On Oct 26, 3:51*am, tstock wrote:
Hi, as a beginner I am still a little rough at this. *I've done 3
successful patterns with no altimeter, but today I failed one
miserably with my instructor. * There were two issues which threw me
off. 1) *we towed higher than the past attempts, and 2) instead of
entering the pattern at a familiar entry point, he had me circle
directly over the airport which made judging the angle a bit
difficult.

While we did eventually land safely, I failed miserably at setting up
the first pattern (way too high) and was forced to land on the
opposite runway (which left me way too low). *A little scary but a
good learning experience... one I do not care to repeat anytime soon.
Snip

It's not easy at first, you will get the hang of it. It is a vital
skill though - flying circuits by landmarks is awful easy to get into
doing, but if you come to land out you must be able to fly a circuit
somewhere you've never, ever seen before.

--
Surfer!
Email to: ramwater at uk2 dot net