Lesson 35, Haze and decisions
The plan today was to fly a duel lesson to another new airport, Gloucestershire. The weather conditions didn't look to favourable though, most of the metars were saying between 6000 - 9000 visibility and TAFS forecasting that the haze will lift. Instructors coming back to Blackbushe after flying were reporting terrible visibility as did Antonio. We decided to wait around for some time to see if things improve and then made the decision to go and see what it was like.
I climbed overhead Blackbushe to 3000AMSL and immediately I could see todays navigation was going to be very difficult as there was absolutely no horizon and visibility was at best 5km down sun and into sun probably no more than 3km. Antonio asked me if I was solo would I continue and the answer would be no definately not, had I been solo I would have immediately landed again. However, as we were duel I was happy to continue on the route and to reassess the situation a little way into the navigation.
As expected the navigation proved very difficult and having no visible horizon at all meant I had to use instruments a whole lot just to maintain altitude and heading which gave me less time to study the map and the ground features. I managed to keep the heading for quite some time but it was very hard work although I had to descend to 2600 just to get some kind of visibility of the ground. We reached Grove, about 30 nm into the route however approaching Grove I realised I couldn't see it until almost right on top of it, we were soon to enter class D airspace and I figured then hmm this is going to go wrong as following instructions through the DELTA airspace and maintaining visual distance from an CTZ would be really tough. Antonio asked me how I felt about continuing and I then voiced that I would rather return back.
The forward visibility was such that any traffic coming towards us would be impossible to spot until it was too late. This is not a safe situation to be in so turning back was the right decision. To be honest I should have made the call to turn back earlier on but felt at that time I would just continue to the next point, this wasn't a good choice so lesson learnt now.
I returned back to Blackbushe using the reciprocal of our outbound route and en-route managed to stray a little from the track. I did correct it though and before long arrived back at Blackbushe.
I made a few mistakes during the flight today, firstly even flying duel I should have decided to turn back at an earlier point, also on the way back I lost the heading and made a mess of a radio call by once again informing Farnborough Radar that I was switching frequency rather than requesting frequency change (I realised the moment I said it). The lesson was worthwhile though to teach an important point; if the conditions make it so difficult to navigate or to see other aircraft then immediately turn back.
I have an aircraft booked for tomorrow morning for some more solo flight but it is unlikely to happen as the area of High Pressure is expected to linger and perhaps even turn into thunder storms.
I climbed overhead Blackbushe to 3000AMSL and immediately I could see todays navigation was going to be very difficult as there was absolutely no horizon and visibility was at best 5km down sun and into sun probably no more than 3km. Antonio asked me if I was solo would I continue and the answer would be no definately not, had I been solo I would have immediately landed again. However, as we were duel I was happy to continue on the route and to reassess the situation a little way into the navigation.
As expected the navigation proved very difficult and having no visible horizon at all meant I had to use instruments a whole lot just to maintain altitude and heading which gave me less time to study the map and the ground features. I managed to keep the heading for quite some time but it was very hard work although I had to descend to 2600 just to get some kind of visibility of the ground. We reached Grove, about 30 nm into the route however approaching Grove I realised I couldn't see it until almost right on top of it, we were soon to enter class D airspace and I figured then hmm this is going to go wrong as following instructions through the DELTA airspace and maintaining visual distance from an CTZ would be really tough. Antonio asked me how I felt about continuing and I then voiced that I would rather return back.
The forward visibility was such that any traffic coming towards us would be impossible to spot until it was too late. This is not a safe situation to be in so turning back was the right decision. To be honest I should have made the call to turn back earlier on but felt at that time I would just continue to the next point, this wasn't a good choice so lesson learnt now.
I returned back to Blackbushe using the reciprocal of our outbound route and en-route managed to stray a little from the track. I did correct it though and before long arrived back at Blackbushe.
I made a few mistakes during the flight today, firstly even flying duel I should have decided to turn back at an earlier point, also on the way back I lost the heading and made a mess of a radio call by once again informing Farnborough Radar that I was switching frequency rather than requesting frequency change (I realised the moment I said it). The lesson was worthwhile though to teach an important point; if the conditions make it so difficult to navigate or to see other aircraft then immediately turn back.
I have an aircraft booked for tomorrow morning for some more solo flight but it is unlikely to happen as the area of High Pressure is expected to linger and perhaps even turn into thunder storms.
posted by Chris @ Saturday, September 03, 2005
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