Landing, well it kind of just happened. The story goes...
The lesson started doing climbs once out of Jandakot. But that was even slightly eventful and learnt a lesson in that. On takeoff in IGX on runway 012, there was a 15knot cross wind. No sweat, but on rotation at 55knots I pulled the nose up, but not really enough. I kind of did a little skip with the back wheels before giving it a more solid tug. That sorted, the cross wind gave us a good roll, but balancing that felt almost second nature already. Lesson, get the nose up and don't bugger around.
The climbs we did were best angle of climb (55 knots), best rate of climb (65 knots) and a cruise climb (75 knots). With them the M. R. L. check was introduced. Mixture, Reference Point and Lookout. Then power up, set the attitude, get the right performance and then trim the baby to do it itself. On doing the 500 foot interval, ie drop the nose for a visual check, we spotted another C-152 in the areas. Anyway we climbed out to over 5000 feet. You really notice the drop in engine performance and the reduced lift. The theory books prove right after all...
By this stage out near Mandurah we turned back along the coast. The decents were good. A glide with no engine power, cruise decent at 500 ft per minute at 2100 rpm. Finally a 20 degree flaps, 1500 rpm, 70 knot decent for landing. Good practice as it turned out. We turned west over Rockingham towards Garden Island, then up Cockburn sound. Was beautiful in the sky, there was rain in the distance which looked great. Everything looks so good up there. We tracked over the boat shed (Austal), then towards Jandakot.
The tower was closed, so it was intra-plane comms for landing. Peter, my backup instructor was with me today, he guided by to Adventure World to then track into Jandakot. Anyway still at the controls Peter just guided me to do an approach decent. Setting up the plane and doing so, I visually lined up the runway. Down, down, down and Peter didn't take over the controls, I took it right into the runway maintaining 70 knots with throttle control, till Peter said cut it. The nose dropped quickly, but pulling it up we flared and touchdown. Nose wheel down next and the first landing just happened :) Performing a ridiculously silly dance move, I think I might have worried Peter. But he smiled and said "Nice one"...
It was the first time today with a different instructor. There was some good contrasts between the two instructors, all positive. The takeaways from Peter were that he pointed out quite a few tips that I know will shape me to be a better pilot. Such as doing a final ground walkaround once passengers are seated (and chocks removed :p ), heavy focus on pre-takeoff control checks (which he said are a focal point for the PPL practical exam) and his approach to visual checks. All were good. We had a good yack too and he is really passionate about flying, I liked that...
Right then, radio calls, time to make some palm cards or something :p
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