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.
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.
posted by Chris @ Saturday, March 18, 2006
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