1.10 Circuit 3 with Diversion
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Do not use specific information given like fuel flow, landing/take-off distances for your flights. Always refer to the POH of your exact plane for flight preparation. My information is just for references that I used.
Lesson 1.10 – Circuit 3 with diversion Dates: 23-04-2026
07-05-2026 (Diversion)
Today we did a circuit training lesson with a diversion to an airfield in Germany. The purpose of this lesson was a little preparation for the upcoming solo lessons. Then I have to find a possible diversion for myself, as an airfield can be closed temporarily for several reasons. We don’t want to still be in the air while having too less fuel and such.
It was a great day for flying with some sun, 5 knots crosswind and an air filled with stratocumulus and alto-cumulus clouds and the temperature was around 14 degrees.
We took off from our default airfield with a short briefing of the route. Then we went to the fuel station to have at least 24 gallon on board, giving us 3 hours of flight time which is plenty. According to the lesson program, we needed to do circuits but we only did the diversion today. We aim for another 2-3 circuit lessons to fully control that.
After taking off we signed on to Dutch Mil info for the first time, this is something which is not needed in training flights but we did it to get an basic understanding of how this is done. Dutch Mil Info is the Flight Information Service (FIS) for most of the Netherlands, giving traffic and weather information to General Aviation pilots. Its not a control center, so we pilots still have to maintain our own separation but Dutch Mil can give us possible information in special cases.
We navigated to the other airfield using basic chart-navigation. We plotted 3 lines between obvious visual reference points like cities, powerlines and trainroads and calculated a basic course-plan. We followed those points and after a short flight we landed safely on the airfield. Then after a short break we headed back to our main airfield and debriefed the lesson.
Remarks
Some remarks from this lesson for myself are:
- Take higher circuits into account, we were a little high on final making the landing distance also very long
- Keep the altitude better under control using visual flight -> pitch attitude
All with all it was a good lesson with two decent landings and looking forward to the next one, which details will come online soon.
09-06-2026
Today we had a great circuit training flight of exactly one hour. The weather was okay with around 9 knots of slight crosswind but almost full headwind which is nice for lessons like this.
We did 8 take-offs and landings which in the beginning I had to first get a little used to the controls again after a short break of around 30 days of flying and at landing 3 it went a lot better. Landing 7 and 8 went completely by myself where number 7 went a little bit bouncy but number 8 was really smooth.
In the briefing for this lesson I learned more about the attitude of the planes’ nose during the flare, this must almost hit the horizon for the pilot’s point of view. We need to shift the focus point to the end of the runway as you point the nose towards there. This is something which sounds simple but takes a lot of practice to master.
Remarks
Some remarks of this lesson where:
- Steer somewhat smoother and not do great actions, especially on final and flaring
- Remember the downwind checks after the initial position, altitude and incoming traffic checks
- Seats and belts
- Fuel selector
- Mixture
- Engine instruments
- Carb heat -> on
- Flaps
Overall it was a good flight lesson and I think I made some progress.
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