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Free Flight to Landing

Free flight to the circuit is normally a green situation for the instructor, and the student should progress quite quickly from following through on the controls to doing virtually all of the flying. The exception again is when the instructor is asking for more intellectual participation from the student. For emphasis this means that the instructor is not on the controls when the student is practising, and demonstrations are limited. The Basic stage student should not have too many judgement responsibilities other than locating the airfield, and attempting to judge the 300' decision height and the 1000' circuit entry height.

In the circuit the student progresses from only following through on the controls during the circuit, to performing the pre-landing checks, and doing the turn from downwind onto the base leg. A lot of things happen quickly past this point, and it is better for the instructor to take control and revert to a descriptive mode.  The student should not be following through on the controls at the lower altitudes, essentially once the aircraft is on final. As with the takeoff, this experience will be left until after the student has done the slow-flight exercises at the end of the basic stage.

During the landing as with the takeoff, for basic stage students the landing is only described by the instructor. This is still a red situation, until the aircraft is moved off of the active runway. The proper post-landing sequence of events is to get out of the aircraft, rotate it 90 degrees to the landing path, check for traffic, and then move the aircraft to a safe location away from the active runway. Even at this stage the situation is still yellow, until the aircraft is either properly secured, or readied for another flight. Even if operations are quiet, this is a fundamental habit that should be emphasized. The flight is not over just because the aircraft has stopped.

Post-flight debriefings should be focused on the problems of controlling and monitoring the aircraft. Even if the student has lots of questions, you risk giving them more information than they can reasonably absorb.