1.10 Circuit 3 with Diversion
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This page can contain a collection of personal notes, steps to remember, finished and unfinished content. Please excuse brevity.
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: 07-05-2026, 09-06-2026, 22-06-2026 & 16-08-2026
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 decent progress.
22-06-2026
Today, once again a circuit training lesson. We flown about 1 hour and 15 minutes and did 10 take-offs and landings. The weather was very great, only downside was the relatively high temperatures. About 26 degrees celcius at 11 o’ clock. The sky itself was almost clear, only some high level cirrus clouds so nothing to worry about on that part. We had a little crosswind of 7 knots.
I have also reviewed the briefings and RT another time and learned them completely. This was the first lesson I did them correctly on my own, so thats a win.
The first 3 landings went a bit rough where the instructor had to correct some but it went gradually better. Did not fly for about 2 weeks so we have to adapt a little. I also had a little harder time centering the plane on to the runway because of the crosswind.
Then I had about 4 landings with minor corrections needed by the instructor and we also did a go-around to simulate a failed approach or landing. Its still a human task of course.
At about 2 landings, the altitude for the flare was correctly done by myself but then the flare itself was too weak, causing the plane to hit the runway a little hard. But hey, any landing where you can walk away from is a good landing.
Remarks
The room for improvement/remarks of this lesson are:
- Get the flare altitude right
- The coorperation of yoke/rudder input when having crosswind landings (slipping)
- RT lines
- Downwind checks were okay but also keep incoming traffic in mind, make bigger turns when traffic in front and/or slow flight
28-06-2026
Today a lesson on Sunday for the first time as the weather was pretty good. It was a bit warm, like 27 degrees celcius, giving us worse climb performance but did not stop us for once again a circuit lesson.
The lesson went progressively better as the last 2 or 3 landings were very good. I learned that at the flare/touchdown looking at the end of the runway and pointing the nose to the end of the runway is a great technique to make soft landings without bouncing too hard on the tarmac. Also the RT simultaneously went better and almost smooth on the end.
Remarks
Of course there were some remarks which I have to improve:
- Keep an eye on the field
- Apply slow flight when busy traffic in the circuit
- Keep looking at the end of the runway during the flare
The instructor said that he saw some good progress in these last two lessons which is nice.
16-08-2026
Today we went back to a circuit lesson only to prepare for the first solo flight. We had some quite worse weather than the lessons before, with some light rains just before the lesson. The sky was fully filled with stratocumulus and nimbostratus clouds but with some dry periods over the day. The wind was about 7 knots and around 20-30 degrees of the runway so that was really great for some circuit training.
We first left the circuit and gone back in to train this as well. Then we did 8 landings in total, where 5 of them where great according to my instructor. 2 were not corrected in time and one we had to perform a wave-off, which is basically a late go-around. This happened because we needed to correct with our rudder too much and caused some bouncing action.
The last 3 landings in a row went very great where the flare was executed much better and we let the aircraft do the descent itself by flaring, power idle and keeping the nose just below the horizon.
Remarks
The remarks and homework of this lesson are:
- Keep the speeds good ay all phases of the circuit:
- 55 knots: Rotate
- 65 knots: Climb out of ground effect
- 75 knots: Climb out from 200ft to 700ft
- Keep 75 knots till 700 feet is reached
- Downwind: 80-85 knots
- Base: 75 knots
- Final 65 knots all the way till the runway threshold
- The flare-height was good according to my iinstructor, so we need to keep this
- Minor rudder inputs on final
- Remember all checks, start on beginning downwind and perform check run 1 for incoming traffic and position, then perform downwind checks
All with all a great lesson with great improvement since all the previous circuit lessons.
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