Route: FALA – Magalies GFA – FALA
Aircraft: – ZS-ZIP (SR20 G3 Avidyne Avionics)
METAR:- FALA 181300Z 28007KT 210V360 CAVOK 19/02 Q1029 NOSIG
Hours: – 1.7
Total Hours to Date: 5.4
The plan for this trip was to ease back into the aircraft after almost 2 weeks of not flying. As previously mentioned I was feeling a little apprehensive about stalls and wanted to hone my flying a little. I’d consider that goal achieved after this lesson. 1.7h in the logbook.. So what went right?
Taxiing is definitely better. The free castoring nosewheel on the Cirrus takes a bit of getting used to but I found I had more control and wasn’t applying both power and brakes at the same time (apparently that is frowned upon – who’d have thunk it – and my instructor calls it bad airmanship) – i find half the battle is anticipating the end of the turn – so that was definitely better.
Last time my left turns were good. This time, not so much. This time my right turns were ok and the left were not so great – still, I think we did about 703 turns over the GFA (Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration) and I think they’re coming right.
What still needs work? – relaxing in the cockpit. I was very tense for some reason – to the extent that I felt at one point that I was applying full pressure to both pedals the whole time – net result being a numb left leg (not ideal) although i think the seat may have been a bit funny on this aircraft (I haven’t flown her before). And then there was the approach. Oh dear. Not so awesome.
Cirrus procedure calls for downwind to be flown at 50% flap at 105kts, base at 90kts 100% flap. Downwind was ok – joined nicely and had good awareness of speed and flap. As I rolled out onto base it just didn’t feel right. There was a reason for this and that was airspeed – i was short about 10kts. Which meant we weren’t descending enough. Obviously we tried to correct this but turning finals I was high and slow. Also we flew a reasonably short final so we ended up divebombing the runway. I followed that spectacular move by a very affirmative flare (which as can be guessed from the story was about 5ft too high) and we dropped onto the runway, bounced once and then had control. Back to ye olde drawing board.
Valuable lesson learned – good landings start with good approaches. Good approaches start with good joining and circuit flying. And – the aeroplane is no respecter of confidence. I was patting myself on the back thinking I’d flown reasonably well. Pride etc.
To my instructor’s credit she didn’t yell at me but we spent a good few minutes debriefing the landing and how it had gone wrong. Well, there will be plenty more. Got another lesson today where we are going to beard the stall dragon…. Am I nervous? A little. But it will be awesome. (And hopefully I’ll remember the SD card for the GoPro. #facepalm)