a difference!

I asked if i’ll eventually learn how to read these clouds and anticipate such events in Meteorology but alas that is a glider (sailplane) syllabus. Oy oy, now i need to add gliding to my bucket learning list too.

so today I get practiced lots of ascending and descending turns, including transitioning those to level turns. I have to say i find this exercise challenging my focus, All at the same time I needed to ensure my airspeed is kept at right (or we’ll stall or lose altitude), while maintaining a 30° turn (or the aircraft will roll and bank into a spin) while ensuring i don’t overshoot my heading, and using my feed to balance the rudder to avoid slipping (and losing altitude).

With it being windy I get to observe the wind being much calmer the higher we flew, at one point we were at 6000ft and that was relatively easier to keep level than 3000ft. Today’s turbulence make for good rudder + yoke control practice, however it does mean Andy wasn’t going to let me take off or land the plane. Maybe next lesson i’ll ask if i can do it, especially it being Exercise 10 for stalls and slow flight.

I kindly refer my future self to the crazy route my lesson took today.