BEAT THE BI-ANNUAL BLUES Your  PPL Examiner’s light-hearted look at helping you smooth out those two-yearly check rides. By - Peter Lawton 

You have probably come across the old saying ‘Those that can – do.  Those that can’t – teach.  Those that can’t teach – examine’. You can now see how becoming an examiner has been a natural progression for me.  It is in my non-doing, non-teaching capacity of having sat with many dozens of different pilots wishing to revalidate or renew their flying licences that the idea of flagging up the most commonly occurring errors/misunderstandings/omissions noticed over the years was born.  The pilot under test here (sometimes referred to as ‘you’) is entirely fictitious, and having allowed his Single Engine Piston (land) rating to expire, he has had to fly a Navigation Test in addition to a General Handling Test. What follows is a compendium of some of the more interesting mistakes observed over hundreds of flights and compressed into one single trip, flown for you today by Mr Composite. We are now enjoying the traditional post flight cup of tea, and I have arranged for you to sit in on the debrief of the sortie.  I’ll spare you the pre flight planning and weight and balance elements and cut straight to the flight.

Climb to Altitude ‘As you rightly observed,  raising the flaps all in one swift movement did produce a noticeable sink, the effect of which would have been less alarming had we been above 200 feet with a positive rate of climb and the flaps had been retracted in stages.Once established in the climb, we both experienced brief periods of weightlessness every 1000 feet so that you could complete your lookout checks.  While this is a method taught in some schools, it still does not reveal another aircraft climbing from under your nose, and is likely to produce a higher usage of sick bags amongst your passengers.  The weaving technique works better all round. 

Levelling off and Navigation ‘Applying the Power – Attitude – Trim sequence for changing the aircraft’s flight mode is fine under most circumstances, but it doesn’t work so well when levelling off, as you discovered.  It took most of the first leg of your navigation exercise to get the deviations from altitude, heading and airspeed within acceptable limits, during which the errant Direction Indicator led us 30° off track and the stopwatch remained stubbornly at zero.  Hats off to Distress and Diversion (121.5MHz) for providing you with a heading and distance back to base…You were so busy trying to fly the aeroplane – including a large amount of trimming and re trimming - that FREDA checks and basic navigation suffered to the extent that we had became uncertain of position (or lost to be more precise). 

A more successful method of levelling off is; gradually pitch the aircraft forward into the straight and level attitude, leaving climb power selected until the expected cruise airspeed is achieved.  Adjust power to the expected cruise value then finally trim.If you can maintain level flight i.e. keeping the Vertical Speed Indicator on zero whilst using the above A-P-T sequence, the whole operation is completed quickly and accurately.  If you then find yourself over-trimming, it is usually due to variations in airspeed.  Pilots tend to trim for a steady attitude, but the aircraft is actually trimmed for the airspeed which existed when the final tweak of the trim was applied.  Airspeed fluctuations in level flight are usually caused by rising or descending air, where power adjustment is the preferred and more comfortable method of keeping everything on the numbers.  

General Handling Turning ‘One of the few downsides of aircraft handling is that aeroplanes have a tendency to yaw in the opposite direction to aileron application.  By not using the rudder pedals at all when rolling into or out of a turn, you are accepting out-of-balance forces that will increase drag and feel uncomfortable for your passengers – all for the sake of a touch of rudder.  Application of rudder in most light aircraft needs to be proportional to the degree of aileron deflection.  This can be achieved by imagining a rod connecting each side of the control yoke to your kneecaps.  You can simulate this by making two fists, placing one on each knee and hooking your thumbs over the inner part of the yoke. Applying aileron will force the knees to move and bear down on the same side rudder.  A small aileron movement will thus produce a small rudder deflection and a large aileron movement will automatically create a proportionally greater rudder movement. Common errors are over-/under-banking and holding “bottom” rudder during the turn.  Generally, rudder and aileron should remain mostly neutral during the turn, while the elevator is being used to maintain level.  An occasional glance at the balance ball should help confirm that all is well. If the aircraft you fly has a stick, then the visualisation of rods connecting the stick top to your kneecaps is not so clearly imagined, but a good exercise is to roll slowly one way to 45° angle of bank using a small deflection of stick and rudder.  Centralise both controls to momentarily hold the 45° angle, and then apply a much larger movement of stick with rudder rolling briskly to 45° AOB the other way.  If your control inputs were harmonious, the ball should have remained central throughout, and you should be rolling round a distant reference point.  Vintage types may behave more unpredictably, and require specific instruction.  

Steep Turns are complicated by having to add power as the turn is entered and applying back pressure on the control column before you reach 45° AOB.  Poor coordination here often results in a spiral descent.  Monitoring the VSI will help to avoid busting the ±100ft limit.  Having a clear, accurate picture of where you expect the horizon to cut through the nose in a left or right turn is the secret to having the aircraft running round the turn as if on rails.  This can only be achieved with practice.     

Stalling ‘When I asked you to prepare us for the stalling exercise, my expectation was that you would carry out a HASELL check. Instead you closed the throttle, and pointed the nose skywards, at which point I took control of the aircraft.  It is important that the stall is entered from level flight (VSI zero); zooming upwards is great fun, but can result in a violent hammerhead stall from which you may recover the aircraft, but possibly not your desire to fly ever again.   One common error approaching the stall is to attempt to pick up a wing drop using ailerons.  This action often results in exacerbating the original wing drop, occasionally morphing into a full blooded spin.If a wing does drop close to the stall i.e. with the stall warner activated, or with some light to heavy buffet, the correct action is to apply sufficient opposite rudder to prevent the wing dropping further.  At the same time you should be moving the control column forward and applying full power to unstall the aircraft.  As soon as you are clear of stall warnings, and/or buffet, you can level the wings with aileron. As this point, another common error is to rush the act of pitching from the ensuing dive into a climb.  Doing this too soon (i.e. before, say, 1.3 x the IAS at which the stall occurred) can produce a secondary stall; this one potentially more bad mannered than the first, as you now have maximum power applied giving greater potential for out-of-balance forces which again could herald a spin. 

Practice Forced Landing ‘When I simulated an engine failure in the cruise by pulling the power back to idle, your subsequent actions hindered rather than helped the situation.Letting the nose drop and diving the aircraft at the ground stands only a very small chance of ending with a survivable landing. If instead you had brought the old Aviate-Navigate-Communicate ditty into play, not only would the aeroplane have been trimmed at its best glide speed (you must know this value before you go flying) but you would have had more time and distance to choose a more suitable into-wind landing area than the High Street, as well as a pattern via a low key reference point.  If the restart checks are to no avail, secure the aircraft before touchdown with an F - I – R - E check; Fuel – off, Ignition – off, Radio – check Mayday call given and 7700 set on the transponder, Electrics – master switch off when no longer required.  A passenger brief would have been another bonus prior to impact.  

Rejoining the circuit As there was no-one manning the air-to-ground radio you elected to try a standard overhead join.  To be fair, it is quite easy to become disorientated whilst descending on the dead side then to overfly the wrong end of the runway as you attempted to.  Then, as you discovered, it is almost irresistible to fly round the circuit against the traffic pattern, which is inherently quite dangerous, and if you managed to dodge all the aircraft coming the other way, you would be setting yourself up to land on the downwind runway, with further perils to deal with. Having prevented you from flying across the runway onto the live side, we repositioned overhead and made our descending turn on the dead side IN THE SAME DIRECTION AS THE CIRCUIT, which gave us more of a fighting chance of joining with the other traffic as opposed to against it. 

The Circuit  By ignoring the wind and not rechecking the Direction Indicator, you became the architect of a peculiarly shaped circuit.  Regardless of where the aircraft is actually pointing the object is to create a rectangular track over the ground, as opposed to the trapezoidal pattern which we flew.  With  the wind blowing us into the circuit, we naturally converged with the runway.  This was compounded on base leg with a tailwind which made the leg too short to descend with flap and turn safely onto final to be wings level, on the centre-line at 500ft at the target airspeed. Statistically there are two “graveyard zones” in most conventional circuit patterns (i.e. where most fatal accidents occur).  The first is the initial turn after take-off (low, slow, too much bank, out of balance – you can guess the rest).  The other danger zone is the turn onto final, as described above, where the wind (or misjudgement) has taken you through the centre-line, and in your attempt to counter this, you have subconsciously increased the angle of bank and are now pulling hard to salvage the approach and avoid the dreaded go-around procedure.  Again we encounter the low, slow, loading up (increased stalling speed) combo which can lead to a spin if any out-of-balance force is introduced. So, when I instructed you to go-around, you did at least remember the advice I gave you earlier about being too hasty with the flap retraction.  Unfortunately, by leaving the carburettor  heat set to ‘hot’ the engine was never going to be able to provide us with full power, and this aspect was exacerbated by your ramming of the throttle hard against the instrument panel, which provided the finest example of a rich cut that I have seen in a long time.   This, combined with carrying full flap put us in a fairly challenging situation, way off  the centre-line, faced with a landing in the club car park.I do apologise for elbowing you in the ribs at that point, but I think you can see now that I needed to persuade you to release all the controls so that I could return the carb heat to cold, ease the throttle back until the engine caught, carefully reapply full power, level us off, remove the drag flap and initiate a climb. 

Landing You took control again from the downwind position, this time with the DI synchronised, flying a heading which would track us parallel to the runway.  This time we arrived on final in a strong position from which to make a decent fist at a landing. Down final approach, the wind is seldom steady in speed or direction as your height reduces.  Large corrections to maintain the centre-line should be made with coordinated turns, but small changes can be achieved with a squeeze of rudder.By using this technique you would have avoided continually overcorrecting, resulting in the large number of S-turns we made towards the touchdown point.High angles of bank are undesirable in close proximity to the ground and can cause further passenger discomfort.As we were a little fast over the threshold, the crosswind was destined to affect our flight longer than it needed to, as we floated gracefully down the runway, ailerons and elevator waggling away as the centre-line marched left-right-left-right under the nose.The touchdown itself was marred by none of the aircraft’s wheels being aligned with that elusive runway centre-line, so considerable side-to-side lurching was inevitable before we were fully under control. 

So, not the shortest of debriefs but I think we have covered most of the points arising.  Do you have any questions?   

Did you PASS? 

I have discovered that examiners fall into two categories – those where the candidate starts with a Fail and has to work towards a Pass, and those where you begin with a Pass but head towards a Fail.I like to think I fall into the second category, as indeed did your flight.  But don’t worry, Mr Composite – it’s nothing that *10/20/30+ hours of dual instruction can’t put right/ try golf*. *delete as appropriate   

Other exercises not covered on this sortie which you should consider prior to  your test 

• Recovering from a spiral descent
• Stalls in different configurations
• Engine failure after take off
• Glide, flapless and short field approaches
• Bad weather circuit

1. 12 hours flown in 12 months preceding expiry of rating to include minimum 6 hours P1 and 1 hour dual with any instructor and licence signed by examiner.
2. Proficiency check with examiner – General Handling only; flown in 3 months preceding expiry of rating.

1. Full licence skill test with examiner – must include navigation and general handling.  Training at CFI’s (or CAA’s if lapse > 5 years) discretion.