Lesson 33, Thruxton Solo

Today was the day for the Thruxton solo flight, I wake up this morning feeling optimistic as the weather outside looked good with clear blue skies and calm wind.

I arrive at Blackbushe early so I can complete the planning which is made easier from the last two visits to Thruxton, plan completed I call Thruxton to 'book in' and whilst on the phone I ask for the runway in use and the weather. The runway at the moment is 25 again which is good for me as I landed on it yesterday, however the weather is not so good, they currently have fog covering the airfield although it was lifting. I tell them I will call back before I leave to check the weather again.

Antonio returns from his first lesson of the day whilst I am starting the 'A' checks on Echo Hotel, he goes in with his student whilst I continue the checks, fuel is below a quarter so I taxi to the pumps and the man fills it to full. I then go back to parking. A little time has now past and I discuss the weather with Antonio, Echo Hotel is needed back at 12:30 and after that it doesn't look likely I will get a plane therefore I decide to call Thruxton again to check the situation now. Happily Thruxton tell me the fog has lifted and is now scattered cloud at 1500ft so I decide to go, if the cloud is too low overhead Thruxton when I get there I will just abort and return back early.

Antonio checks over my plans and briefs me, I think he is reasonably confident as am I. Strangely today I felt totally ready to do this trip. So I set off.

One thing I have been doing recently which has bugged me was allowing my altitude to fluctuate along with my airspeed, I decided shortly after taking off that today I would work on that. I climbed in the circuit to my desired altitude of 2500AMSL crossed the centre of Blackbushe runway and started the six t's, along with obtaining FIS from the nice people at Farnborough Radar. I requested also MATZ penetration however the MATZ was closed today so therefore I was cleared for Odiham MATZ. My first checkpoint was abeam Basingstoke and the moment I arrived I checked my time, absolutely spot-on.. it's a good feeling when the planning all works. My heading also kept me directly on track and my altitude was continously 2500ft with no deviation, so far so good.

At this point I felt really good, I had time to admire the scenery en-route and also felt ahead of the aircraft, thinking back to my first navigation exercises I realise I have made alot of progress. Flying solo gave me more time to think all the time, I was constantly checking my flight parameters such as heading, altitude and airspeed and managed to keep all of them correct.

I arrived at my next checkpoint on time again and began to descend to 1500ft to enter another MATZ as per the arrival rules for Thruxton, whilst descending I made a mistake by telling Farnborough Radar "GOLF ECHO HOTEL is changing frequency to Thruxton on..." rather than requesting frequency change. The controller forgave this and replied "Frequency change approved..". Before long I had Thruxton in sight directly ahead of the aircraft along with a long parade of clouds, at 1500AMSL the clouds were slightly above the canopy which was fortunate, so I requested joining instructions. The circuit here was empty at the moment and I probably could have done a straight in approach but I decided to stick to what I know and do a standard overhead join. During the circuit there was a lot of turbulence and I had to work hard to keep flying straight and level however when I turned final the perspective was good. The final approach was a little bumpy with a headwind that kept dropping off and gusting causing me to play with the power continously to keep on the glideslope, the landing was a greaser just beyond the numbers.. very pleased with that landing.

I got taxi instruction and was told to park between a Cherokee and an Archer which I did, shut down and then proceed to do the check-in/book-out. Whilst there I took a break and bought a coke, sitting outside on a bench with a view accross the airfield. Today was amazing for aircraft, there were a mixture of different older types, including a Boeing Stearman painted in bright colours with the words "Utterly Butterly" painted on the side. I saw it's pilot and crew outside, the crew being an attractive 20 year old girl dressed in a sponsered catsuit, she was a wing-walker. I decided when I get my license rather than buy a GPS unit I am going to get a bar on the top of my aircraft to try and encourage girls in catsuits to be my passengers.

I looked at the time and realised I had to be getting back so I quickly finished the coke and headed back out.

After start-up I taxied the long distance back to the threshold for RW25, seems I was a little slow because as I began my engine warm up checks the Stearman taxied up next to me, he reported he was ready for departure just before I did so I waited while he took the runway, giving me a wave as he passed. Cat-suit girl was sitting in the front seat rather than on the wing/tailplane/ailerons.

The flight back was much the same as the flight over here, I followed the procedures and these kept me on course and on time. Reaching Blackbushe I descended on the dead-side and joined overhead, the turbulence was now pretty bad, at circuit height I was getting thrown around alot. I turned final at a good height and immediately lost the head wind so started sinking real fast, I put on some power to arrest the rapid descent and continued trying to get a nice glide slope, the wind was varying alot and I was having to grip the stick tightly as she tried to roll first one way and then the next and the airspeed indicator was up and down all over the place. I arrived almost on the threshold but was too high so did a go-around. The next circuit was much the same although the final was a little more stable and I landed with a small hop.. darn would have been nice to finish the flight with a good landing but then on the other hand the conditions were not to good.

Antonio congratulated me and we had a few minutes to discuss the exercise, I really enjoyed the flight and it has given me a huge confidence boost. I am starting to feel like a pilot rather than just playing at one.

Next milestone is the qualifying cross country (QXC) which will hopefully take place in the next couple of weeks if the weather is kind. Before then I have some additional navigation lessons and a solo flight to Bournemouth which again should be fun. After that is preperation for the final skill test along with some more instrument practice.

Lesson 32, Thruxton Two

The object today was to complete the Thruxton cross country exercise, due to last attempts dramatics. The weather today was perfect for flying, excellent visibility and 20knt winds at 2,000ft keeping the air clear, en-route there were however alot of thermals which I will talk about shortly.

The planning stage I now find very quick to do and it has become fairly straight forward to use the flight computer. Therefore after a short planning/briefing we were in the air.

I won't go into too much detail as the enroute flight was entirely uneventful, the Navigation this time was good and my radio skills have improved, I am gaining confidence now with the radio. When we had visual with Thruxton we could see two other aircraft in the circuit so I joined overhead and then to the downwind leg, we turned base and just before turning to final, a PA28 called final from 2 miles out. We had him in sight and no doubt he us but he didn't initially appear to want to give way to us and asked if we were going to land, I then turned final and called as such. This distraction was enough to screw my approach a bit I was too high and airspeed was all wrong. I recovered the approach but it gave me alot of work to do in the short final stage. Had I been solo I would have elected to go-around. Anyway the landing itself was good so no harm done. Sadly today we didn't get a chance to use the grass runway (31/13) but instead had the asphalt runway 25.

We parked and Antonio bought me a coke (I forgot to bring any money with me.. doh). We chatted awhile and watched some interesting aircraft coming and going, like a Chipmonk and some Pitts specials a Piper supercub was also in the parking area. I must fly one of those one day!

Time was getting late so we departed back to Blackbushe. Again the return flight was largely uneventful.

Conclusions today, I feel I made progress.. the Navigation was much improved as was the Radio, I made a small mistake on the way out by not descending soon enough for the MATZ Thruxton lives under, but now I have made that mistake I won't do it again. Also I need to practice just maintaining altitude, today was quite difficult as we were flying from thermal to thermal so for the same power setting/attitude the altitude kept rising and falling.

Tomorrow is my first solo land-away again to Thruxton, looking forward to it! :-).

Lesson 31, Thruxton

Good things that happened today; I landed on my first grass runway. Bad things that happened today; the plane was unable to fly us home from aforesaid runway. Fortunately (surprisingly?) through no incompetence on my part/

We are running late again today due to schedule problems and lack of aircraft, fortunately the delay gave me more chance to run through with Antonio all the various radio calls I will need to make. Getting it straight in my head before the flight is a good idea. I prepared the flight plan earlier today along with the route and timings, today’s flight was to Thruxton and is a very easy navigational route. As soon as Lima Sierra was back we went out and carried out the checks, over the past few weeks Lima Sierra has been having a minor problem, when the nav lights are switched on the Low Volt warning light comes on and the Amp meter shows a negative charge. This is still the case today, we started up and taxied with just the Anti-Collision Lights and soon the Low Volt warning light went out.

Once in the air the flight started well, I climbed in the circuit as usual and this time made radio calls for Flight Information Service and MATZ penetration earlier. We were identified on radar just leaving Blackbushe circuit. Excellent, now I immediately entered the frequency for Thruxton ready in advance. My planned heading was to be 261 which I maintained for the next ten minutes, after that time Antonio checked the GPS and pointed out it was also showing 261, all was well. Next I had a brief moment of insanity and once again convinced myself that a small village to the starboard side of the aircraft was a point on the map, telling me we were off course. I therefore decided to break from the planned heading and try to correct the track to what I perceived was to the port side. Dumb.

After a couple of minutes of this lunacy I noticed that other interesting points on the map looked closer than they should be and the stopwatch was reading the time we should be over the village I thought we had just passed. I glance to port and notice oh.. there is the village, requiring us to head back to the track I was originally following. Lesson learnt now I hope, trust my headings and stop fixating on individual navigational points (twice now I have convinced myself that what I am seeing when I look outside matches up to the map based on one single reference).

I place a call through to Thruxton which goes well and proceed to descend to circuit height, we are informed runway 31 is active today which is a grass runway, cool something new. I fly an ok circuit giving myself plenty of downwind time seeing as this is the first time landing here. My approach is pretty poor but then it is a weirdly distracting final to 31, you fly firstly over a small hill which gets pretty damn close then the ground drops away again below before rising again right before the runway. The wind is reasonably strong also and reported gusting to 30knts. I stay on centreline and flare a bit to high as I misjudge the distance to the grass, however the landing is very soft, had that been tarmac we probably would have bounced. Antonio briefed me on the grass runway technique of maintaining back all the time to keep the weight off the front wheel also keeping full flaps set whilst on grass taxing. The grass runway was a new experience but a good one, I am looking forward to doing more grass runway landings, Antonio suggests we come back here and do some touch and goes here to get more practice at the technique.

Thruxton is a nice airfield which has the bonus of being situated in the middle of a race circuit, I imagine bringing my Z4 here for a bit of fun. We head over to the Charlie point and book in and out again then we have to head back again as sadly no time to grab a coffee (also the club here looked closed).

We are all set to leave, turn the engine.. prop spins once or twice and then nothing.. hmm, try again and turn off everything other than the battery, same result. Once more.. and the prop turns a quarter of a turn before running out of juice. Battery is dead.

We leave Lima Sierra on the grass and head back to the tower. They have witnessed our trouble starting her and offer some help, the Katana sadly has no external power point they can attach a jump lead to so we remove the cowling to get to the battery. Soon some rescue services guys arrive and offer to help but we have to bring the aircraft near to the fuel depot to get access to a power lead and charger. We push Lima Sierra the fairly short distance to the pumps and a standard 12Volt charger is attached to the battery, it reads 50% and is set for “quick charge”. Antonio calls the guys back at the Cabair office and lets them know of our problem, they will send another aircraft to pick us up if needed but we are hopeful that the charger given enough time will enable us to start, so we agree to wait for 30 minutes with it charging then try again.

During this time several other aviators come over to ask what the problem is and offer sympathy and their ‘good luck’s. The guy in the tower especially was helpful, lending us the use of his telephone and some advice. We continue to hang around on the racetrack area laughing and lamenting the situation. After awhile we decide to give it another try, as Thruxton is about to close service as a licensed aerodrome, meaning that no rescue or radio services will be provided, we notice that the charger is still reading at 50% and doesn’t appear to have increased at all in the past 40 minutes. We detach the charger and replace the cowling and jump back in. Nope no good, dead battery for sure.

Some suggestions were made whether we could hand crank the prop to get it started but sadly the katana has a Rotax engine which cannot be started like that. We are asked what we are going to do by the tower man, he says we can put the aircraft in their hanger over night as the weather tomorrow will be crap so Antonio and me try and push Lima Sierra into the hanger, the hanger contains several aircraft already but there is a single space available, we soon discover that support beans at the front of the hanger are not wide enough for the Katana’s wings. We spent about 20 minutes trying to fit her in at different angles but it just wasn’t going to work.. so we ended up leaving her half in the hanger and half out the front.  Meanwhile, Thruxton tower called Blackbushe on our behalf and reported that it was a no-go and could they come pick us up.

Shortly afterwards we remained sitting on a bench aside a race track looking across an airfield while the sun slowly began to set. The helpful airfield staff had now gone to were helpful airfield staff go at night and Antonio is having a breakdown of some kind. “There.. there is a rabbit! Look!.. I saw it.. I promise.. can you not see it?”, “Look aircraft on final! See it? Can you see the lights?”… ten minutes later.. “ah it was a bird”. What with the events of the past couple of hours and Antonio’s imaginary rabbits it was turning into a funny surreal night.

After awhile the clubs Piper Warrior arrived with John flying and Peter as instructor (John is getting his check for the Warrior), we jump in and soon are back in the air. Flying as a passenger again is strange but funny thanks to the constant bantering from Peter and Antonio many insults are exchanged in good humour. Everyone has had a pretty long day today I am grateful to them for working late to come pick us up.

The Piper is a very comfortable aircraft I find out, it is fairly new (2001) and has a nice GPS and Avionics system. I think I will try and get checked out on the Piper after the PPL.

At one point during the flight Peter starts to pitch the Piper up and down rapidly to watch Antonio and Me rise and fall in our seats without any power to do anything about it which was pretty funny. The sun now has almost set and we land back at Blackbushe.

Today was good if for no other reason than to see a side of aviation I haven’t seen before also to see the helpfulness of other pilots and the staff at Thruxton who were pretty amazing. Perhaps the value of the lesson was in itself better than a normal lesson.

Lesson 30, New Airport

Today's lesson was a nav flight to a fairly local airport called Thruxton, Thruxton is also a well known racetrack and the racetrack orbits around the runways. This required a bit of research and planning as it will be the first time I have landed anywhere other than Blackbushe. I obtained the airfield information from AIS and carefully plotted the route and times, noting all the radio frequencies I will need, Thruxton has no tower and just operates a Radio service.

Having completed my plan etc I hung around waiting for Antonio to get back, once he returned he briefed me on what I will need to do for this trip including joining the circuit and the frequencies. Thruxton is PPR which means Prior Permission Required, this involved a telephone call however no-one answered and checking the race diary it was discovered that a race was on today and therefore the airfield is closed. Damn.

Ok well rather than do Thruxton it was decided to change plans and fly instead to Bournemouth, this trip is normally done after the Thruxton trip and the solo Thruxton trip. Bournemouth is a world of difference from Thruxton; it is an international airport with Approach, Tower and Ground services and therefore involves clearances and careful flying.

I have to re-plan for Bournemouth as quickly as possible so I complete the new navigation involving three legs there and three legs back. Lots of frequencies to record however Antonio helpfully hands me a laminated Bournemouth plate listing all the details and showing a map of the runway and taxiways. This should be interesting.

Another pilot based at Blackbushe was there today, a good guy who is willing to talk with a lowly student pilot such as myself, he was taking his Sister for a pleasure flight and decided to also go to Bournemouth. We agreed to meet at Bournemouth for a coffee.

Due to the delay in leaving we carried out a quick start-up and taxied out in no time. Soon we were airborne and climbing in the circuit, the weather today was fantastic.. blue skies with only scattered fair weather cumulus and the visibility was amazing. From 2500AMSL above Blackbushe we could see Heathrow in the distance. The first leg of the navigation was uneventful I stayed on track although was slightly behind on the expected time and also obtained Flight Information Service from Farnborough. I reached our destination for the first leg and began circling while I sorted out the radio stuff in my head before proceeding; next I tuned to Bournemouth Approach and made a hesitant call for clearance into their controlled airspace. I read-back ok but to tell the truth I was feeling under pressure and didn't do this confidently, following that step I tuned the ATIS and struggled to hear and record a crackling voice giving information, meanwhile my navigation was going remarkably ok at least till the next waypoint. I found the waypoint, time was good and then placed the call requesting clearance through to the CTA, my read-back was again hesitant and poor although they understood. Around this time I kind of stopped navigating, which is not a good thing.

Continuing into the CTA Antonio pointed out that we were off-track and at one point had climbed above 2000AMSL, something we were explicitly instructed not to do. I turned onto the correct heading and had Bournemouth in sight we were cleared to enter right base for runway 26 following another aircraft. Base leg was flown much further away than I am used to and when turning final we were a little too high, fortunately the final was huge. We got clearance to land and I proceeded to carry out an ok landing, at this point my brain was still trying to catch up to the whole process.

The runway at Bournemouth is simply huge with the centreline appearing to be as wide as the entire cockpit area of the Katana. We are asked to leave the runway at the second exit and then given clearance to taxi to the apron for small aircraft. It is a long taxi and we arrive seeing Brendan's Grumman AA5 parked on the apron, a guy guides us into a parking space with hand gestures.

Phew, that was really hard work.. the final leg of this flight I found my workload was very high and I found it overwhelming. I know this comes with practice but I felt a little out of my depth. Had Antonio not been there instructing me what to say and pointing out my navigation error I could easily have screwed this up badly. The next time I visit Bournemouth I will be solo so I NEED to learn from this experience and take note of everything.

After shutting down we meet with Brendan and his sister and have a drink and smoke, this gives time for a little more reflection. My general navigation I am happy I understand what I need to do and how to accomplish a successful route, however when I throw radio procedures into that it I consistently fall behind the aircraft and the subsequent chain of events seem mind blowing. One lesson to come out of this, prepare ahead of time the next frequency I will need, this means enter it on the radio well ahead of time. Antonio tells me that apparently everyone struggles on their first flight into Bournemouth and therefore I shouldn't be too annoyed about my performance.

Bournemouth airport is pretty cool, we watched a 737 come in to land on runway 26, I am looking forward to coming back here when I have more time.

Sadly due to time constraints we soon have to head back before Blackbushe tower closes for instruction purposes. There is an insurance restriction on Blackbushe that all training flights must end at or before 6pm, kind of a shame really as the summer evenings would be a great time to fly. We set off again and are soon cleared to take-off. The route back is going to have to change if we are going to have any chance of making it back before 6pm so we decide to cut across an area of the route to make it as direct as possible and also to fly at an increased cruise speed of around 110knts. We clear the CTR and change to Farnborough Radar for FIS, and head towards Basingstoke which is visible from a long distance away.

The flight back is much easier as fewer clearances to worry about and my radio calls are better.

We make excellent time and join downwind for Blackbushe at just before 6pm; we are on the ground when 6pm arrives.

Was an interesting lesson and I think I can learn a lot from this experience, Antonio agrees and suggests we do another duel flight around this area just to get additional practice with clearances and read-backs.

On a side note, Peter Wilms who I forgot to mention in an earlier post berated me for not mentioning his name on this blog, so therefore I am mentioning him now. Peter is the chief flying instructor at Cabair and a decent guy held in high esteem by his colleagues and the community at large, he is an inspiration to firstly myself and I am sure many other people. Peter also saved me £60.00 by way of correcting the flight time figures, hence this glowing appraisal ;-).

My next flight is likely to be to Thruxton or perhaps over Southampton in some more restricted airspace, I am hoping to fly once this coming week and after that concentrate on my exams.    

Lesson 29, Controlled Airspace Nav

Blackbushe being close to London offers no shortage of controlled airspace to pass through or transgress depending on intent. To date I have only flown in class G airspace or through military control zones and kept below the London TMA (class A airspace), therefore the point of this navigation lesson is to get some experience of crossing a class D airspace along with loads of RT (radio) practice.

The navigation is also further afield than I have flown before, heading into the Cotswold's which features some pretty nice scenery. For those not familiar with the area, the Cotswold area is hills and valleys featuring many typical Old English villages many of which date back to the 16th century or earlier. Plenty of visual references along the route should make the navigation fairly easy and I feel pretty confident about the nav part of this (mistake).

I arrive for the lesson early so I can get the planning done. I also take it upon myself to annoy the instructors who I think have too little annoyance in their lives and therefore I felt it was my duty to add some. For this purpose I decided to wind my stopwatch for a long time.. "click... click.. cliccccck" and do other distracting things such as measuring my fingers in nautical miles on my ruler, other body parts were also helpfully suggested. The problem with using the aforementioned appendage is it came out at 75NM but then required reduction for exaggeration factor, personally I believe the CAA should regulate that non-standard body parts are not used when calculating flight plans. When informed that usually we just measure thumbs for quick reference on a map I then asked how many thumbs are consumed in weight of fuel over time at 90knts.

Anyway, enough of the foolishness.. on with the report.

Antonio returned and ran through my carefully devised plan, briefing me on the various calls I would need to make and also checking I had all the required frequencies recorded ready.

I pre-flighted LIMA SIERRA which incidentally is becoming second nature now although I still make sure to use the checklist once past the external inspection. We then set off by climbing to 3,000AMSL in the circuit, turning to the calculated heading and started the stopwatch.

The first part was good, we stayed pretty much on our intended track although fairly early on I needed to request permission to transit the Benson MATZ, I put in the frequency for Benson and made the call but got back a reply saying the MATZ was currently inactive therefore we were free to cross. The call I made was not perfect. I then tuned to Brize Norton Radar (LARS) and requested flight following, again not so good. During this period of rapid calls and responses I managed to climb higher than planned for and also deviated slightly from track. I could determine our position visually but didn't immediately correct to bring us back on track (Note to self: don't accept that situation, if the track is wrong.. correct it!) also during this period of time I looked at the time for a checkpoint and realised it hadn't increased from our last checkpoint. This raised several possibilities, either time itself had stopped, we were flying at the speed of light, or my stopwatch had broken. It turned out to be the later, damn damn.. I overwound it back in the club!

Shortly after this discovery it was time to request if the nearby Abingdon gliding field was in use, I made a request to Brize Radar and they informed us it was active and to avoid it. I then made a request to transition the Class D CTR around Brize Norton airfield and was cleared through at 3,000AMSL avoiding Abingdon and maintaining VMC. These calls were better and I managed to read-back the instructions ok although with some hesitation.

I did manage however to maintain track and altitude passing through the CTR which was good and also skirt around Abingdon. We soon cleared the zone and resumed navigation, Antonio managed to get the stopwatch to start again but pretty much my confidence in the timepiece had evaporated. Here I made a silly mistake, I became fixated mentally on finding a railway track I was expecting to see, I didn't spot it. Common sense dictated that ok I probably past it but I ignored that and convinced myself in my head that the wind was carrying us to the west of track (it wasn't) I therefore elected to fly at an altered heading to see if I could spot it.

I knew our position from visual references on the map but still didn't wise up to the fact that my planned heading was correct and I had deviated because of a single point of reference. Before long I realised we must have past our destination and glancing over my shoulder to the left I saw the destination to our East and behind.

Important lesson learnt and another note to self. Do not allow myself to become fixated on a single point of reference, if I can't see it it does not mean that it is not there and I should look at the plenty of other references around.

I flew to the disused airfield and circled above, Antonio gave me a diversion to another point on the map so I maintained position with the rudder and drew a new line on the map, worked out the heading given a 20knt tailwind slightly to the west and worked out the expected time we should reach the destination. Doing this in the air while flying is pretty fun, focuses the mind. One other thing, below us it appeared that the airfield was being used as a film set with what looked like bombed out buildings and an aircraft parked there. I wish now I had brought my camera.

Once armed with a new heading I continued and once again requested clearance through the Brize CTR, this time I was determined to get everything right. The call was improved and I maintained our track and altitude and airspeed successfully. We left the zone and I kept checking our position on the map ensuring no deviation from the heading, it became apparent that the tailwind was having more effect than I had calculated for the divertion so from that I worked out a new arrival time of 17 minutes which turned out to be correct. The track also was not to bad, although we arrived slightly to the right, again wind factor played a part.

I then transfered to Farnborough Radar for our home leg and Antonio instructed me to fly us home just using the map, this area I am pretty familiar with now so it wasn't a problem to pick out the nearby landmarks and set course for Blackbushe. We also practiced another PFL, this went textbook and I am silently pleased that it doesn't require too much thought on my part and is becoming second nature now. Although during the PFL I momentarily depressed the Press To Talk button on the stick as I was about to simulate a mayday call.. oops.. that could have had bad consequences had I not realised my mistake.

We arrived at blackbushe just before the tower closed and I carried out a pretty strange approach as a Piper Archer in the circuit before us flew an enormous circuit. I had to follow him around and I turned final and remained at circuit height for what amounted to a straight in approach. Antonio simulated an ILS approach with his fingers forming the two needles.

My landing was ok but not quite to my satisfaction (I want absolutely perfect landings everytime).

Anyway so ends an interesting an productive lesson, I made some mistakes but I will learn from them and generally it wasn't too bad. Lessons where I make no mistakes means I don't learn a whole lot. My aim now is to improve my RT confidence further, I am too hesitant and when I need to make a call I think too much about it magnifying the act when it really is no big deal. My other mistakes largely happened because I was spending too much brain resources dealing with the radio. My next lesson is tomorrow depending on the weather, another weather front looked to be moving towards us today so I am half expecting a cancellation.

Lesson 28: Solo XC

Wow what a day.

Last night I didn't sleep too well because of the heat and also thinking too much about my flight today, this was annoying because I had to sleep in a little longer this morning and therefore didn't feel particularly good.

Anyway, I arrived at Blackbushe and started my preperation in the clubhouse assuming that I might get to do my solo XC today, I planned the route, fuel, checkpoints etc. Whilst waiting another student was there preparing for his qualifying cross country we both were listening to pilots returning hearing if the haze was ok today. Apparently the haze was really bad this morning but it was getting better and better.

Antonio returned with his previous student and an interesting story, he was flying with his student in the local area practicing steep turns and stalls. They were flying with Flight Information Service which should warn of any aircraft in the immediate vicinity. During the flight he looked to his right and saw a huge 4 engined jet heading straight at them and at about 200 feet away, he immediately grabbed the controls and yanked the stick back to climb the jet passed just below them within a few feet! That qualifies as an Air Prox report. The Grumman AA5 they were flying had right of way and it is likely the jet never saw them and were probably flying with GPS autopilot (No TCAS??). Scary.

After everyone had finished discussing this incident I am given the OK to solo. One kind geezer buys everyone a chocolate covered icescream so I sit there briefing with Antonio and another instructor and another first time solo XC student whilst the icecream melts all over me. Eventually, Matthew the other instructor tells me to go wash my face as I am covered in melted chocolate and he can't take me seriously.

We run over all the things I need to know such as lost procedures, airspace rules and rejoin instructions. I demonstrate enough knowledge for him to sign me off to fly solo so all is good. The other solo student is flying the same route so he sets off first and I hang out awhile.

Walking out to the aircraft I am feeling a little apprehensive but also eager to do this, a few nerves are healthy as they focus the mind and if I didn't feel apprehension it would likely be a sign I am over confident (which is a bad thing). I carry out the checks carefully and soon am on my way. Once I am in the air the nerves dissappear and I get a sense of elation that here I am doing this.

The wind calculations today were difficult because everywhere is reporting variable wind direction, therefore I instead chose to fly the magnetic heading and check early on to see if I am tracking my marked line on the map. I make a good radio call to get Flight Information Service (FIS) and proceed to my next checkpoint. I am slightly to the right of track so I adjust to bring myself back to track and then decrease my heading slightly as it appears the wind is pushing me out a bit. The rest of my checkpoints appear where they should and at the correct times. I reach the first waypoint, loop around a bit overhead to make sure then restart the navigation to my next waypoint.

During the flight I frequently carry out FREDAI checks, probably too frequently! and maintain a good look out. I also get some unexpected radio practice when I am asked to state my current position and my intentions from there (I was squawking with the transponder so I found that odd as earlier they had confirmed identification and my position). The radio today is really busy, alot of traffic is around and on this leg in particular I see a number of different aircraft and gliders.

I reach my next waypoint ok and begin to circle around, the haze is now better and visibility has improved alot. I am really enjoying just circling the waypoint and get a feeling of total freedom. I request MATZ clearance for the final leg home and receive a reply "Roger, GOLF LIMA SIERRA", hmm inconclusive so I request again and keep circling, after awhile I don't get a reply so instead decide to skirt around the MATZ and remaining in sight of my track. I climb also to 3200ft to avoid some heavy traffic around the popham airfield because looking around I can see many aircraft around 2,000 to 3,000 feet (apparently there is a fly-in going on at popham hence the very busy skies).

Once clear of the MATZ I return to my intended track and soon sight Blackbushe in the distance, I get rejoining instructions and carry out an over-head join. I inform Blackbushe Information I will do a touch-and-go and come in to land. My landing is a greaser although the moment I touch down I hear some very strange noises from the wheels like a rattle sound the aircraft also tries to veer to the side of the runway.. despite heavy rudder input, crap, I quickly apply full power and lift the nose to do an unexpected short field take off. I do a go around and thoroughly check the brakes then call downwind to land, I decide to hold off landing till at slowest possible airspeed so on late final I keep some power on and allow the aircraft to float a foot or so from the runway with full flap, the airspeed drops off to around 40 knots and I touch down very smoothly. Once again the aircraft makes a horrible noise from the wheels and I can feel alot of vibration it still wants to veer but this time I expect it and counter with full rudder and brakes. I taxi off the runway all the time with this bad sound.

Once back at parking slot I shutdown and take a look at the undercarriage, there is nothing obviously out of place but I have to report this anyhow. I go into the club house and am greeted with a handshake and questions about the flight, I am still feeling totally pleased and a similiar feeling to my first solo. I report the problem I had when landing and the aircraft will be examined. I also hear a previous student earlier today flared at 200 feet and had a hard landing in LIMA SIERRA which may be the cause of this problem, when I did my checks and taxi before I didn't notice anything amiss though.

Anyway excellent fun, I hung out for quite awhile at the club chatting with Antonio and enjoying the sunshine and the moment. Tonight I think I will have a couple of beers to celebrate. :-)

Lesson 27, Nav and Diversions

I was very psyched up to do the first solo xc this morning however when I arrived at Blackbushe, Antonio informed me it was a no-go today due to the poor visibility. At the moment we are sitting under the Azores high pressure area with calm winds and relative humidity at 87%, the dust coming in with the high pressure meant that a heavy haze is sitting over the country. From the ground the weather looks fantastic with clear blue skies but looks are deceiving.

Instead of the solo route, Antonio suggested a change so that I didn't get to practice the route first with an instructor (intentionally). I was slightly disappointed as I had done alot of preperation before hand and talked myself into readyness for the flight, oh well.. shit happens.

We took off and once in the air I could see for myself how bad the haze was, it felt like sitting in a goldfish bowl with visibility at about 5 miles max and no visible horizon. I set off on the route and the first leg was uneventfull, once we reached the waypoint about 25 minutes later Antonio suggested we climb above the haze (being carefull not to enter class A airspace for the London TMA). I maintained our position over the waypoint and climbed to FL55, amazing we were sitting just above the haze and the air was silky smooth with perfect visibility all around except below, the line of the haze was totally distinct.

We now deviated from the planned route, Antonio told me to take him to Compton using the VOR, I set course and on the way we were approaching controlled airspace so Antonio demonstrated an emergency descent to show how to cope with engine-on-fire. Basically we dived steeply with the airspeed sitting just below VNE in the yellow. We leveled off at FL30 and I continued to the VOR, eventually arriving directly overhead, following VOR needles is pretty much a breeze.

Antonio then says "Ok take me to here" pointing at the map, I start to circle the VOR and let go of the stick, maintaining the bank with the rudder so I can use my hands to plot a new course on the map. This is tricky as I lacked enough eyes, one set to watch the VOR below to make sure we are staying in same position, second set to watch the instruments and third set to plot the course. I was required to give heading corrected for the wind, distance to the destination and the time we would arrive there, again taking account of the headwind component. After 4 hours of circling I finally had the answer (well slight exaggeration but took me awhile), one other factor was there was alot of thermals around today and the air was far from smooth.

I set off on the newly worked out heading and before long I was pleased to see we were exactly on track, I did however forget to reset the stopwatch therefore the time calculation had to be based on adding the 3 minutes that I flew with incorrect stopwatch.

After 10 minutes the destination appeared directly ahead. We flew overhead and found the time was also correct given the 3 minute adjustment. So far so good. Damn.. PFL, I didn't expect it which was a good test. This time I did the procedure perfectly although once again picked a field too close by meaning that I had alot of height to lose, I started 'S' turns and ended up too high so I made the mistake of looking to the next field instead which we were at a perfect height for. Antonio said no, bank.. this is the only field.. so I turned a tight turn which is pretty cool at low altitude and was then set-up perfectly for finals. The thing is I always underestimate the glide capabilities of the Katana. All in all though the PFL was good, had that been a real emergency I could have made a landing in a clear area and the procedure was followed.

I regain the lost altitude and circle whilst getting clearance to transistion the Odiham MATZ, once approved I resume navigation back from here to Blackbushe.

Incidentally, now the haze has much improved, the wind has picked up from the South and is clearing away the haze, visibility is now pretty good and we have a horizon.

We reach Blackbushe, the circuit is clear for once so Antonio suggests we do another High-Key manouever. This worked out fairly well although I turned towards downwind and final a little early, once again underestimating the glide of the Katana.. however we did make the runway just not the numbers.

Another good lesson, was a long lesson today but practiced alot of things and was very productive, my radio skill is improving and understanding of Navigation and diversions has improved. I was offered a few more solo circuits if I wished to kill the remaining time but today I declined, I needed a drink and also the day is baking hot in the cockpit at circuit height.

Hopefully solo will now happen tomorrow providing the conditions are good, if not solo then a much further xc duel will happen crossing lots of controlled airspaces. Fun.

Lesson 26, More Nav

Another fine day today, beautiful sunshine and only scattered clouds should be good for flying! I spend the morning planning out the route and constantly checking the weather for any signs of change in the wind or cloudbase. In drawing out the course I run through the flight in my mind whilst looking at the map, really aquainting myself with the area all around the route, hopefully once flying it, it should help me to recognise any deviations from the plan.

The weather reports today were basically saying VRB/5 or CALM at 2,000AMSL and 5,000AMSL which means winds at 5 knots from a variable direction. This whilst good for flying is not good for calculating an accurate heading to steer, I therefore decide to steer the magnetic headings and be ready to adapt those headings in the air if the wind starts causing us to drift.

On the map I write all the information I will need for the route (as well as completing a proper VFR flight plan). Writing on the map means everything I need to navigate is right there in front of me, without having to look elsewhere. I also copy the flightplan information on to my kneeboard as a back-up.


Various scribblings on my chart

Today will be a challenge because I have to cross a MATZ so will need to make a call at whitchurch to request a route through the zone. Radio is one area I hope I will improve this flight as up till now I tend to easily fumble what I want to say, which is kinda strange as I am often called to deliver training to Solution Architects, Developers and Management therefore ordinarily I am quite confident speaking in public. The radio really should be easy for me but for some reason it's not.

After briefing Antonio I head out, carry out the transit checks and take her over to the pumps to gas up. Antonio joins me at the pumps and after refuelling we start to set off. I complete the engine checks and then realise, hmm I need the toilet.. damn. Antonio finds this really funny because only earlier he was telling me about his qualifying cross-country where he had to divert to another airfield for the same reason. I therefore have to take her back to the gate and go do my thing.

Ok finally, we are off. I climb in the circuit and then set heading for Grove, the first waypoint. I know it is a disused airfield but have no real idea what to expect visually once there. I make the radio calls to request radar flight information service and am warned of intense ariel activity en-route, lots of gliders out today. Worth mentioning that I messed up this call slightly but overall managed to sound coherent at least.

The weather towards our waypoint is fantastic, although there is a heavy haze. One point we passed had a interesting looking particle accelerator so Antonio took a picture of it. The picture came out bad, partly because of reflection in the canopy and also the haze.


Haze over typical countryside


Particle Accelerator in the distance

Before long the first waypoint appears in front of the nose, outstanding! no wind drift and I maintained the planned heading. I carry out a sweeping circle to the right and fly back over Grove airfield (it's a wartime airfield since left to go into ruin, some of the buildings looked like typical wartime hangers but sadly no tower remained). I set the next heading and drop 500 feet as the cloudbase here is about 3000 feet and there are alot of gliders hugging the cloudbase. The next leg is uneventful and I keep a constant visual check at the map and what I see around our position, all is good. I sight our next waypoint, a small town with a river and railway track running along side. Suddenly Antonio pulls the power, PFL. This time I follow the procedure so all is well, I pick a field although a little close by therefore I do a spiral turn while maintaining best glide speed of 70knts and then a forward slip to lose height as we are on 'finals' for the field. We will make it so I recover and then Antonio tells me to resume navigation, at this point we are around 800AMSL and I have lost site of the waypoint due to the low altitude so I conduct a climbing turn and look around for reference points. I spot Andover off to our right hand side in the distance so establish our position and then continue climbing and return to the track.

Once overhead Whitchurch I again make a turn to the right and during the turn make the radio call to request MATZ penetration, we are cleared through at 2,500 feet and told to avoid Odiham CTR. I stick to the planned heading and pass all the points detailed on the map more or less at the expected times.

Antonio snaps a photo overhead Basingstoke.


Goofing around on final leg

Finally we have Blackbushe in sight directly in front of us so enter from the dead-side and come in for an OK landing.

Antonio is very pleased as am I, I really prepared well for this exercise and that preparation paid off, FREDA checks come naturally and the 6T's are becoming easier. Radio is still my weakest point although I am improving, I am going to try re-reading the communication section in the JAR course.

Once back we debrief a bit and I grab a coke, I have a little longer scheduled time today so I decide to go and do some solo circuits for the remaining half-hour. These circuits go well with 3 good landings.

Hectic day but really loved every minute of it. The plan for tomorrow has changed, first solo navigation eeek!

Lesson 25 Navigation and Solo

I woke up this morning a little later than I intended so as soon as I was awake I was at the computer planning for todays flight whilst drinking strong coffee. I download and print the latest weather reports from the met office website for both pressure charts and wind/weather, along with the METARS and TAFS for the immediate aerodromes near my planned route. Also I check the notams to make sure the planning is taking those into account.

The route is the same as intended yesterday so this gave me a little head-start but I still had to recalculate the headings due to the lessor wind today and higher pressure. I am getting quicker now using the wizz wheel flight computer, practice certainly pays-off so it is not long before I complete the calculations and then re-check everything.

I arrive on time at Blackbushe and brief Antonio about the weather and the course, at the moment there is a fair bit of haze so Antonio suggests I go and spend the next hour doing solo circuits while the morning haze dissappears as it seemed to be improving gradually, then after the circuits we can go do the navigation. I go do the A checks for Echo Hotel and after refuelling I go up first with Antonio for a couple of circuits just to check me out again (club policy) and to make sure I have not adopted any bad habits. Afterwards Antonio jumps out and I go up alone.

Flying solo again feels completely ok, I just enjoy the freedom of it.

On my first circuit another aircraft is flying downwind fairly slowly, a Cessna 172 by the look of it and I am rapidly catching him up, as I turn downwind I am directly in his six so I flip up the trigger guard and open fire, all eight machine guns in the Katana shudder and the bandit goes down. Ok well that was my imagination, I decided instead to spare him and to just follow him on downwind slowly. He flies a rather long downwind leg so I extend even further to allow him more time on base and finals.

The rest of the circuits where pretty uneventful although I did do a GA just as I was a little higher than I would like on late final.

I land, park Echo Hotel and grab a drink before the next flight.

Ok Nav time. I was hoping today that the smoother conditions would make it easier to concentrate on the map reading also it is a beautiful day today with only scattered light cloud and 10 knt winds at FL30.

Rather than go into boring detail I will summarize the flight. The flight was a world different from my last effort two days ago, today I felt focussed and confident and that made all the difference. The headings I had calculated along with the times were absolutely spot-on today and this time I was able to follow the map and know our exact position at all times. The improved weather conditions made it easy to hold my heading, airspeed and altitude mostly to within 50 feet. The radio calls today came more naturally although I did miss a couple of calls directed at us, partly because I was so focussed on the navigation. Antonio mentioned that, just like when learning anything it will become a whole lot easier and I won't need to concentrate as hard as I am now.

Through-out the flight I forced myself to carry out the standard FREDA checks along with the navigation checks and by the end of the flight they were becoming so I didn't have to think about doing them.. they just 'happened'.

On the return leg to Blackbushe Antonio pulled the power to simulate an engine failure, unfortunately I immediately messed up the procedure by calling Mayday and the mayday message before even checking the fuel and engine. I realised my mistake the moment I opened my mouth, but carried on with the procedure albeit not in order. Had that been a real event my engine could have restarted and I would have been faced with a bill for a cancelled Mayday call. The thing is at least is I know the procedure, I was just focussed so much on the navigation it threw me a bit. Antonio let this one go, partly because the remainder of the procedure was ok and also because my navigation was going well. But no doubt he won't let me off so lightly next time I mess it up!

We re-joined the circuit at Blackbushe and to cap it off had a good landing. All in all excellent day. The plan for the remainder of the week is more navigation including landing at another airport and crossing a military ATZ and hopefully doing the first solo navigation flight at the end of the week.

Next lesson tomorrow and new route.

No go

Strong winds and turbulence meant today's lesson was cancelled. A high pressure weather front has just moved in and the forecast is for a very fine week ahead, which is good because I am hoping to fly everyday this week.

Despite the cancellation I prepared the navigation just for practice, three legs this time. At the moment I am planning navigation using pilotage which means using a chart, flight computer and stopwatch, it is actually pretty hard work planning a route but good fun none-the-less.

I have another lesson tomorrow morning so hopefully I will get to fly the planned route , although I will need to recalculate the various variables such as headings, airspeeds and fuel consumption due to the changes in the wind forecast.

Lesson 24, More Nav

I havn't flown all week so have been looking forward to todays lesson.. the only problem was I managed to forget the time of the lesson, for some reason I had it in my head that it was this afternoon. I call the training school to check the time of the lesson and it turned out to be at 9:30am .. hmm thats like now! damn. I get myself sorted out and head down there as quickly as I can, arriving 30 minutes late.

Because of my lateness this morning we have to rush the planning part of the navigation lesson, this isn't good and I don't feel 'with it' mentally this morning, my brain just hasn't awoke. We plan a heading according to the wind given on the met form and mark points on the map to check navigation along with the times we should reach those points. This is a single leg so should not be to difficult.

Antonio does the checks this time to save time (I take longer) and I decide to do a short field take-off which is easy. I climb in the circuit and proceed with the navigation once we are at 3000AMSL and over the centre of the runway. Heading is good, altitude is good and airspeed is good.. not a bad start. I make the radio calls and request change to Farnborough Radar and then request Flight Information Service from Farnborough. My radio calls were improved today, partly because I didn't put any pressure on myself.

Before long we arrive at the first 'checkpoint' marked on the map, we are maintaining the correct track and pass the point at the expected time, almost dead-on. So far so good...

Before I go, I should mention the weather, to the East a large occluded weather front is rapidly moving towards us and although our current position is in sunshine with scattered CU cloud the air starts to get very turbulent.

The next checkpoint is less easy to see from the air, it's a railway track crossing our track. I spot the railway track ok but I don't take notice of other references which should have told me we had drifted off course. Before long, I am not seeing what I expect to see, at this point I realise we have drifted. I check the heading and it is correct, damn the wind has changed significantly. We change heading by around 15 degrees to bring us back to our intended track.

The next check point arrives and we are now back on track although running 2 minutes behind, the air now is very choppy and it is increasingly hard to hold altitude, airspeed and heading. None-the-less we arrive overhead an old disused airfield, our destination. Antonio pulls the power to simulate an engine failure. I decide to land on the old runway so set the aircraft up for a downwind. I then make a mess of the procedure.. damn.. I know this stuff but for some reason I can't seem to concentrate. I try and make a turn onto base leg but at 45degrees of bank.. she doesn't turn! the choppyness and strong wind just won't allow me to turn at this low airspeed and altitude is now falling away rapidly. We recover the situation. In those circumstances it would have been foolish to continue to rescue the maneover as this was a practice, I would have had to increased bank angle to around 60 degrees to force a turn at a low airspeed. That would be asking for trouble. If this was a real situation I would have selected another landing area to the other side and close by.

I set course for blackbushe, following pretty much the same path we took on our way out. We do a couple more engine failures which again I mess up. The whole time I am trying to maintain our course and know our position in relation to the map, I keep getting asked questions about our present position and what landmarks are. I am feeling stressed now and can't seem to focus my mind. Soon it becomes obvious we are not on course as I can't see the railway track I was expecting. We are heading to far to the South. I correct and we do another engine failure.. by this time my brain has gone into meltdown and I barely know my own name let alone be able to follow a procedure.

Heading in towards Blackbushe I make the required calls after first having to circle outside in a holding pattern while waiting for radio clearance from Farnborough Radar to switch frequency. I enter normal circuit and fight the turbulence all the way to landing. The landing was smooth but not on the centre line.

All in all, I left blackbushe feeling annoyed with myself. After a bit of reflection I actually shouldn't be to hard on myself, the conditions were not good today with strong turbulence and a significant wind direction change rendering our calculated heading totally incorrect once in the air and one hell of a lot to think about all the time. Being late this morning kind of didn't allow me time to settle into the task.

More flying tomorrow where I hope it will be much improved!

Lesson 23, Navigation

I arrived a little early for todays lesson, so just hung around for awhile as Antonio was out with another student, I took the chance to learn how to read the NOTAMS on the club computer. Whilst hanging around I was listening to other people waiting for their flights, for most of them it was a first introduction flight and it reminded me it wasn't that long ago that I was in their place.

The weather today was good, light winds and scattered puffy cloud at 4000AMSL with 9999 visibility, it promised to be a nice flight.

I learnt that the schedule was running behind a little but was fine just relaxing and drinking coffee while I continued waiting, Antonio returned and we went into the briefing room to talk navigation. Navigation is something I have been looking forward to learning more about so I enjoyed the long briefing. It was necessary to spend quite a bit of time talking about nav and also explaining how all the various equipment a pilot has to use, such as the flight computer and the 1.500.000 chart. We planned out a single leg about 30NM away and made the calculations on wind, magnetic adjustment and ground speed and marked these onto a VFR flightplan. On the map we marked various points where railways or towns were nearby and marked the times we should be at these points. A new checklist was introduced today, the 6T's:

T - Turn (are we on heading?)
T - Time (has the time been set/marked?)
T - Twist (DI agrees with compass?)
T - Throttle (cruising at 90 knts?)
T - Talk (any radio calls or frequency changes needed?)
T - Track (are we tracking along our marked line on the map?)

Using this checklist frequently during the flight should be simplicity itself to get where we want to go... the problem is remembering it! Like most checklists I have learnt to date it always takes me time to get into the swing of it.

With route planned we set off, unfortunately due to the long briefing and the later than expected schedule we have very little time today but we decide to fly as far as we can and if necessary turn back early. We both shared the transit checks on Lima Sierra for speed and was soon taxing for take-off. We climbed in the circuit and at one point hit a nice thermal which gave us a huge boost in feet per minute. I continued around the circuit and was at the desired 3000 feet on the 'final' leg, I faked a call 'GOLF LIMA SIERRA on finals' and then exclamed we were too high, Antonio laughed and said 'FULL FLAPS'. Looking around was pretty amazing, the visibility today was just awesome and all the green fields, woodland and city areas were basking in the late-day sun.

Overhead the runway I started the 6t's with some prompting from Antonio, well the 6t's soon turned into the 3s's; started, stuttered and stopped. Damn I need to memorize things better! Anyway I set the right heading and maintained 3000AMSL but then realized our airspeed was around 110knts.. hmm reduce power some, it took me awhile getting the right airspeed of 90knts and then I noticed our heading was off and altitude had dropped to 2500AMSL. This happened because I trimmed early on at 110 knts for 3000AMSL and then didn't trim for 90knts, yes I am a dork. Ok not a good start, Antonio directed me to the map and I worked out we were further along then planned for (the first mark on the map was for 6 minutes and we had already past that point at 5 minutes) and also we were to the right. I compensated by returning to the planned heading.. second mistake and a fairly obvious one to all but super dorks. The principal of compensation means that I needed to turn to a heading less than the planned heading for a approximately the same time that I was heading more than the planned heading.

On the more successful side, I was at least able to pick out landmarks shown on the map and establish our position even if it was screwy.

We got about a third of the way along before the time was up and we had to return, flying back gave me time to ponder my errors and alot of them happened because I wasn't mentally ahead of the aircraft. My brain was working hard concentrating on the navigation part and I just forgot how to control the airplane! Usually I can maintain altitude and heading without any problems but I allowed myself to get distracted and therefore wasted time correcting mistakes, all the while the navigation is getting ignored. It reminded me of the first circuit I flew, it was much the same, I got behind the aircraft mentally and afterwards it sucked as a result.

We rejoined the circuit with an overhead join and fell in behind another airplane on downwind, he was flying slow and low (I assume he was doing a glide) so I set up for slow flight and extended the downwind leg a bit to allow him to turn final as I turned base. The approach and landing today was good despite the 8knt crosswind, in fact barely felt it kiss the runway. Having a good landing was a nice feeling as my landings recently have gone downhill.

The time was now late and everyone had pretty much gone home so I hung around with Antonio chatting outside for an hour, I am sincerely glad I have a very able instructor who is on my wavelength.

When I got home I decided to bring out the chart and plan a few more legs to exotic far-away places like Southampton and Windsor (about 30 minutes flight time both) just for practice and to reinforce the ground lesson. I doubt I will get to fly during this week as the lesson I had booked I regrettably had to cancel due to work commitments. Next likely lesson will be next weekend where we will continue with the navigation.

Lesson 22, PFL's and Navigation

Writing this fairly late so a short report this time...

Todays lesson was focussed on consolidating all previous lessons up till this point and also an introduction to navigation. We began with a ground lesson on VORs, NDB and DME along with explaining some of the controls on the GPS, this was real good as I have been practicing this a fair bit using Flightsim.

I had more or less the whole afternoon booked with Antonio's time and G-BWLS so there was less time pressure than usual, this helped me to focus more on the lesson. We began with a short field take-off and then some radio practice obtaining flight information service and talking with ATC, I am getting slightly better at communicating on the radio, just need more practice and also to relax a little more. On the way to the practice area Antonio tested me on general maneovers such as balanced turns to a given heading (had to be precise), steep turns and stalls in all different configurations. Once at the practice area we did some practice forced landings and some general emergency procedures along with carrying out all the regular checks during normal flight. Also practiced a forward slip, s-turns and discovering wind direction from the air.

There was alot of traffic flying around randomly today, mostly gliders. I learnt that most gliders pretty much go where they want to regardless of other aircraft, on several occasions I was forced to avoid them as they turned directly into my path. I do however understand that they have right of way so no problem.

The first part of the lesson went well, it was good to revisit things I hadn't practiced in awhile such as stalls. Antonio was pleased so we moved on the navigation stuff, I found this more difficult than I had thought from the briefing, for some things always seem easier when discussed on the ground. We practiced turns with just the compass and also timed turns and messed around with nearby VORs. Amazing thing VORs, it is fairly easy to work out your exact position by discovering which radial you are on for two seperate VORs. The GPS was also good, messed around with entering waypoints and using the compass and timed turns to follow the course the GPS suggested (Antonio twisted the DI around).

Finally we returned to Blackbushe following a radial and using the DME to establish our distance. Entering overhead Blackbushe we did a High Key maneover in a glide all the way through Low Key and then to land, the maneover was fine.. the landing very bad, I made a huge mistake of trying to adjust my airspeed by dipping the nose too low to the ground and then having to rapidly flare.. result.. hard landing followed by a bounce. Once again I am taught not to get over-confident and not to try crazy things that I have been TOLD never to do, I.E dip the nose right before the flare. We do a few more flapless landings and a go-around due to another aircraft on the runway, thankfully these are much better.

Today, total of 1.8 hours. Excellent lesson all in all, only the mistake on landing was a bit of a bummer. More navigation tomorrow.

I only want one!

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.151822,-110.823791&spn=0.007521,0.010225&t=k&hl=en

Think they would notice if one mysteriously vanished?

Lesson 21, Crosswind Circuits

The intention this morning was to carry out another hour of solo circuits, however the weather did not comply. The sky was mostly clear with scattered cloud however the wind picked up, the METAR reported 10knts which didn't feel right standing on the apron with the wind gusting around.

I went up with a different instructor; Mark as Antonio is on holiday, our plan was to check-out the wind in the air and if all was well then I would solo. We took-off and did the first circuit, the wind strength immediately became obvious once in the air and on final to land the tower informed us of 15knt crosswind gusting 20. My first landing was poorish, largely because of the turbulent air. We went around again and Mark mentioned that I was unable to solo in these conditions (there is a 10knt maximum legal restriction on student pilots). Rather than ending the lesson I decided to get in some more crosswind practice, we did another 5 circuits which I was generally pleased with as I got another opportunity to practice different crosswind techniques.

The first technique is the conventional slideslip; the aim is to line up straight with the runway and drop a wing into the wind and apply a sideslip, this requires a little more co-ordination although is easy to maintain a constant descent onto the runway due to the better visual aspect. The problem with the sideslip is in gusty conditions the approach can easily go astray and any strong down gusts towards the lowered wing can cause a steep wing angle in a split second (experienced this) cross controlling at low air speed in gusty conditions is risky. The second technique is the kickout method, for this method the aircraft is crabbed into the wind during the descent on final with the centre of gravity tracking the extended centre-line, the aircraft is kept straight and level and in balance with the rudder. The flare is carried out in this configuration and just prior to touching the ground so the aircraft is flying a couple of inches from the surface with no sink rate you lower the upwind wing to place the wheel onto the runway whilst kicking the downwind rudder to bring the aircraft straight out of the crab, this causes the aircraft to track straight with no drift from the centreline, once established reducing the bank angle places the downwind wheel onto the surface followed by the nose wheel. The kickout technique is basically a side-slip executed right at the point of touch-down.

Having tried both techniques I am now convinced of the kickout method as each landing ended up straight and gentle. I guess each pilot will have his own preference but so far this appears to me mine, although I guess the technique could vary for different aircraft, that I will have to find out in time. I have been lucky to have practiced quite a few crosswind landings at between 15 and 20knts, apparently many student pilots have to often wait for months for the right conditions. I enjoy the challenge of it and hope I will get more opportunities over the coming months.

Other observations to note here; the Katana has a maximum demonstrated crosswind of 15knts, it seems a little low to me as the Katana has very reactive controls, only the slightest of movements on the stick and rudder is needed to bring it out of a dangerous bank angle, on the downside being so light it tends to get blown around a little more than the heavier four seaters (so informed by my instructors).

Anyway fun! I would have liked to have clocked up another hour of solo fight today but the crosswind practice was very worthwhile. It was also mentioned today that I am pretty much done with circuit practice and any further practice I do in the circuit should be at my descretion and only solo, mainly to build self-confidence. I think it is worthwhile for me to solo a few more times in the circuit and no doubt I will get plenty more chances.

Flying the Katana

I ran accross a good article on the Katana, well the Diamond Eclipse which is a newer model. The article tells it how it is. Diamond check out ...Incidentally Justin's website is an excellent read.

Photos

As promised here are a couple of shots taken during my solo yesterday:


Engine checks 


Taxi for take-off