Cct Rev

i flew on sunday doing my circuit revision, after slightly more than a month of not flying because of exams. i took up to the skies with a new instructor, 16, and he was pleasantly different.

so basically a circuit is a standard pattern flown above the aerodrome, shaped like a race course. we take off, fly till 500ft, then turn 90degrees right into what we call crosswind, then after sometime we'd take another 90degrees to the right into downwind, where we'd be flying parallel to but opposite in direction of the runway. this is also where we would level off at 1000ft. then once we fly past the entire runway, we turn another 90 degrees right into base leg where we start descending, then turn the final 90degrees into finals where we make our approach for landing. i hope you can imagine that.

well i was thoroughly unfocused the night before, i don't know why. and it showed the day after. the lack of preparation was obvious.

the thing about circuit flying was, though i flew it many times before with 09, but 16 had a different approach on the turnings. with 09, i'd use landmarks to guide when to turn or to make sure of the correct circuit pattern. for eg:

wing approaches water tank, start turn to downwind.
wing touches river, turn base.
when flying downwind, make sure the mosque comes between your legs to fly straight!

this was so much easier to do, but this knowledge was limited to the KB aerodrome only, coz you weren't gonna be finding rivers, water tanks and mosques at other airfields. so i tried learning the 16 way, which was to use my own judgement of distance and fly the circuit.

damn it was hard. i kept turning too early, and i was too near the runway on downwind. so my descending went wrong and the circuit pattern just went out the window.

i was always too high on finals, so i had to keep coming in at a damn steep approach. it was sooooo stupid. no. I was soooo stupid. ridiculous flying man.

one of my friend kinda complimented: eh just now your landing nice man.

me: no la. you crazy or what. it was damn fucked.

friend: no la. you were coming in damn high, but at least you land nicely. you did what, practice force landing or glide approach?

me: ermmm. normal approach laaa.

friend retracts his compliment: oh then quite fuck up la.

which ends up in both of us laughing. pathetic. i tell you, i was damn lucky i was flying with 16, and not 09. else i don't think i'd even be able to be blogging this out. 16 is one patient man, and in the words of another friend, he treats you like a king in the plane. i call it the 16 treatment. absolutely good instructor, with a disappointing student.

then today i was scheduled to fly with 06, who's so kind when he speaks, its unusal and uncommon. but when i turned the ignition key, the engine didn't make a sound at all. the propeller didn't even move an inch. tried another time, but still fail.

aborted start up. all the pre checks for nothing. we got out the aircraft for a cuppa tea. hopefully next week goes better.


note to self: never go unprepared. don't be a lazy ass.