- I'm starting to believe getting good rest really matters. Every day I get up at 6:30pm and every night I went to bed around 12:30am. I was really tired for both flights. We usually go about 90 minutes but I decided the call the second flight at 70 minutes between the crosswinds, being really tired and hot.
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- Interesting pattern experience. Right before we turned final we were told to extend the base and then about 15 seconds later given a 270 to final. As they called the turn I started the turn immediately and then responded on the radio (doing two things at once!). But we were going so slow, flaps 20 that the instructor jumped in to get the speed and altitude up. My immediate instinct was to add power but I didn't add enough. We weren't descending. But were getting way to far from the airport at that speed and altitude. So I learned a lot there. Never knew you could have a base altered like that. And get the plane up and moving again.
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- No flying this weekend but I'm gonna chair fly and work on divorcing my hands from my feet
Fatigue is real. If you're tired, stop. The instructor will understand. Speak up. They don't always know.
Controllers asking for odd things is often a trigger for the first link in an accident chain. Always think carefully about what needs to happen when they do that. In this case you were really needing to essentially transition the airplane back to slow cruise flight. Add enough power to level off and maybe think about coming back up to 10 on the flaps, but that last part is optional. Just remember, more flaps, more drag, so you need more power for level flight. Not too surprising the instructor jumped in there but next time and any time you get oddball requests from controllers you're not used to, think "Do I need to reconfigure and fly this any differently?" It wasn't so much your distance from the airport that dictated your speed needs... it was that you were essentially asked to go fly around for a bit. No longer on an approach? Speed up to at least a slow cruise speed and fly normally. Good experience. Low level maneuvering while slow and not descending (so you need power!) is a recipe for a stall when distracted thinking about how you'll be re-entering the approach/landing pattern.
Feet and hands: Part of what you really want is to visualize connecting them to your eyes and specific movements. If the nose is wagging left and right or not pointed straight down the runway, step on a rudder pedal and FIX exactly that.
If the glidepath isn't exactly what you want on the way down final, or the nose isn't coming up above the horizon at the FAR end of the runway (make sure you look waaaaay down there, not directly off the end of the nose... when landing) in the flare, use the elevator to FIX exactly that.
Ailerons, if you're being taught to land with a wing low in a crosswind, visualize seeing the left right drift across the runway laterally. Crosswind from the left let's say: Sliding left? Less left bank. Sliding right, more left bank. Make the movement stop. FIX exactly that.
Once you connect those movements and stopping them to the individual controls, then you'll recognize the interactions between them. But you'll make progress because you're making the airplane stop unwanted motion or putting the horizon exactly where you want it below the cowl. A way to look at this is "Never let a motion happen that you don't want. Stop it with the appropriate control."
You're right to chair fly it. You'll start to see the relationships from things you know.
Visualize everything right but the airplane is sliding left. Left crosswind. You're on final.
Take some of your bank to the left out. The slide has stopped but the nose is starting to swing to the right.
Now that right rudder you were holding to counteract the nose wanting to go to the left into a turn is too much. Stop it by releasing some pressure on that right rudder pedal. Whatever pressure it takes to make it stop moving right. Line the nose up with the runway again.
Now since you've lowered your bank and taken some of the slip out by releasing that rudder pressure, the lift vector is stronger straight up and less to the side. The airplane wants to go up or at least flatten out. Keep that pitch angle to the runway the same with the elevator. You might also need to ever so slightly pull some power off. Airspeed may be climbing just a tad.
See how that works?
In gusty conditions you might end up doing this over and over and over correcting whatever is moving that you see with your eyes, all the way down to the runway. Constantly correcting for any movement you don't want. That's the name of the game in landings.
There's also cues for your eyes for speed but remember where the wind is coming from. With any headwind today's landing will look slower out the windows because your groundspeed is slower. Calm day, it'll look faster. Tailwind it'll look way too fast, but hopefully you're not doing that!
Hope that helps give you some thoughts on how to chair fly and visualize it. Same thing in the airplane. Put the airplane on a nice lined up and on speed approach and then make any undesired movement laterally, or angle of the nose, or in altitude or pitch angle changes -- STOP moving that way -- with the individual controls.
And of course don't forget... when in the training environment we tend to "fight through it" and attempt landings anyway. You can ALWAYS go around. Same thing on a go around. Cram, clean, climb. Once you've added that power make sure your airspeed is back up or do whatever it takes to fly level and get some flaps up and then transition to making it look just like the angle of the last takeoff. Visualize doing some go-arounds in your chair flying too!
Have fun! Don't worry about the 20 hours. You've got a little bit more to deal with in the 182 and it'll all "click" as soon as you really get on that "don't let it move" bandwagon! Point that nose on a line down the runway with rider. Stop that drift with more or less bank. Hold that pitch angle and adjust power a bit to keep airspeed and sink rate right down the glidepath and don't let your aim point go up or down the window.
You got this. Disconnecting feet from hands is simple. Feet move for nose movement. Hands move for lateral slide or pitch angle. The instructor I had liked to exaggerate these movements a bit for the student and would wag the rudder and say, "see the nose going left and right? That's the movement we don't want. Point the nose down the runway with your feet." Same thing with he lateral slide to the left or right in a slip. And "do we want the nose up this high? Or down this low?" as he'd move the elevator. "No. We want it right here..."
Lock those movements to those control inputs in your head. Only when all that movement you don't want stops then let it land. Keep coming back on the yoke and hold it level above the runway at about a foot or two and don't let it touch down. As it slows the elevator becomes less effective so each tiny pull back in the yoke gets a little and little bigger until touchdown. All the controls are that way. Less movement when fast, bigger control movements when slow.
You'll see this as more of that unwanted movement as you slow. You'll need more control deflection to stop it when you get real slow in the flare.
Make sense? Like I said, hope that helps! Give it a try. Once set up on a nice aligned approach on glidepath and airspeed, concentrate hard and don't let anything move.
