this guy's (thumbs up) solo videos!

gkaiser

gkaiser

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Lake in the Hills,IL
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gkaiser
Hey, its this guy that solo'd yesterday! (sorry, its cheesy but it makes me laugh)...Just got my videos back from my CFI and posted to YouTube...Hopefully I can get some worthy critism other then just YOU SUCK! I felt I needed to flare more..I came in a bit high, and as a result of trying to go down I gained unwanted airspeed resulting in the float...but I know what I did wrong and know what I need to work on....

First - http://youtu.be/-vjIVW9RqaM

Second - http://youtu.be/xbFsUPgAwb4

Third - http://youtu.be/jT_jEP6qnMs (Blurry though until end)
 
Looks good to me, especially the 2nd landing!
 
First let me preface by saying I am not an instructor, nor am I the world's best pilot. I am what I consider an "Advanced Beginner" (at just a little north of 15k hours). But if you watch your videos you will see you have a perfectly stable approach, or as stable as they get in a 152, but you are too sharp on your flare just before touchdown. You can see you get a quick bobble up before you catch yourself and allow the plane to settle. Try forcing yourself to S-L-O-W-L-Y raise the nose in your flare. The plane will settle into a gentle drift down and you will be much smoother on touchdown. This will come with time. For your first three solo landings I think you should be pretty pleased with the way they worked out. :thumbsup:
 
Threefingeredjack said:
. But if you watch your videos you will see you have a perfectly stable approach, or as stable as they get in a 152, but you are too sharp on your flare just before touchdown. You can see you get a quick bobble up before you catch yourself and allow the plane to settle. Try forcing yourself to S-L-O-W-L-Y raise the nose in your flare. The plane will settle into a gentle drift down and you will be much smoother on touchdown. This will come with time. For your first three solo landings I think you should be pretty pleased with the way they worked out. :thumbsup:
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Excellent Catch! I came in kind of high in my opinion, so I throttled back but was still having a hard time getting 60 kts..I was closer to 65. So, as a result I had too much energy and when I pulled back to flare I think that may of been why I bobbled up slightly. But I definitely do need to work on the flare aspect and doing it slowly. Excellent comments thanks!

All these comments are wonderful and making me feel a lot more confident about my solo landings! Thanks everybody! You guys rock!:yes:
 
Looked good, you're starting rounding out a bit high which contributes to that 'looking for the runway' at the bottom, but that'll clear up with more experience as you quit being afraid of the ground and more confident. You may also want to add another flick or two of nose up trim. Carry on, looks like you're doing fine at this point.

If you're fast, toss in a quick slip without dropping the nose and you can lose 5 kts in an instant. If you find yourself consistently hot and highe at the bottom, start aiming for a point further before the threshold when you make your turn from base.
 
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Thanks Henning!

You know, my instructor hasn't taught me/mentioned to me at all about trimming for landing..I trim right now for take off/departure climb/level/sharp turns but not landing...you know what, next solo pattern work I do if I remember I'll give it a try and see what happens..

Concerning being too high what I tried doing instead was extending my downwind down a bit further, therefore making my final longer and giving me more time to drop down. There's a residential neighborhood with a lot of older big trees near the approach end of that runway though so I guess I'd rather be too high then too low..and it was still manageable anyways. Had I been at 60 kts I think things would of been excellent.

Thanks for taking the time to review my videos and share this high with me! :)
 
Nice job! I'd try keeping your last landing a little less blurry, but not bad for the first solo. :D
 
Looks good for the first three.

The early round-out looked more to me like someone getting used to the aircraft being lighter than they've ever flown it -- without that heavy dude in the right seat. ;)

You'll know to slow up a touch more at lighter weights with time. And not pulling that fast. Smooooooth.

During future solo work, you can cheat a little and put more fuel on board to replace lost CFI weight. Heh.

Nice work! Congrats again.
 
Hahaha, You're very right DenverPilot! That 152 was DEFINITELY handling a lot different without that extra weight. Between the less weight and the ability to breath without being smooshed..it was a whole new experience!

Our 152's usually have a full tank anyways..so no luck for me cheating there!

Thanks again for the kind words!
 
gkaiser said:
Thanks Henning!

You know, my instructor hasn't taught me/mentioned to me at all about trimming for landing..I trim right now for take off/departure climb/level/sharp turns but not landing...you know what, next solo pattern work I do if I remember I'll give it a try and see what happens..

Concerning being too high what I tried doing instead was extending my downwind down a bit further, therefore making my final longer and giving me more time to drop down. There's a residential neighborhood with a lot of older big trees near the approach end of that runway though so I guess I'd rather be too high then too low..and it was still manageable anyways. Had I been at 60 kts I think things would of been excellent.

Thanks for taking the time to review my videos and share this high with me! :)
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Try this next time, take a Whiteout pen or bottle with you. Go up and trim the plane to fly level hands off at 60kts and take your white out and mark where that is on the trim indicator. Now slow down to minimum controllable airspeed and trim for that and note how many flicks of the trim wheel it required.

When you head in for a landing and complete your base to final turn, trim to that mark for your approach. When you get to your round out height, add the extra flicks of trim in for your landing. See what that does for you.
 
gkaiser said:
Excellent idea! I'll try it next week when I go up..Thanks!
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No worries, also if you taxi around for a bit in a wheelie, you'll get a better landing sight picture to aim for burned into your brain which will help as well to get you flared down on the runway instead of 10' over it.
 
The landings look a bit flat or is that just the videos fault?
 
I was thinking about once I am allowed to leave the pattern solo going to another local airport with a longer runway (ours is only 2800) that I can try to touch down on the mains and hold that wheel off for as long as possible to get the sight picture down...

Atleast right now I'm making comfortable, safe landings..its just a matter of fine tuning it now and working on adding some crosswind...
 
gkaiser said:
I was thinking about once I am allowed to leave the pattern solo going to another local airport with a longer runway (ours is only 2800) that I can try to touch down on the mains and hold that wheel off for as long as possible to get the sight picture down...

Atleast right now I'm making comfortable, safe landings..its just a matter of fine tuning it now and working on adding some crosswind...
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No need at all, just taxi out to the runway like you're gonna take off and when the nose comes up, reduce power to keep it on the runway, when you approach the end, shut it down and turn off. There is no need to fly first or be solo even for this.
 
Henning said:
No need at all, just taxi out to the runway like you're gonna take off and when the nose comes up, reduce power to keep it on the runway, when you approach the end, shut it down and turn off. There is no need to fly first or be solo even for this.
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Why didn't I think of that earlier? That makes perfect sense and is a heck of alot easier.
 
gkaiser said:
Why didn't I think of that earlier? That makes perfect sense and is a heck of alot easier.
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This could be dangerous with a 2800ft runway. I know I wouldn't do that unless I am on at least a 4000ft runway.
 
Yea, a 4000ft runway would definitely give you longer time to do it..whereas a 2800ft would only give you 3-5 seconds or so I'd think before you need to idle it.
 
gkaiser said:
Yea, a 4000ft runway would definitely give you longer time to do it..whereas a 2800ft would only give you 3-5 seconds or so I'd think before you need to idle it.
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When you are on your local solo's find a nearby uncontrolled airport with long runways and give it a try!
 
You did all three landings, congratulations! There is always plenty of room for criticism of anyones first solo landings, yours looked as good as anyone else's. You are well on your way... your a pilot.

-John
 
MultiMediaWill said:
When you are on your local solo's find a nearby uncontrolled airport with long runways and give it a try!
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Yea..that might be a better safer idea...theres an airport that maybes a 10 minute flight away with a 4300 x 75 runway...much better for that sort of activity then our 2800 x 38 runway!
 
John Baker said:
You did all three landings, congratulations! There is always plenty of room for criticism of anyones first solo landings, yours looked as good as anyone else's. You are well on your way... your a pilot.

-John
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Thanks John! I'm getting more and proud of myself..Runway at our airport is 2800 x 38..so not that forgiving on width...and I did pretty good according to everybody's opinion! Hearing all the positive comments really make me feel better about my landings and more confident in my abilities!

Thanks John!
 
gkaiser said:
Yea..that might be a better safer idea...theres an airport that maybes a 10 minute flight away with a 4300 x 75 runway...much better for that sort of activity then our 2800 x 38 runway!
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Wow 38ft wide! The smallest I have landed on was 3600 x 50 at Clow (1C5). I couldn't imagine only 38 feet!
 
MultiMediaWill said:
Wow 38ft wide! The smallest I have landed on was 3600 x 50 at Clow (1C5). I couldn't imagine only 38 feet!
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Wow, I never realized Clow was only 50 wide! Yep, Check out my airport, Westosha (5K6)...Runway 03/21 is 2849x38..asphalt/concrete in fair condition..and the grass strip is 1517 x 45....the lightning on the primary runway looks pretty crappy...can't wait to do my night flights and really experience it.

The runway alignment of 03/21 usually gives us a crosswind too..I figure it's a good training/learning airport...if I can put it down on a 38ft wide runway with a crosswind and still be on the center line or pretty darn close..i'm doing good.
 
Nice job, Greg.

Landing flare finally came together for me when I stopped thinking of it as trying to raise the nose (or lower the tail). Now I get across the threshold and just slow the plane down to stall speed. By that time the nose is up, I'm hearing the stall warning, and mains are a few inches off the pavement. Then it just settles on the main gear with a nice little chirp, and I hold full up elevator to keep the nose wheel up as long as I can unless I'm trying for an early turn-off. I basically adopted more of a "soft field landing" technique, which did wonders for my landings. Before that, I'd been more intent on plopping it down on the numbers or on the bars... the results were inconsistent, and not all that good.
 
Dale,

I need to work on smoothing out my landings...I'm finding myself frequently plopping down on the numbers like you said. That's why I've learned speed management is so important and coming in right at that correct speed so you can stall it a few inches off the ground. Something I gotta keep working on!

Thanks for the nice words Dale!
 
gkaiser said:
Thanks John! I'm getting more and proud of myself..Runway at our airport is 2800 x 38..so not that forgiving on width...and I did pretty good according to everybody's opinion! Hearing all the positive comments really make me feel better about my landings and more confident in my abilities!

Thanks John!
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You will find that the narrower runways are always the easiest. Wait until your first really wide runway, it screws you all up. Even the most experienced, if they had their druthers, would pick the narrow runway over the wide one. The centerline is the same in all of them, but your peripheral vision views them all differently in the last few seconds.

-John

-
 
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John,

I guess I could see that...you have to be more precise with the narrow runway and people just get sloppy with a wide one...I've gone to wider runways a few times but obviously never during a solo phase....
 
gkaiser said:
John,

I guess I could see that...you have to be more precise with the narrow runway and people just get sloppy with a wide one...I've gone to wider runways a few times but obviously never during a solo phase....
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I added more to my post while you were posting this.

-John
 
gkaiser said:
Yea, a 4000ft runway would definitely give you longer time to do it..whereas a 2800ft would only give you 3-5 seconds or so I'd think before you need to idle it.
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Ok, so he gets 3-5 seconds of kin esthetic exposure for an inputted 7 seconds, though I have no idea where your numbers come from, I'll grant them.

This compares to 1/10 of a second exposure for an inputted 6 minutes, typically highly stressfully ones at that that are the routine in standard methodology.

Given the cost of time in a plane, which scenario do you believe should come first in the order of primacy?

The key issue in learning to land is having that sight picture target to transition to, an aiming point in a three dimensional transition. It's providing the central focus anchor of a new sensation experience. Our brains are very adaptive and perceptive, it doesn't take a lot of exposure to put it all together, but when the exposure is so rarified as in a landing flare, it takes hours at best so it makes sense to take advantage of any advantage to the process you can get.

Also there is no reason to fear a wheelie, very controllable. If you carry full flap you should be in the rocking chair in a 152 by about 25kts, pull the throttle back to maintain, trim full up.
 
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John,

Now i'm anxious to go to a nice wide runway airport and see what happens solo! Hah
 
Henning,

I've written down all your suggestions to try. My instructor is going out of town for 2 weeks shortly and wants me to go up once or twice and do solo pattern work..so I can put all your great suggestions to work and see what happens...
 
All I can say is that you operated the airplane better than the guy running the camera! Was he not looking through the viewfinder?
 
Marauder said:
All I can say is that you operated the airplane better than the guy running the camera! Was he not looking through the viewfinder?
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Hahahha...he recorded it on either his iphone or iPad..and the 3rd landing was absolutely blurry/horrible.....but hey,the first two came out decent.....
 
gkaiser said:
Henning,

I've written down all your suggestions to try. My instructor is going out of town for 2 weeks shortly and wants me to go up once or twice and do solo pattern work..so I can put all your great suggestions to work and see what happens...
Click to expand...

Cool, another exercise is deriving 1.2 and 1.3 Vso speeds at actual weight. Measure your stall speed, enter it into the IAS-CAS conversion table, multiply by the given factors, reverse enter the table and find your short and normal/soft approach speeds when solo as well.

You do this and you have your aiming point in energy coming into the flare now you have a progression of two reference points, at the beginning and end of the flare. When combined with your aim point in altitude and distance to begin the round out, you now have considerably reduced your unknowns. That's the thing about learning flying, it's infantile in that you are learning new sensory perceptions, and it's been a long time since most of us have been infants so we forget that elemental process of learning.
 
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gkaiser said:
John,

I guess I could see that...you have to be more precise with the narrow runway and people just get sloppy with a wide one...I've gone to wider runways a few times but obviously never during a solo phase....
Click to expand...

I prefer the smaller runways because they required more attention and skill.
 
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