Runway 06R

So I haven’t lost my love of flying just the last two flights were fairly nondescript. Standard practice forced landings and other things like powered stalls, powered without flap stalls and a few other stall derivatives with the object being landing technique at 3500 feet. After all landing is simply a controlled stall, by the way I spent about an hour or more doing circuits recently, upwind, crosswind, base and final (land) then power on and take off again, over and over and over and over and over and over again.

That being said my landings are pretty well nailed, to the point that its becoming a little boring and I actually look forward to crosswind landings. Which is more or less landing sideways the right before round out (aircraft pitch from descending to level flight right above the runway) apply rudder to manoeuvre the plane from sideways to straight. Then you land right wheel then left (or visa versa depending on wind direction) then hold back on the stick and let the nose wheel drop down smoothly.

Anyhow today I did a training area solo where i took the plane out to the training area and did a bit of navigational work prior to getting really serious about finding my way around.

Standard checks before fueling the aircraft making sure I had 40 litres on each side, burning 23 litres per hour that gave me plenty of fuel with 45 min reserve. Fuel check, aircraft check (amongst other checks) I was ready to kick it over. Engine start was sluggish but within a few seconds she kicked over and was spinning nicely.

A few more checks then breaks off and giving it a little RPM started taxing out of the holding area. Noticed another 152 on its way in off the siding so swung around ready to give way. It must have been a fairly new student as he was traveling PAINFULLY slow, however I was entering so I was giving way, after that taxied out to 24R holding position for engine checks.

Went through those everything checked out, oil and temps green, RPM nice, throttle idle still good. Taxied out, made my radio call and received the line up instruction followed by “cleared for take off”, full throttle and at the required speed pulled back and we lifted off nicely, tracked for 1000 feet to the exit point and out into the training area.

It was a great day, followed the freeway to Mandurah then headed across to the edge of the hills near serpentine dam,great view from the sky and I was able to get some photos. Apart from some sights I did want to get a better feel for forced landings, circled a field we typically use and ran through the procedures in my head imagining the flight path, checking my high key point, low key point or my 1000 foot level then base and final.

Hugged the limits of the training area and headed for six south entry point back to the airport. Cruise descent went well, made it to six south did my radio call and was given clearance to enter the airspace. One odd thing was that I heard over the radio that another plane was entering the same entry point behind me, strange that as I hadn’t noticed any other planes in the training area. Tower informed me of a plane behind me I responded with “traffic not sighted”, tower then proceeded to explain where the plain was however given that it was a ways behind it wasn’t that important.

Entered the holding pattern at 1000 feet and completed late downwind, sharp turn to base and an even sharper turn to final which I wasn’t happy that I had to do but I corrected myself nicely on final and with careful management of flaps and power settled nicely then had a slight balloon which I managed to bring down softly still, so much that I am still not sure if I ballooned or not I think simply because I held the stick back I never actually landed the front wheel till much later then I anticipated, which is not a bad thing.

I know some pilots who wheelie down the runway upon landing and give the plane ages to allow for the nose to drop down of its own accord, technique technique technique.

Parked the plane did all the after landing checks and packed it up for the evening. Upon seeing me my flight instructor responded with “your alive”. You kinda get worried when you have an instructor who is surprised you are alive after a solo, all good fun.