Timbuff10
Well-Known Member
Well, not really scary but it sure got my attention!
Had a lesson this morning looking to teach some ground ref, stalls and slow flight. Everything was calm on the ground, one pirep reporting it getting a bit bumpy up top but good enough for stuff other than a discovery flight. Took off, my student did a nice takeoff, even remembered to wait to make his turn till he got within 300' of TPA... Nice! Then the bumps started, light to moderate, then a few occasions of severe started mixing in... Great, I guess we will wait on stalls and slow flight for a while, down to do ground ref and still really bumpy, then we start getting the up and downdrafts, climbed back up and got some thousand feet per minute up and downdrafts. At first I thought it was the student but he wasn't really doing anything to create a 4 digit # appear on the VSI. The more we bumped along through the sky heading back to the airport the worse it got. Even started to get that not so good feeling in my stomach. It is amazing how if you take the controls for a minute you feel better, anyone else ever notice this little psychological tool to use on yourself?
So we finally made it back to the airport and my student is doing the landing, every thing looks fine, I remember the up/downdrafts from up north and am discussing the go around procedure with my student. We keep our airspeed up and just use 10 degrees of flaps too. As soon as we cross over the airport fence we get a downdraft that keeps increasing. Descending pretty good at this point and I am adding in full power and pretty much have the controls. Even with the full power of the new 172 and pitching for Vx we are still descending at about 500 fpm. Right before we are about to slam down on the runway, I finally am able to hold the altitude and start a go around. Ended up landing just fine after that but geez that was a bit more than I had anticipated...
After we landed the controller asked us for a pirep... I guess he watched the first attempt at the landing!
Had a lesson this morning looking to teach some ground ref, stalls and slow flight. Everything was calm on the ground, one pirep reporting it getting a bit bumpy up top but good enough for stuff other than a discovery flight. Took off, my student did a nice takeoff, even remembered to wait to make his turn till he got within 300' of TPA... Nice! Then the bumps started, light to moderate, then a few occasions of severe started mixing in... Great, I guess we will wait on stalls and slow flight for a while, down to do ground ref and still really bumpy, then we start getting the up and downdrafts, climbed back up and got some thousand feet per minute up and downdrafts. At first I thought it was the student but he wasn't really doing anything to create a 4 digit # appear on the VSI. The more we bumped along through the sky heading back to the airport the worse it got. Even started to get that not so good feeling in my stomach. It is amazing how if you take the controls for a minute you feel better, anyone else ever notice this little psychological tool to use on yourself?
So we finally made it back to the airport and my student is doing the landing, every thing looks fine, I remember the up/downdrafts from up north and am discussing the go around procedure with my student. We keep our airspeed up and just use 10 degrees of flaps too. As soon as we cross over the airport fence we get a downdraft that keeps increasing. Descending pretty good at this point and I am adding in full power and pretty much have the controls. Even with the full power of the new 172 and pitching for Vx we are still descending at about 500 fpm. Right before we are about to slam down on the runway, I finally am able to hold the altitude and start a go around. Ended up landing just fine after that but geez that was a bit more than I had anticipated...
After we landed the controller asked us for a pirep... I guess he watched the first attempt at the landing!
