3 miles deadside

Short circuit

With a new, improved Cabair checklist in hand I knew my stuff today: ‘A’ checks started to make sense and when to turn carburettor heat on or off was no longer some black magic or dark secret.

The school, however, was running late and my time was limited. Still, it was a return to circuits and my handling of the plane much improved compared to a couple of days ago. More to do during circuits though as discussed in a previous post: the sense of messiness continued therefore and with only three times around the airfield my last attempt was nowhere near last year’s performance.

A similar problem as Tuesday as well: although I’m now flying the plane more I’d always been told to use a set of lights by the runway on approach to gauge whether I’m on the correct flightpath for touchdown. Two white and two red and you’re perfect: more red and you’re too low so feed in more power, more white and you’re too high so take some power out. But, as my new instructor pointed out, this is all very well for big airfields like Biggin but smaller ones won’t necessarily and how do I land then? Back to basics, choose an aiming point, fly the plane down.