Lesson 36, Gloucestershire Nav
Second attempt at this lesson following the previous aborted attempt. The Gloucestershire navigation trip is essentially practice prior to the Qualifying Cross Country (QXC) that I am required to complete for the PPL. It demonstrates planning, airborne navigation using pilotage (chart and stopwatch) and radio practice as en-route we have to transit accross Class D restricted airspace and an active MATZ (Military Air Traffic Zone), Gloucestershire airport is a towered aerodrome requiring clearances also. En-route there are two restricted areas directly in the flight path which we either have to fly around or fly over above the stated altitude, in my case I decided on planning for 3,000ft AMSL which clears both areas with plenty of room (2400AMSL and 2600AMSL for the areas). In the event of lower cloud in these areas I will fly around them using the one-in-sixty rule.
The trip is 120nm therefore I make the required fuel calculation and following input from Antonio decide to fill the fuel tanks to fuel before we depart. I also call Gloucestershire to book-in, giving the expected arrival time and requesting the current weather conditions and expected weather along with the active runway (they have 3 but only 1 is active at any one time).
The weather today should be good, the anticyclone sitting over us the past week collapsed last night in a series of violent thunderstorms as a low pressure area moved in with it's associated cold front. There is alot of cloud around but most is high in the troposphere and mainly features Altocumulus, there are lower cumulus clouds described as 'few' around 1500-6000 AMSL with occasional scattered showers which we may have to avoid in order to remain in VMC.
Refueled and all the planning done we set off, once airborne I notice the visibility is excellent, much improved on the previous few days as the haze has now been cleared away. The air also is very smooth allowing me to trim the aircraft and fly pretty much hands-off (makes a nice change from most of my flying recently in more choppy air). We climb to 3000ft and obtain Flight Information Service from Farnborough Radar, a few clouds are floating around but largely in this area there is a big patch of blue sky and sun. Regular carb heat checks are especially important today as the conditions are right to experience carb ice (warm temperatures, moisture in the air).
Earlier than expected we are told to freecall Brize Norton Radar which we do and I repeat the request for Flight Information Service however also request MATZ penetration and zone transit. Clearance is received although I discover that I can't hear the controller very well, his voice sounds really muffled (actually it was the same for Farnborough), like he is talking through a scarf or something. Therefore I have to ask him to repeat the clearance.
The navigation goes really well however early on my stopwatch.. stops.. hmm had this happen a couple of times before, I wound it just before departing so I suspect it has a problem of some kind. Decided I will replace this with a decent digital stopwatch with a battery at the earliest opportunity! I take to using my wrist watch as an approximation just in case I need to know the time (become lost). I have got much better at looking ahead on the map all the time which makes navigating in good visibilty pretty trivial.
We enter the restricted airspace having descended to 2700AMSL, the cleared altitude. There are two airfields within the zone, Brize Norton and Farringdon and both are clearly visible, I use the visual references of two lakes to remain clear of the CTR for both airfields. There is more cloud around this area with the cloudbase at around 3,000ft so we are now well below.
After clearing the zone we have flight information service from Brize Radar and I continue navigation towards Gloucestershire. About 15nm out I contact the ATIS and note down the supplied information (again this sounds really muffled) then at 10nm out (I marked the distance on the course drawn on the map) I contacted Gloucestershire approach. We are told to descend to 2000AMSL and given a new QNH (pressure setting) then to contact Tower. I contact the tower and request joining instructions, instructions are to report again at 2NM. I now have Gloucestershire airport in sight and at 2NM I receive some instructions that I just didn't hear clearly (muffled and crackly) so rather than continuing I maintained position by orbiting on the dead-side, I also made a bad RT mistake.
I didn't hear what was said and rather than requesting he 'say again' I replied 'Wilco', relying on Antonio to have heard instead. This was real bad and in fact dangerous because by agreeing to do something when I don't know what that something is could lead to an accident. I maintained position while I established what the instructions were then following a repeat begun to descend overhead for a standard join. I was following an archer also flying overhead and I assumed he was also joining the circuit however found he was flying at 1500 feet, therefore I stopped descending. He continued out and I thought he is flying far from the circuit before Antonio pointed out that he was departing the area. I turned downwind and had to continue to descend to circuit height (1000ft) I was now flying further out than I am used to requiring a longer base leg and was flying at 110knts.
Making mistakes like this meant that my work-load suddenly increased in the circuit and made for a rushed approach with me feeling behind the aircraft.. grr I should know better by know by letting this happen. None the less I made an acceptable landing, but all the flustered approach was poor.
Looking back at what happened I know what I did wrong. It began with the bad RT thing, I resolve NEVER to do that again. I allowed myself to get distracted by the aircraft departing and if in doubt of his intentions I should have requested them from the Tower rather than stupidly following him.
Now on the ground we had time to grab a coke and sit in a pub garden discussing the flight and the upcoming QXC. Antonio was happy with my navigation and the flight in general, just he was dissappointed with my RT. I also felt happy about the flight but shared his view of the RT, I had hoped to really nail the RT today. The problems for me were compounded by the fact that for some reason I am not hearing the controllers correctly today, I am wondering if something is wrong with the radio or my headset as usually I don't have this issue.
Gloucestershire airport is really nice, it has some pretty dramatic scenery around the vicinity and is close to both Wales and the western coast line which is clearly visibile from the air. I look forward to returning here on the QXC and also it would be a nice place to take passengers to once I get the license.
The departure from the airport requires a fairly steep climb to avoid a steep hill so I carry out a short field take-off with flaps and climb at 60knts. After passing the hill we are cleared to turn the left on to course for Blackbushe.
I get some time to appreciate the scenery around here, this is a nice area of the country. We change to Brize Radar and again request Flight Information Service and clearances. Whilst waiting for clearance we are told to remain clear of the controlled airspace so I orbit near a disused airfield, again I can't hear correctly so have to ask him to repeat the instructions. We try playing with the volumes but it makes little difference, Antonio can hear controllers clearly but I can't.. pointing to perhaps an issue with my headset.
After a short wait while other traffic is routed through the zone we are given clearance. So I proceed on course.
The remainder of the flight is uneventful with good navigation, so we play with a nearby VOR, I am happy I understand VORS and following radials although I don't fully know how to operate all the features of the GPS unit on-board, which is a relatively simplistic GPS as GPS's go with no map. More RT is needed on route and again the problem exists with not hearing them correctly.
Coming into Blackbushe I make some other mistakes.. and I have no idea why I made them. Firstly I don't need to fly the circuit at 110knts and lowering one stage of flap outside of the white arc is bad.. so bad I should be taken out and shot. These are mistakes I just should not make and I can only surmise I made them because I felt too relaxed, therefore did not concentrate. I have to watch that in future, because most of my forth-coming flying will be without an instructor on-board to pull me up on these things. It is absolute common sense that while flying an aircraft every pilot no matter how experienced is exposed to risk, failing to keep concentration is just asking for something serious to happen as a result. Making mistakes like this concern me deeply, because ultimately it is me who is responsible for my life and the lives of my friends or family that I take flying with me. Even comparatively simple mistakes like putting flaps down 4 knts over the white arc are unforgivable because if I allow those to happen, could I not also allow more serious things to happen.
I am approaching my skill test and today illustrated that while I have made good progress I still have alot to learn in respect of flying discipline. I need to be hard with myself on these things to make sure that I simply don't do it again.
I leave this report feeling happy, I enjoyed the whole flight and believe I made progress however I am also feeling reflective over the mistakes. Still this is why it is called "Flying Training". My next flight is Thursday.. the QXC if the weather allows.
The trip is 120nm therefore I make the required fuel calculation and following input from Antonio decide to fill the fuel tanks to fuel before we depart. I also call Gloucestershire to book-in, giving the expected arrival time and requesting the current weather conditions and expected weather along with the active runway (they have 3 but only 1 is active at any one time).
The weather today should be good, the anticyclone sitting over us the past week collapsed last night in a series of violent thunderstorms as a low pressure area moved in with it's associated cold front. There is alot of cloud around but most is high in the troposphere and mainly features Altocumulus, there are lower cumulus clouds described as 'few' around 1500-6000 AMSL with occasional scattered showers which we may have to avoid in order to remain in VMC.
Refueled and all the planning done we set off, once airborne I notice the visibility is excellent, much improved on the previous few days as the haze has now been cleared away. The air also is very smooth allowing me to trim the aircraft and fly pretty much hands-off (makes a nice change from most of my flying recently in more choppy air). We climb to 3000ft and obtain Flight Information Service from Farnborough Radar, a few clouds are floating around but largely in this area there is a big patch of blue sky and sun. Regular carb heat checks are especially important today as the conditions are right to experience carb ice (warm temperatures, moisture in the air).
Earlier than expected we are told to freecall Brize Norton Radar which we do and I repeat the request for Flight Information Service however also request MATZ penetration and zone transit. Clearance is received although I discover that I can't hear the controller very well, his voice sounds really muffled (actually it was the same for Farnborough), like he is talking through a scarf or something. Therefore I have to ask him to repeat the clearance.
The navigation goes really well however early on my stopwatch.. stops.. hmm had this happen a couple of times before, I wound it just before departing so I suspect it has a problem of some kind. Decided I will replace this with a decent digital stopwatch with a battery at the earliest opportunity! I take to using my wrist watch as an approximation just in case I need to know the time (become lost). I have got much better at looking ahead on the map all the time which makes navigating in good visibilty pretty trivial.
We enter the restricted airspace having descended to 2700AMSL, the cleared altitude. There are two airfields within the zone, Brize Norton and Farringdon and both are clearly visible, I use the visual references of two lakes to remain clear of the CTR for both airfields. There is more cloud around this area with the cloudbase at around 3,000ft so we are now well below.
After clearing the zone we have flight information service from Brize Radar and I continue navigation towards Gloucestershire. About 15nm out I contact the ATIS and note down the supplied information (again this sounds really muffled) then at 10nm out (I marked the distance on the course drawn on the map) I contacted Gloucestershire approach. We are told to descend to 2000AMSL and given a new QNH (pressure setting) then to contact Tower. I contact the tower and request joining instructions, instructions are to report again at 2NM. I now have Gloucestershire airport in sight and at 2NM I receive some instructions that I just didn't hear clearly (muffled and crackly) so rather than continuing I maintained position by orbiting on the dead-side, I also made a bad RT mistake.
I didn't hear what was said and rather than requesting he 'say again' I replied 'Wilco', relying on Antonio to have heard instead. This was real bad and in fact dangerous because by agreeing to do something when I don't know what that something is could lead to an accident. I maintained position while I established what the instructions were then following a repeat begun to descend overhead for a standard join. I was following an archer also flying overhead and I assumed he was also joining the circuit however found he was flying at 1500 feet, therefore I stopped descending. He continued out and I thought he is flying far from the circuit before Antonio pointed out that he was departing the area. I turned downwind and had to continue to descend to circuit height (1000ft) I was now flying further out than I am used to requiring a longer base leg and was flying at 110knts.
Making mistakes like this meant that my work-load suddenly increased in the circuit and made for a rushed approach with me feeling behind the aircraft.. grr I should know better by know by letting this happen. None the less I made an acceptable landing, but all the flustered approach was poor.
Looking back at what happened I know what I did wrong. It began with the bad RT thing, I resolve NEVER to do that again. I allowed myself to get distracted by the aircraft departing and if in doubt of his intentions I should have requested them from the Tower rather than stupidly following him.
Now on the ground we had time to grab a coke and sit in a pub garden discussing the flight and the upcoming QXC. Antonio was happy with my navigation and the flight in general, just he was dissappointed with my RT. I also felt happy about the flight but shared his view of the RT, I had hoped to really nail the RT today. The problems for me were compounded by the fact that for some reason I am not hearing the controllers correctly today, I am wondering if something is wrong with the radio or my headset as usually I don't have this issue.
Gloucestershire airport is really nice, it has some pretty dramatic scenery around the vicinity and is close to both Wales and the western coast line which is clearly visibile from the air. I look forward to returning here on the QXC and also it would be a nice place to take passengers to once I get the license.
The departure from the airport requires a fairly steep climb to avoid a steep hill so I carry out a short field take-off with flaps and climb at 60knts. After passing the hill we are cleared to turn the left on to course for Blackbushe.
I get some time to appreciate the scenery around here, this is a nice area of the country. We change to Brize Radar and again request Flight Information Service and clearances. Whilst waiting for clearance we are told to remain clear of the controlled airspace so I orbit near a disused airfield, again I can't hear correctly so have to ask him to repeat the instructions. We try playing with the volumes but it makes little difference, Antonio can hear controllers clearly but I can't.. pointing to perhaps an issue with my headset.
After a short wait while other traffic is routed through the zone we are given clearance. So I proceed on course.
The remainder of the flight is uneventful with good navigation, so we play with a nearby VOR, I am happy I understand VORS and following radials although I don't fully know how to operate all the features of the GPS unit on-board, which is a relatively simplistic GPS as GPS's go with no map. More RT is needed on route and again the problem exists with not hearing them correctly.
Coming into Blackbushe I make some other mistakes.. and I have no idea why I made them. Firstly I don't need to fly the circuit at 110knts and lowering one stage of flap outside of the white arc is bad.. so bad I should be taken out and shot. These are mistakes I just should not make and I can only surmise I made them because I felt too relaxed, therefore did not concentrate. I have to watch that in future, because most of my forth-coming flying will be without an instructor on-board to pull me up on these things. It is absolute common sense that while flying an aircraft every pilot no matter how experienced is exposed to risk, failing to keep concentration is just asking for something serious to happen as a result. Making mistakes like this concern me deeply, because ultimately it is me who is responsible for my life and the lives of my friends or family that I take flying with me. Even comparatively simple mistakes like putting flaps down 4 knts over the white arc are unforgivable because if I allow those to happen, could I not also allow more serious things to happen.
I am approaching my skill test and today illustrated that while I have made good progress I still have alot to learn in respect of flying discipline. I need to be hard with myself on these things to make sure that I simply don't do it again.
I leave this report feeling happy, I enjoyed the whole flight and believe I made progress however I am also feeling reflective over the mistakes. Still this is why it is called "Flying Training". My next flight is Thursday.. the QXC if the weather allows.
posted by Chris @ Tuesday, September 06, 2005
4 Comments:
At Wednesday, September 07, 2005 1:20:00 pm,
Oshawapilot said…
I too made the VFE mistake on my last flight. By the time I realised what I was doing, my hand was on the flap control.
Thankfully by the time the flaps began their transit I had also chopped the throttle to begin my decent on final, so the airspeed had just hit barely hit VFE in time. :-)
It didn't stop my instructor from catching my slight goof and making note of it though. Like you said, even a few knots out is not acceptable.
On the flipside, extending flaps before VFE is probably something that would bust a checkride, as well..so I'm glad he made the effort to verbally mention it to me.
Curiously enough that's the first time I've ever done that. When the tower asked "direct to threshhold" instead of letting me run my base properly it frazzled me a little.
At Wednesday, September 07, 2005 10:02:00 pm,
Flyinkiwi said…
Chris, its not clear in your post if you spoke about your RT difficulty with Antonio on the ground before your trip back. The last thing you need to do is add extra stress because it leads to what I have observed to be a "reduction in intelligence due to stress overload" where you do things you would never do if you had an extra moment to stop and think about it. You have learnt a vital lesson in making yourself as comfortable as possible before undertaking any flying. Your RT environment is stressful enough without making hearing the instructions difficult.
And I'm not worried about busting a checkride if I drop flap above Vfe, its the slap on the head I would get from the Chief Instructor that terrifies me. :)
At Wednesday, September 07, 2005 10:15:00 pm,
Chris said…
I mentioned the trouble with not hearing the instructions clearly with Antonio and part of the problem could be I do get slightly stressed when making RT and perhaps I am not listening correctly.
When it comes to general flying and navigating I am fairly confident, I believe I have been taught very well and made good progress. My immediate issue is RT, I have never quite grown comfortable with it. I don't know if I have mentioned before but I am very used to talking to rooms full of strangers for lengthy periods of time, delivering training and software architecture consultancy. Therefore this RT 'thing' SHOULD be the least of my worries.
I think I have subconciously decided that RT is more difficult than it actually is and therefore tend to apply too much pressure on myself inadvertantly in trying to get it right. Hopefully a few successes with the radio and my confidence will soon grow.
At Thursday, September 08, 2005 12:22:00 am,
Flyinkiwi said…
My human factors instructor said "a little anxiety goes a long way". I can only suggest that maybe you could "fly" your route on the ground with your instructor playing the part of ATC just to get some preparation before you go solo? I reckon you'll find you will do much better on your own when you are forced to make time to understand clearance instructions. Then you can plan to make calls slightly earlier than necessary to get everything sorted before you need to make course changes or whatever.
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