Lesson 17 PPL
02 May 2005This time I went out to try something new because, although the weather was very gusty, turbulent and unpredictable below 1500ft, above that altitude it was really calm and almost perfect for flying. We knew this as my instructor had already been flying in the morning. So, after an extremely bumpy takeoff from runway 13 (literally dropping what felt like 30ft 15 seconds after takeoff), we turned right and went just north of Saltash to about 2500ft and practised doing some steep turns.
Steep turns are when the plane is almost on its side (with a bank angle greater than 45 degrees) effectively turning around one field and pulling about 2G. It makes your arms and everything feel very heavy, but it’s quite fun feeling the forces! Then we did a few spiral dives and aircraft avoidance procedures, which meant going from straight and level flight into a 90 degree right turn and level again in about 10 seconds, which was just really fun - felt a bit like aerobatics!
Then we joined right base for runway 13 and had an extremely bumpy ride down to the runway. I was looking out the side window on final approach because of the wind. Somehow, I managed to land on the centre line without too much of a bump and taxied back in.