Lesson 16 - Circuits and EFATO

It had been 3 weeks since I had last been up - Family trip to Lapland, Christmas and bad weather filling the intervening weeks.

We were originally scheduled for the trip to Rochester to practice on a grass runway, which I had been looking forward to, but the cloudbase was a bit too low for Rochester, which stands on a bit of a hill. to be honest I was just happy to get flying again.

So instead, we did a bit more circuit practice and some EFATO - no not a result of too many Brussels sprouts over Christmas, but Engine Failure After Take Off. This is one of the pre-requisites for solo.

Although we had covered EFATOs briefly before, Tim took me through them in a bit more detail during the pre-flight briefing. The key point throughout is to fly the plane. As soon as the engine failure occurs, it is important to set up the aircraft in the glide attitude with a glide speed of 65 knots and trim the aircraft.

The next step is to select a suitable landing site 45 degrees either side of the nose and within gliding range. At Southend there are many suitable fields, particularly when taking off from 06. Fields are first choice, Tim wasn't very enamoured with my suggestion of roads, but instead was happier to suggest a roof. I reckoned with my luck, I'd crash-land OK on the roof, then fall off! In most cases, it is not advisable to try to land back on the airfield - research by many learned organisations has shown that a very high proportion of these attempts end in tragedy.

Anyway, having selected your landing site, the next job is to do the engine checks, Tim advised going from right to left in the cockpit:
- fuel on
- mixture rich
- exercise throttle
- Carb Heat on
- mags L/R/Both
- master switch on
- primer locked.
If any of these is out of place, then correct and attempt to restart.

At all times it is essential to keep flying the plane.

Next job is to call it in: Mayday 3 times, followed by callsign and "engine failure". Then get back to flying the plane.

Prior to the forced landing, you need to make the aircraft safe:
- fuel off
- bring the mixture to idle cut-off
- mags off
- master off
- check harnesses are secure
- open the doors - this helps in case the airframe deforms on landing.
- brief the passengers to brace

And keep flying the aircraft into as good a landing as you can manage. Reading through the AAIB bulletins, the majority appear to be survivable.

We were back flying Foxtrot-Romeo today and were flying off runway 06, which I am less familiar with than 24. The sun was quite low and it was a bit hazy, so visibility wasn't always so good. And I was out of practice.

My de-brief notes to myself were "could do better!". It was the standard circuits I seemed to have more problems with and it was fairly basic and fundamental - I just wasn't paying attention to the speed, which is crucial as it is really the thing that keeps you in the air! The problem was I was caught up with looking for the runway, but as Tim said, it wasn't going anywhere. It was fairly guaranteed to still be where we had left it...!

My EFATO practices were OK - I just need to ensure I nailed the speed and attitude first, but generally OK.

We did a practice go around and I inadvertantly raised the flaps before ensuring I had a positive rate of climb - I had got used to doing this on touch-and-go's. Otherwise it was fine.

We also did a glide descent on one circuit and this was reasonably succesful. Tim suggested a squirt of throttle just on very late finals to ensure we made the threshold, but said we would have done anyway. The landings were fine. I've got surprisingly used to flying straight at the ground now!

Stats at end of lesson
Description	Hours as P2	Hours as P1	Take Offs	Landings
Lesson	0:55	0:00	3	3
Total	15:45	0:00	32	24

Lesson 15 - Glide and Flapless approaches

Refresher on flapless approaches - 1500 RPM and 70 knots.

Glide approaches at 65 knots. Estimate point to close the throttle to land a third of the way down the runway, which on runway 24 is about taxiway Bravo.

If aircraft is too high, then use flaps - flaps 10 initially, and flaps 20 once you are sure to make it. Flaps 30 only once very certain! It is OK to land without flap.

The circuit was fairly busy today and at one stage I needed to orbit. I was not disoriented this time, as I was the last by doing this.

In the debrief, Tim raised a number of "peripheral" items that I need to remember and correct:
- I have to taxi slower.
- When cleared to line up on the runway, I need to remember the transponder, the strobes and the landing lights.
- After landing, leave all the controls until clear of the runway when you can do the post-landing checks (otherwise one day I WILL raise the undercarriage instead of the flaps - when I am in a plane I can do that with!)

Of the flying items, I need to only do a rate 1 (15 degree of bank) turn when asked to orbit. I also need to not be scared of the radio - I don't think I am really worried by the radio anymore, generally, but today I was more cautious. Must remember the "if in doubt, shout" saying! I also need to keep an eye on my altitudes - I tend to get a bit high on the downwind leg.

The flapless approach - which we did with quite a long final - was quite a "firm" landing - although Tim confirmed that it hadn't caused any problems with his underpants! The issue, as we discussed it later (the landing, not the pants) was that on a flapless approach, the nose attitude tends to be higher, so it is more difficult to judge the sink. Therefore I need to beware of closing the throttle too early (and smacking down on the runway!).

Overall a good lesson. Tim talked about going to Rochester for the next lesson, as we would need to do a circuit detail or two on Rochester's grass runways - preferrably before going solo, as Rochester is the alternate airfield. I'd quite look forward to that - a change of airfield would certainly be interesting!

Stats at end of lesson 15
Description	Hours as P2	Hours as P1	Take Offs	Landings
Lesson	1:00	0:00	6	5
Total	14:50	0:00	29	21