On Oct 26, 2:11*pm, Surfer! wrote:
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

Just yesterday I heard another instructor say he coaches his students
to look for the aimpoint a certain distance out the wing when they're
flying level. For his plane (K-21) it works if the aimpoint is about
a
third of the wing out.

Another method I suggest is to find telephone poles. In the US,
barring other circumstances (like having to go around curves) the
poles are spaced about 200 feet apart. When you cross a road
count how many telephone poles to a point 45 degrees below
level you see from your flight path. 5 poles is 1000 feet.

I'll also point out that you've gotten a good demonstration of how
hard it really is to measure distances with your eyes. You can
get a rough idea but ultimately you won't be that accurate.
However, by using the angles around the pattern you can
make a safe approach.

-- Matt