Lesson 12: Circuits ...

Almost no flying this weekend because of the lingering poor visibility (sunshine + haze) but I was very lucky to sneak up for 35 minutes. Just long enough for a few circuits in fact. The visibility was very bad in the northerly direction. We used runway 02 today, QFE 998 and I was back in papa-xray. Not the best climber of the fleet but more than adequate for a beginner like me.

In the time we were up, I had time to complete 3 circuits and generally speaking it felt slower (more manageable) than last week. Take off felt ok and the climb-out, although a little bumpy was fine. Turning through 90 onto the crosswind section and it was basically on the instruments because of the poor vis. Turning downwind I made more of a conscious effort to draw back the throttle and go downwind at a more manageable speed of 85-90 knots as opposed to last week when I think I managed Mach 2 at one point.

Landings were OK, I forgot the carb heat on the last circuit and the final approach speed was lets just say "variable" although coming over the threshold I had managed to nail it in time.

All in all, despite the bad weather a little circuit practice like this all adds to the experience of learning to fly and so is time well spent.

Today I used for the first time Motion X on the iPhone to record my track. This little app claims to record your track and then ... lets you see it in a number of different ways.

Here is how it recorded my three circuits (displayed in google earth)...

Double Click the Image for a larger view