Instrument rating thoughts

It has been my intention through-out the PPL course and since to get an instrument rating, mainly to use as a get out of jail card in the case of getting into IMC. Also the benefit of being able to fly VFR-on-top appeals when the cloudbase is low. I am almost at the requisite number of hours I need in order to take an instrument course, the only problem is which one..

I have three options, first option is the CAA IMC rating, this is known affectionately as the mini-ifr and consists of 15 hours of training and one ground exam. This would grant me the priviledges to fly IFR flights but only in UK airspace. The second option is the full CAA IFR, this course would entitle me to fly anywhere in the world IFR however is a staggering commitment to make with 55 hours of instruction and seven ground exams covering ten subjects. The study material is absolutely vast and would take around a year of study to be in a position to take the exams. The final option is the US FAA IR which is somewhere in between. The FAA IR is accepted everywhere to my knowledge as long as your flying in a US registered aircraft, which I of course am not.

Therefore I think the IMC rating, whilst limited is probably the only option for me right now, at least until the CAA bring in a world wide recognised IR for private pilots rather than us having to either study to ATPL standards or look to the US FAA.

Bembridge and RNAV

I have been hoping for a break in the weather this week for a chance to show my dad Lima Sierra and also admittedly just to fly, and today I got it. The low cloud of the past few days eased away to leave blue skies albeit with pretty hazy conditions, good enough! I called dad to see if he wanted to come flying this afternoon and also my youngest brother Matt who had a day off today from school due to an interview with a college he is planning to join. Both wanted to fly so this afternoon we all headed down to Blackbushe.

Matt has never flown on a light aircraft before and in fact only flown once commerically so this was to be a new experience for him. I told him what to expect and he seemed fairly relaxed about the flight.

Earlier in the day I had planned a trip down to the Isle of Wight again, mainly because it is good for sight seeing with it's steep white cliffs, bays and harbours. Matt is a keen and competant sailor therefore he has sailed around the solent area adding to the attraction of flying there again. The only problem in the planning was the visibility, the weather office was reporting 25km however I suspected that it would be much less due to the haze visible on the ground. Haze is something I am getting very used to right now having spent the last few flights in thick haze which mostly has been barely VFR, therefore I decided to back-up my normal mode of navigation of pilotage with using the RNAV on Lima Sierra. RNAV stands for Area Navigation and works by allowing you to create 'phantom' VOR stations over waypoints along your route, an example is finding the closest VOR station to your intended waypoint, finding the radial your waypoint is on and measuring the distance to the waypoint from the VOR. You can store up to eight waypoints on the unit in Lima Sierra in this way and then using the standard CDI/HSI follow the needle directly to the waypoint with other usefull information such as ETA, ground speed and distance to go. This flight would be the first flight I have used it properley.

The last time I visited Isle of Wight I landed at Sandown so this time I chose Bembridge which has a asphalt runway rather than the grass at Sandown. I heard it is a good place to land and the approach to final on runway 31 is crossing the tall cliffs, however today the runway in use was the reciprocal 12.

We took off with Matt in the right seat and dad in the back, the flight out was pretty much directly into the wind therefore progress would be slow which suited us as they picked out familiar landmarks. The haze towards the South was very bad, made worse due to flying towards the sun however it was still VFR, I estimated around 10km. I selected the first waypoint overhead Farnborough, set the OBS to point the needle to the bearing and gained permission to cross in their overhead. The next waypoint was Haselmere and enroute I climbed out of the fairly rough air to around 3000ft, this was lower than I wanted to fly but we were crossing underneath class A airspace used by the big boys coming out of Gatwick and Heathrow therefore was restricted to fly under 3500ft. The rnav took us perfectly to Haslemere so I changed again to the next waypoint which was just off the eastern shore of the Island. Once clear of the class A I climbed to 4000ft which was at the top of the haze layer giving us a horizon of sorts, the air was much smoother here and once trimmed she flew hands-off with no tendancy to turn either left or right.. nice stability.

Crossing the coast we could only just make out the shore of the Isle of Wight, a mere 7NM away, the sea and the haze blended into one and I am glad I had some visual reference otherwise it would effectively be instrument conditions which is beyond the priviledges of my license at the moment.

Flying out we saw several large ships along with many yachts scooting around. I began a gradual descent towards the coast of the Isle of Wight, I had original hoped to take my passengers on a sight seeing trip right the way around the island however the low level turbulence and the haze made this not so attractive so I called up Bembridge for joining instructions. There was another aircraft taking off from Bembridge so I chose to scoot past and then join from the West, giving me time to find out whether the other aircraft was staying around for circuits or departing somewhere. He departed so I joined overhead and carried out a circuit to land. The approach was quite bumpy but not to bad although somehow I managed to make it a bit flatter than I would have liked. The landing wasn't too bad but not perfect, at least it was just past the numbers.

We stayed at Bembridge awhile drinking coffee and chatting about flying. Bembridge is surrounded by nice scenery with only a short distance to the coast and rolling hills all around.

The route back was much faster due to the tailwind, it took us over an hour on the way out and only 40 minutes on the way back. The return flight was pretty much the same as the flight out although the haze had definately worsened, I didn't want to rely totally on the RNAV therefore frequently checked our position with map to ground comparisons and standard VOR radials. I should have had more faith though as the RNAV once again brought us directly to each waypoint.

Back on the ground at Blackbushe, Matt and dad both helped me to put Lima Sierra back under the covers and collect my assortment of gear used on the flight. Both really enjoyed the flight and Matt expressed his gratitude for taking him up, I enjoyed it very much also.. certainly much more fun having passengers along.

I am not sure at the moment when I will next fly, the weather over the weekend and into next week is forecast to be non-VFR. My next flight will likely be on the 4th of April.

Another head set

Yesterday, Cabair kindly lent us a headset for Tristine as currently I only have 1 pair. I have decided to rectify this situation and last night we won another David Clark H10-13.4 on ebay, saving us around £70.00 from the new price. I just need one more set now for a 2nd passenger and/or spare!

Edited to say now picked up another set on ebay. Should be all set for any passengers that might choose to fly with me.

Haze

We did get to actually fly in the end although not until much later in the day, in the afternoon the skies cleared although the wind remained brisk at around 20knts gusting to 25knts. I headed back to Blackbushe with Tristine and we grabbed a coffee and cake while we decided whether to fly, Blackbushe is normally very busy with landing and departing traffic on a sunny day like today, but today it was amazingly quiet. A cabair instructor arrived back from a lesson so I asked him how the conditions were he replied that visibility was not too good and strong wind but it was almost straight down the runway hence it was flyable weather.

We decided to go, we walked out to Lima Sierra and Tris helped me to remove the covers and ties despite the bitterly cold wind. Soon we were airborne, climbing out was fairly choppy and visibility was around 5km so just VFR.. good time to practice again with radio navigation, Lima Sierra has a Narco NS 8000 RNAV system which is very cool so I decided to play with that a bit. I selected the Compton VOR worked out the bearing to Marlborough and set the distance of 30nm, thereby 'moving' the VOR over our waypoint and then could follow the needle to it.

At 4000msl the air was very smooth so I trimmed her to fly hands-off and was able to show Tris the inversion layer where the hazy atmosphere ended and clear air began. Flying above the haze was a fairly surreal experience as we could no long see the ground except for directly below us.

Due to the time we could not fly for too long, needing to land before official sunset so I decided to play with the ADF and DME, I tuned these in to Blackbushe and then set course back. Our groundspeed was showing 44knts and our airspeed was reading 110mph as we were flying directly into the wind. I set a gradual descent in towards Blackbushe and just followed the ADF needle, at 2000 the air once again became choppy but it didn't bother Tris. I came in for a straight in approach to runway 07, the tower had now closed therefore I frequently called Blackbushe Traffic stating my position. The approach was very windy and gusty and was a bit of a fight to keep the wings level however it culminated in another greaser landing which was fortunate.

Was fun but I wish the weather would improve as Tristine has yet to fly in good visibility.

Winds

Bah, today's fly-in went ahead however I decided not to go due to strong crosswind on runway 36 (wind 070/17G27 so pretty much straight accross). With only a total of 4 hours on Lima Sierra I figured descretion was the better part of valour. Oh well there will be other fly-ins.

Check-out on Cessna 172 part 2

This afternoon I was able to complete the check-out process on Lima Sierra, we went up an hour later than planned due to a delay in the schedule however managed to finish just before sunset. The check-out today was mostly PFL's, steep turns some radio nav and emergency procedures such as engine fire. On the whole it went fairly well, although it took me a moment adjusting to different positions of controls when carrying out the PFL procedures, the good thing is we would have made a landing on each occasion into wind and into a reasonably large field. Steep turns were fine although again having no horizon due to dense haze brought visibility down to around 5km, which didn't make these too easy.

Coming in to land Peter asked for a short field landing on the numbers and somehow I managed to perform my first 'greaser' in Lima Sierra just past the numbers.

Another fun flight.

I should now be set for a flight on Saturday, it is a fly-in for students which I went to last year when I was a student, the idea is qualified pilots each take one or more students along for additional experience and a chance to meet some of the pilot community. So this year I am taking another Blackbushe based student and Tristine in Lima Sierra to Wellesbourne-Mountford airfield, hopefully if the weather is good enough on the return leg I plan to fly over parts of Wales to do some sight seeing.

Check-out on Cessna 172

In order that I can fly the group aircraft solo I must first complete 3 hours training on the type, this also allows me to get the feel of the aircrafts flight envelope with the safety of an instructor on hand. The past few days have seen me reading all I can find about the Cessna 172 in preperation for today's check-out process, it is pretty amazing how easy the net makes research. The weather today was pretty poor, I arrived at Blackbushe early in the morning expecting to have it cancelled however the METAR was giving overcast at 4000MSL with a 10knt crosswind, light rain and 7000 visibility, this made flight possible although far from ideal. I talked it through with Peter the CFI who is going to be carrying out the check-out. We decided we could go up and see how it is in the air and if possible we would try and do general handling otherwise circuits.

Luckily the rain eased off a bit so I went out and carried out the 'A' check, removing the wet covers which conspired to transfer there wetness to me. Peter joined me and before long we were ready to depart. The take off was pretty much textbook, lifting the nosewheel at 55mph and rotation at 60mph it was then easy to climb away at 80mph. Yes, Lima Sierra has an airspeed indicator in MPH rather than KNOTS, I understand this was a British idea.. and not a particularly good one however adjusting to the difference proved no problem. Once at cruise altitude I had the opportunity to feel the stability of the Cessna 172, it was a very easy task to keep the aircraft from banking and only a slight touch of right rudder was required to keep the ball in between the white lines. The Continental 6-cylinder engine lived up to its reputation by being as smooth as silk through all power settings. Peter asked me to perform some turns at 30degrees which again was a simple affair, the rudder is slight going in to the turn and once established at 30degrees both the ailerons and the rudder can be returned to neutral and she just sits there at 30degrees in a perfectly balanced turn. Likewise, opposite aileron and slight rudder to roll back to straight and level. This is a really easy airplane to fly.

One problem I did have was continually allowing the aircraft to descend, this was due to first having no horizon due to the dense haze and rain and adjusting my brain to the different perspective. I guess this will come with time.

Once happy with turns, climbing and descending we moved on to stalls. The first stall was done in clean configuration, in order to look after the newly serviced engine I reduced power gradually whilst maintaining our altitude, this took a little while and eventually we were just mushing along with full up elevator. The symptoms of the stall were there, she felt like she wanted to brake with buffet and the nose bobbing a bit but no stall warner. The VSI showed we were stalled so we recovered after losing 500 feet, alot of height to lose but to be honest we were waiting for the stall horn. Peter asked me if I had checked the stall warner on the 'A' check, I had and it worked fine then, so we tried entering the stall a little faster. This worked and around 55mph the stall horn went off slightly. We went on to carry out stalls in landing configuration and simulated turns to base and final. All I can really say about the stall in the 172 is it is just a non-event, it doesn't appear to want to drop a wing and just letting go of the controls unstalls it immediately.

Flying back to blackbushe we noticed tiny rime ice forming on the windscreen and the leading edge of the wing, we descended a little and no further ice appeared. The scary thing about ice is it builds up very subtly, was a good opportunity to see that at first hand.

We had been flying for almost an hour so now to see if I can land, I chose to fly 70mph on base with 10deg of flap and 65mph on final with 20deg of flap, the crosswind meant a fairly pronounced crab angle. This brought us to a reasonable landing and we stopped quickly.

One of Peter's other students had cancelled so a further slot in his schedule opened up this afternoon, therefore I took that also. I went home in the mean time to catch up with some work.
Later on the weather looked a little improved with only occasional spots of rain rather than the constant rain this morning therefore I returned for some circuit practice. The circuits went very well, each landing and approach seemed to improve a bit as I got a feel for the aircraft. It seems virtually everytime I fly there is a crosswind and today was no exception, the 172 was easily handled through the wind gusts. My landings were not as good as the Katana landings I do but that was to be expected. On one circuit Peter asked for a glide to land on the numbers so after turning base he pulled the power back to idle and I trimmed for 80mph (best glide speed), Lima Sierras glide was better than I expected and once I knew I could make the runway I dropped full 40degree of flap. This is a great feature for losing lots of height as she drops like a brick. Over the threshold at 60mph she landed gently right on the numbers, impressing both Peter and me.. I had expected to make a balls-up of it. During the circuits we tried all landing configurations and therefore satisfied we called it a day after one hour.

I have another slot booked with Peter for tomorrow afternoon to complete the check-out process. This will be practiced forced landings, steep turns and go-arounds and anything else we didn't cover today.

Really enjoyed today's flying and getting myself familiar to Lima Sierra, she maybe old but she certainly handles beautifully.

Wife passenger

This morning I told Tristine I was going to go visit the pilot shop to pick-up a check-list for a C172 and she offered to come along for the ride. Having picked up a check-list and a nice shiny new key fob for the cessna keys with a cessna badge on it (just had to be done!), I asked if she wanted to come take a look at Lima Sierra. She agreed so we headed over to Blackbushe.



The weather was sadly pretty cold and grey overcast skies so she didn't enjoy helping me remove the fabric covering from the aircraft, however her mood improved sat inside and she asked alot of questions about what things did. She then said it was a shame we couldn't just fly her (I still need to get officially check-out with an instructor on the type before I can fly). We took a few photos on my mobile phone so apologies for the quality.

On the way home an idea formed in my mind, hmm the weather is not to bad and the wind is gentle, maybe Cabair has a Katana available. I called and sure enough
I could fly in an hour, the temptation was too much so I asked her if she wanted to go we can go. Tris readily agreed so we headed back to Blackbushe.

There was a slight delay in departing as the aircraft needed fuel so I first had to take Foxtrot Victor to the pumps and fill up, the delay whilst not a huge problem meant we wouldn't have too long in the air but then in some respects that may be good considering this will the first time she has flown in a light aircraft. Before departing I gave her a full briefing on what to expect once airborne, she was quite excited by this time so we went.

In fact I was secretly more nervous than she was, I was worried that once airborne she might really hate it and want to land as soon as possible, signifying the end of any dreams of flying regularly with her.

I lined up and off we went. As soon as we were in the air she was grinning and pointing at stuff and said many times "oh my god! wow, I can't believe it". I climbed gently away and headed out towards a familiar area. The air was incredibly smooth today making a huge difference from yesterday, however visibility was pretty poor at around 10km at best and heavy overcast cloud at 4000MSL. The weather was therefore not ideal for a first impressive flight however at least she was able to experience flight in small aeroplanes, and in fact with our weather being what it is this time of year we were quite lucky for this opportunity to fly. She very much enjoyed the flight and spent the entire time gazing in wonder at everything, this totally surprised me as I had almost expected the opposite reaction. Before long she wanted me to show her some G forces, I laughed and asked her if she was sure, I therefore did a couple of small pitch changes rapidly just to test her reaction; these had her laughing. I was then tempted to move into 60 degree turns but the visibility was such that I thought better of it. Whilst being fun I was flying in an area with high traffic density in less than perfect vis so safety comes first.

We soon headed back and came in to a greaser landing, despite my efforts the plane is good at landing.

No sooner than we were down and she wanted to go up again. The next couple of hours were spent talking about flying and her desire to get back in the air as soon as possible. So all in all an amazing ending to the day.

Rubber dog poop out of Hong Kong

I learnt also today that my instructor and friend, Antonio has left Cabair to go back to Spain in another flying instructor position. I can't blame him as the weather during the winter months here is very bad for flying and no flying means no pay for instructors. I am however very sorry to see him go from a selfish point of view as he was an excellent instructor and good fun to be around.

I wish you all the best mate!

Introduction to Lima Sierra

One of the group members kindly offered to take time out of his day to give me the introduction to Lima Sierra today. The introduction basically involved covering all the flying duties such as pre-flight inspection and using the onboard RNAV and other Nav aids. The whole process was thorough and informative.

The weather this week has been terrible with low cloud, strong winds and heavy rain, however today the skies brightened and cloud lifted. The wind was fairly strong at 25knts gusting 30knts but with only a little crosswind component therefore flyable. I was to fly from the left hand seat as P2 with D flying the take-off and landing as P1. In the air I spent some time trying to get used to the visual picture of the horizon during climbing, descending and straight & level flight, this was made a little tricky due to the very rough flying conditions. We went from updraft to downdraft frequently, at one point we were amused when the VSI was indicating 1400fpm climbing with rapidly increasing airspeed, this from straight & level!

Despite the rough air the visibility was good and the flight was fun, with D taking control of the radio allowing me to have fun just flying and getting used to the aircraft. There are somethings I need to get used to, the sound of the prop increasing speed is strange to me having been used to a constant speed (variable) prop. The aircraft however is lovely to fly, very easy and amazingly easy to keep co-ordinated, much more so than the Katana or AA5. Flying a bird which I partly own is also a very sweet experience.

I am due to fly again with an instructor on Tuesday morning to begin the type check-out for C172's, I just hope the weather holds.

New Ride

This morning I awoke to an eagerly anticipated voice mail message telling me I had been accepted into a Cessna 172 group following meeting the group members a couple of days ago. The aircraft itself is a 1969 Reims-Cessna F172h which has been very well looked after. I had the opportunity to take a ride courtesy of one of the group members and found her to be a delight to fly and was impressed with all aspects of the aircraft and the group.

The decision was taken to join a group rather than go it alone with an aircraft because it gives me the added bonus of meeting a bunch of very friendly guys with whom to share the responsibility and who can offer me the benefit of their flying experience. I hope also I can bring some of my skills and time into the group so they can also benefit.

Therefore my first sortie into aircraft ownership has begun. I will post more about her in the next week once I have had time to take a few pictures.

Sandown Snow and Alternators

I had the whole afternoon booked today on an AA5 with the intention of visiting another airfield, this time Sandown on the Isle of Wight. This flight would serve a number of purposes, firstly to give myself more time on the AA5 and secondly to practice a few touch-n-go's on the grass runway at Sandown. I had a new instructor come with me today in order to provide critical input into my techniques, James.

Once in the air I realised I couldn't have picked a better flying day.. with scattered cloud at around 4500AMSL and visibility of greater than 40km, the best vis I have seen for a long time. To add to the beauty of the sky, many of the clouds were showering snow which looked awesome from the air. The flight down for some reason I was not focussed on actually flying and repeatedly allowed the aircraft to climb gently above my planned altitude. I think part of this was I felt more relaxed than usual so became a bit sloppy and also I am still adjusting to the attitude of the AA5 from the Katana.

We crossed the coast and watched the large ships heading in towards Portsmouth. Reaching the Isle of Wight I circled around the coast and descended ready to enter the ATZ for Sandown. Sandown from the air is another good looking airfield, surrounded by gentle hills and the small town to the South. I am the only aircraft in the circuit so join for the first touch and go, I turn for a nice tight circuit forgeting that the AA5 is not a Katana, so pass the runway on downwind with the runway around the middle of my right wing. Base therefore is a sweeping turn on to final, ok I am high so full flap and full sideslip.. bah not coming down enough.. going around. My next circuit is much better and the landing is ok, I do a couple more of these. I decide I like landing on grass just for the fun element of bouncing along on a less than smooth surface.

Sandown has a fairly new restaurant/bar at the airfield which is pretty nice with a large veranda for watching the aircraft. We get some cokes from the bar and chat about flying and careers and so on for about an hour.

Time to depart, we leave and begin climbing for 4000ft over the Isle of Wight, ready to cross the solent. This is basically in the hope that if the engine fails we have time to glide close to the shore for ditching. No sooner are we out accross the water and we get a strange whistle in the headphones, strange sound.. ah possibly related to all those pretty little warning lights illuminating. Ok starter warning light is on, alternator warning light is on, and the AMP guage is showing discharge from the battery. James takes control to allow me to carry out the alternator failure check-list. I check the circuit breakers are in, they all are. So following through on the list I try turning the Alternator master switch off and on again.. no change. I turn off all electrics we can do without such as all lights and the ADF, NAV1 and NAV2 and COM2. I therefore have just transponder, COM1 and the pitot heat on (we decided to keep this for the moment as we were soon to pass through some snow flurries). I have control again, we have basically gone through the emergency check-list and failed to fix the problem therefore we have several choices, land nearby at Goodwood or continue towards Blackbushe. Blackbushe is approximately 40 minutes away and in reaching there we need to get clearance to transit through Farnborough's ATZ. We decide to contact Farnborough shortly, advise them of our problem and then tell them we will switch off radio, squawk 7600 and contact them again before entering their ATZ.

We cross over the solent onto land again and pass through a gap in the row of clouds in front of us, out the other side is once again sunshine with occasional fluffy clouds and amazing vis. Whilst I fly and navigate, James plays with the electrics
and turns of the Pitot heat, he tries recycling the alternator master again and suddenly we seem to have alternator again.. he starts switching on lights one at a time and then pitot heat, we lose alternator. So pitot seems to be responsible. We leave that off and continue with all electrics back. Therefore we don't mention it to Farnborough. The remainder of the flight back is uneventfull.

I think this turned out to be a good training exercise having to cope with my first airborne emergency situation, albeit a fairly minor one. It was also an amazing flight in itself with beautiful conditions and a nice airfield visited. On reflection had I been without an instructor present it would have been more worrying but I think it reinforced the value of practicing all kinds of emergency procedures regularly. Knowing in advance exactly what you are going to do takes a lot of the stress out of the situation and today proved to me that unusual situations can happen suddenly without any prior warning.