I was working hard and did get a teensy bit snippy with Bob and his
“helpful” comments. It’s no secret that I struggle with centreline alignment at
the best of times, during a crosswind approach where I have to set up the
approach angle to compensate for the drift, well I’m not always the most successful
at it. Every single approach, the same comment from Bob “pick up the centre
line WMAP”, “find that centre line.”
I got a bit tetchy, “I’m trying,” said through clenched
teeth.
“well…… try harder then,” from Bob, half joking, half not!
I was not amused “oh, I don’t think you wanna go there!” again half
joking, half not!
The trouble is it’s hard to get mad at someone when you know they
are right. Earlier on in the flight Bob was chiding me for being out of trim
for my approach speed on base. On the next circuit I turned base, “are you
trimmed out?” He asked. I muttered something
vaguely affirmative; I was at 70 knots with 10 degrees of flap, knowing that bringing
down 20 degrees would retrim me to 65.
Bob retorted with “I have control”, I relinquished without
question. He took his hands off the yoke, the nose instantly dropped. “You have
control, sort out your trim.”
He’s right though, JES is quite sensitive on the trim and to be
honest I don’t have a huge amount of subtlety in feeling the nuances of a properly
trimmed plane. Bob flies fingertip controls, I don’t so much, think seal
wearing boxing gloves and you’ve got a better idea! I experimented with briefly
releasing the yoke on base, just to check the trim and then adjusting as needed. It really seemed to help.
I guess the lesson to take away from this is, if I’m getting fed up
with hearing the same feedback then I should stop doing the crap that needs
correcting!
Seriously though, I’m relying less and less on Bob’s judgement
now, at one point I went a bit silent in the circuit, prompting Bob to say “let
me know what you’re thinking WMAP!” I was just pootling along in my own world,
blissfully unaware that Bob was even sat there next to me!
I told him that next lesson I want to do some solo work. I said it
was to build up my confidence but it may just be that I fancy some peace and
quiet up there!
Trim is your friend. I do a similar check to what Bob showed you for two reasons. One is obviously to check to see if you are properly in trim, the second and less obvious is to stop me from taking a death grip on the controls when two fingers is all you need.
ReplyDeleteI am familiar with the "death grip" . On one of my very early flights I used to grip the control column so hard that I popped a knuckle out of joint.
DeleteYou probably fly downwind at about 100 kts and reduce power on downwind abeam the numbers to slow to 70 kts. (Depending on the shape of your circuit this may not be exactly true, but adapt this to what you do). You're reducing power at some point in order to slow before you descend. At that point you probably need one or two cranks of of trim--depending on how your trim wheel is set up. Do it right and you can put in your two cranks right there, so you barely need to trim again on the approach.
ReplyDeleteThat is EXACTLY what Bob is trying to teach me to do. He calls it "finesse".
DeleteHe may have better luck putting a tutu on an elephant and getting it to dance the lead in swan lake. Finesse isn't a word usually asoociated with me!
I will admit that getting the trim sorted before the turn to final does make the landing a lot easier though, especially in crosswinds.