1.9 Circuit 2

Lesson 1.9 – Circuit 2 Date: 23-04-2026

Introduction

Today we had a beautiful weather day with a small layer of stratus clouds dissolving as the sun rose and with a slight crosswind component. At the time of take-off, they almost all dissolved giving us a clear sky with sun. The wind was around 6 knots, coming in a 60 degree angle of the runway, which is not that strong and good for some circuit training. Because we did some basic circuits the previous lesson, we will going to make it a bit harder now with some more factors into play.

In this lesson we also did the following extra exercises:

• Rejected take-off
• Short field take-off
• Soft field take-off
• Go around
• Wave off
• Glide-in approach
• Flapless landing

The circuit theory information can be found here

The circuit itself

The circuit went good, with some remarks of course, as this is the second lesson. We added the downwind checks where we check the following (iHARSi):

• Incoming traffic
• Altitude
• Distance to runway
• Heading
• Speed
• Incoming traffic again

On downwind, we do a little rounding checkup of every important component of the plane where we have to determine if we are going to get the runway.

• Fuel selector: Both
• Flaps -> to 10 degrees
• Mixture: Rich
• Throttle
• Carb heat -> set to on (pull)

This went better as we progressed into more circuits. However, still a lot room for improvement. Everything is clear but when all components come into play at the same time when flying a plane is a bit hard.

Rejected take-off

A part of this lesson was performing a rejected take-off. This is a procedure where we determine, during the ground-roll for taking off, that it’s unsafe to fly. This can have multiple causes, like:

• Birds on the runway
• Engine RPM unstable or too low
• Incoming unforeseen aircraft
• Other causes which renders the plane not safe to fly

When performing this, we close the throttle and keep the nose wheel somewhat lifted to defend it from shimmnying. We will only brake to get the right taxiway or when we do not have enough runway left.

Short field take-off

At a short field take-off, we consider the runway length very worthy and limit the amount needed to clear an object at 50 feet after the runway. In this procedure, we will line up on the runway by limiting the amount at the start. We keep holding the brakes there till the engine hits full RPM. Then we release the brakes and off we go. We will catch up the unwanted movements of the plane with the rudder pedals while keeping our heels on the ground.

When we have crosswind, we steer into the wind and gradually release that steering as we tend to hit rotation speed.

Soft field take-off

We also performed a soft field take-off, where we consider the runway to be soft and has a great risk of being stuck in mud or grass. We do a rolling take-off here, where we keep rolling and going into the take-off roll. Stopping might get us stuck in the grass, making the situation very dangerous.

We also keep some back pressure on the yoke to release pressure of the nose wheel.

Go around

A go around is performed if an aircraft is not safe to land or the runway is already in use. During the go around we push full power and then release the flaps to 20 degrees. This gives us more engine power as the drag reduces a lot. If there are other activities at the aerodrome like towing, gliders and parachutes, we keep the opposing side of the runway for those activities.

We also did this exercise today and went all right. However I need to remember keeping the plane straight and not dipping because of the lift-loss.

Wave off

A wave off is when we are busy landing but we are not 100% stable just above the runway. During this exercise my instructor pressed the rudder pedals softly on purpose, and we had to give full engine power to make another approach.

Waving off is better than a bouncy landing which can be dangerous.

Glide-in approach

We did also an glide-in approach. This is where we only use the pitch angle to glide to the runway. On the Base leg, we closed the throttle and glided from 1000ft to the runway. Being on 1000ft gives us a lot of potential energy to make it to the runway. This was a very fun exercise to do.

Flapless landing

We ended this lesson with a flapless landing once again. Here we do not use flaps, making the approach angle much flatter. This however comes together with higher speeds (+5 kts on every leg) and a longer landing roll.

Remarks

• Climb attitude after take-off -> be sure to keep 65 knots when climbing from the runway and then 75 knots after retracting the flaps
• Climbing turns with maximum of 15 degrees
• More exercise on doing multiple things together -> downwind/base
• Battling the effect of flaps: more flaps means more climb and less flaps is less climb. Be more pro-active when setting these by reacting faster on those effects
• Again review my briefings

Right now my total amount of flight hours is 12 hours and 45 minutes (12:45) which is more than proficient for the lessons I have done.

The next lesson

The next lesson we will perform a diversion to another airfield, as where I have to prepare for that reviewing the charts and the procedures. This is my homework.

I will also perform this into my simulator in the days towards this next lesson.

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