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.
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.
posted by Chris @ Monday, August 15, 2005
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