What I am finding I have difficulty with is breaking everything down into simpler formulas. Such as when your on the downwind, you need to lower this and raise this, look for this and turn this off...oh, your on base so now you need this, turn this off, and flip this switch...ok? Got it?
I’m just going to flow with it.
Let me ask a question. Did your instructor take you to the practice area FIRST before starting pattern work and build a series of simpler tasks out there that can be strung together to make a standard airport pattern?
Level flight, climbs, descents, turns, now climbing turns, descending turns... you get the idea.
These things are listed in the ACS as separate tasks for a reason. Building blocks.
Building blocks! Simple repeatable building blocks. This is how you break it down.
Literally all that you should be dealing with early on, from downwind to landing is this :
Final landing checklist. Always. (There’s some switches to throw here sometimes. That’s the last time. If you were in a retract this is also where the gear must go down. Done. Complexity over.)
Abeam the landing point. Descend. (Reduce power, add first notch of flaps. That’s it. You should have done this before in the practice area.) Constant airspeed descent. The airplane should WANT to do this if you were trimmed just by the power reduction alone.
(Point here: In some airplanes instructors can start you off without the flap changes even if they want to. It’s airplane and student dependent.)
45 degrees off of the runway. Turn. (Again, already done in the practice area.) Constant airspeed descending turn. Maybe we’ll slow a little. Pitch for airspeed.
Perpendicular to the runway. Stop turn. (We’ve seen what happens here in the practice area. You got back all that lift you lost to the vertical component of lift being lower in the turn. Might have to re-trim and adjust power.)
Descend some more. Add another notch of flaps. (Same as the first descent. Instructor can manage power setting here or discuss that you’re adding drag. Pitch for airspeed, power for descent rate.)
Just prior to the runway so you don’t fly past it. Turn. (Same as before. See? Easy. )
Lined up with runway. Final landing checks, runway number check, landing clearance check. Always.
Let the airplane fly down to 5’ above the runway (pitch for airspeed, power for descent).
Transition eyeballs further down the side of the runway as the runway gets big in the window so you can tell how high you are.
5’ above runway. Reduce power smoothly to idle while simultaneously pitching up to not let the nosewheel touch first and keep pulling.
Mains touch, keep pulling. Don’t let the nosewheel land.
When it finally does, braking as needed to exit the runway.
Radios, traffic, sometimes crosswind correction (pick the right days), flaps even if needed, you name it...
ALL the other stuff the instructor CAN offload. ALL of it.
They can add it all back in one thing at a time, after starting with removing too many balls for you to juggle.
Fly the basics to create a pattern. Fly the pattern to create an approach that puts you where you want on the runway. Fly the nosewheel to keep it off.
All those basics include component parts like combining aileron with rudder to make a coordinated turn. Combining a flap change (drag change) with a change in pitch. Knowing a power change affects descent or climb rate.
ALL of that... was taught in the practice area. First.
Then you just string them together.
If he’s not teaching building blocks I’m going to peer over my old man glasses at him or her and say, “Why didn’t you teach the student to juggle one ball before juggling ten?”
Don’t try to think of it as a mess of things to do. Think of it as doing one thing you already learned. A constant airspeed descent. Now a constant airspeed descending turn. Another level descent. Another turn.
Learn the components inside each of those things and know those first.
If I say “constant airspeed level descent” you should be able to do that just as if I was your music instructor and said “play a C major scale”.
There’s seven notes inside that scale at the detail level but you already learned that and practiced it. You just play the scale.
Now I say “constant airspeed descending turn”. You do it. There’s rudder and aileron inputs to roll to about 30 degrees and then hold it. But that’s the details. You should already have done that in the practice area.
“Back to a straight ahead constant airspeed descent.” Easy!
“Another turn.” Easy!
You don’t even HAVE to land out of it. I could say “constant airspeed straight ahead climb” at 100’ off the ground.
Guess what you did? You put the power up, the nose on the horizon, you added right rudder (all details you learned in the practice area) and the airplane climbed. What do we call that?
A go-around. Easy!
See how that practice all joins together?
Hope that helps. And I hope your instructor is using building blocks like that!
At the VERY beginning this all needs to be broken down to component parts. Many instructors, quite frankly, SUCK at this. Familiarity leads them to forget you’re over there thinking “what the hell is a constant airspeed straight ahead descent?!”
Learn the component parts. Learn the names we call things. And then string them together to make an airport pattern. String those basics into making an approach.
Make sense?
Reading it alone won’t cut it. You will have to go practice each component. Then put them together.
