Tag: landings
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Navigating Tight Spaces: Coordinated Turns for Successful Landings
What’s necessary for a good landing on a small landing area? Correctly estimating altitude, wind, applying proper wind correction, and making coordinated turns with predictable altitude loss are all key. Today I practiced these skills, except for wind estimation, which was easy thanks to the many windsocks on the hill. I started with 45-degree turns…
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Emergency Landings and Partial Panel Simulations
This morning visibility was terrible. It was so bad that I almost lost hope of flying today, but in the afternoon, it improved, and the weather became flyable. Let’s go! Today we’re moving on to circuits, but sometimes the instructor sets the power to idle and says, “emergency landing.” He usually does this when I…
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Finding the Silver Lining: Perfect Weather for Practice Landings
Today, the weather is gloomy with wet, cold, and misty precipitation. In fact, it even snowed yesterday! The heavy gray clouds create a dark and dull atmosphere. However, there is an advantage: there is absolutely no wind. The ceiling is higher than pattern altitude, making it the perfect weather for practicing landings. I am starting…
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Working on Emergency Landings – Pushing Psychological Barriers
The weather isn’t too calm today, but it’s not too turbulent either. So, we are practicing emergency landings. It’s a strange feeling when the airplane suddenly turns into a glider. I don’t have strong skills yet in estimating suitable field parameters such as height, size, and distance. In theory, it’s straightforward, but in practice, I…
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Improving Landings and Navigational Skills
Today, I flew with another instructor who gave me a simple yet insightful tip that I had not thought of before: during landing, I should not only look straight ahead, but also slightly to the left. This helps me to better estimate my height above the ground and ultimately results in a better flare. During…
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Flying Touch-and-Goes: My First Steps to Mastering Landings
We have started practicing touch-and-goes, where the airplane touches down and immediately takes off again without stopping. This helps to make landing practice quicker, as we save time by avoiding full stops and taxiing back to the runway. Luckily, I can fly circuits at my home aerodrome without having to pay landing fees, which is…
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Navigating the Beauty and Danger of Clouds
Today’s flight was especially beautiful. Previously, the sky was clear with no clouds in sight. On a sunny day, everything appears blue and homogeneous. However, today is totally different; one can see clouds of various sizes and shapes. Initially, it can be a little bit scary, as these cute, fluffy, and innocuous things are very…