Lesson 23 - Precautionary Landings + bad weather circuits

The aim of this lesson was to learn how to carry out precautionary landings and to look at bad weather circuits. We would also look at the effects of wind on the aircraft's path over the ground.

The key airmanship points: Keeping a good lookout, Minimum height rule, Ts & Ps.

On this exercise, because we were flying a bit lower than usual, although well above the required minima, it gave me the chance to see the effects of wind on the aircraft's path as we turned. Also I was able to see the topography much clearer - even though the land we were flying over was quite flat. We chose line features - in this case a field boundary with a straight track running past it, flew just past it and performed a 180 turn with the wind - which had us levelling out back the other side of the track. Reversing the exercise and turning into the wind had us levelling out on the same side of the track as we had started the turn, but quite a bit further back. Obvious relly, but interesting to see how much difference the wind made.

On the same exercise, I flew a crosswind bearing marking a feature in front and, by maintaining the compass bearing, observing how much we drifted away from our original aiming point.

We then set off for Tim's favourite field to practice precautionary landings on. On the way Tim had me set up in the slow safe cruise (75kts, 20' flap and 2300rpm). This attitude is useful when you want to fly slowly to examine the ground, e.g. you are lost or you are looking for a suitable field for a precautionary landing.

The reasons you may wish to make a precautionary landing are:
- you have hit bad weather
- you are very low on fuel
- you are very lost
- You or a passenger has been taken seriously ill
- the aircraft has non-engine problems, or is suffering from a rough-running engine.
As you can see most of these are avoidable with proper preparation.

I will add in diagrams later but the process for a precautionary landing is in 3 phases:
1. A visual inspection, 500 ft above ground level at safe-cruise speed. During this you should be flying next to the field observing the field to look for telegraph poles, ditches, people, animals, obstacles, etc. Also checking the surface of the field, as best you can.
2. This is a practice approach, descend to 300ft at 65 knots in the approach configuration, lined up on the field and check that everything feels OK with the approach. When satisfied go-around.
3. This time perform the landing checks and land in the field - obviously, for the purpose of the exercise, we didn't actually land!

After a demonstration of this from Tim and a couple of practices by me, we headed back to Southend to practice bad-weather circuits.

These are carried out at 600ft (normally 500ft, but Southend has specific noise-related regulations about minimum height), much closer to the airfield than a standard circuit (no more than 3/4 mile) and are flown in the slow safe cruise configuration. Also, there are not really crosswind or base legs of the circuit, instead, there are 180' turns at either end of the circuit.

On the whole - the lesson went well - on one of the precautionary landings, I needed to get the flaps up sooner when I was climbing out - I had struggled to climb back up to height with the flaps still extended. On the bad-weather circuit, I had to remember to level out, reduce power to 2100rpm and only then to start the turn.

All in all a lot to take in on this lesson.

Aircraft General Knowledge & Principles of Flight Exam

No flying today: cloudbase too low and visibility not good. I knew my luck with the weather had to run out sometime.

Instead I sat my Aircraft General Knowledge & Principles of Flight Exam. It was a tough paper and I was pretty convinced that my score would be marginal, however I got 84% (passmark was 75%).

Very happy!