IMC Lesson #4

Today was unusual attitude recovery on partial panel, also climbing, descending, timed turns etc. The weather was amazingly smooth and cloudless, which makes a change! It makes it one hell of a lot easier flying on instruments when you havn't got continual thermals and turbulence to throw all the needles around. The only downside was again the lesson was spent under the hood as no actual clouds to screw around with, over all the recoveries went well although I still need to be more gradual with pitch changes. We also looked at ADF tracking which so far worked out OK, next lesson we will be doing more of that with VOR/DME holds and NDB holds.

Afterwards, I took a back seat ride with another student on IMC lessons, he is further ahead than me and therefore is practicing ILS approaches and missed approaches. Was really cool to watch how it all came together, and I wondered if I would be able to cope with the huge workload of managing the instruments, radio and precise descents on the glideslope. During these practice approaches the student was asked to hold to allow other traffic to come in, therefore I got to see him perform a near perfect oval holding pattern over the Ockham VOR.

IMC Lesson #3

Weather today was gorgeous, sunshine and few clouds around and fairly warm... damn. I was hoping for a nice low overcast to get more actual instrument time.

Today we did more maneouver's under the hood, James said he was happy with full panel so on to partial panel, placing post-it notes over the artificial horizon and the directional indicator. We did all the usual maneovers such as climbing, descending, rate one turns which is taught on the PPL course (an angle of bank which allows the aircraft to turn at a rate of 3 degrees per second, therefore taking 60 seconds to turn 180 degrees), all without the use of the vacuum instruments. We also covered turning to headings using the compass and timed turns. All in all I was fairly happy with these, although the concentration level required when the turn co-ordinator is bouncing around in the bumpy air was immense. It is really satisfying to look at the compass take a reading, work out the time needed to turn onto a given heading and then roll out after that time to nail the heading.

We also practiced unusual attitude recovery using instruments, also tried flying the aircraft with my eyes closed just by feel. Every time I opened my eyes we had got into an unusual attitude, highlighting how easy it is in IMC to get into strange attitudes due to distractions etc.

All in all I was happy with the lesson although I need to stop being lazy with adjusting trim, what I tend to do is rush through the basic Power - Attitude -Trim for straight and level etc without then re-trimming after the aircraft has settled at it's airspeed. This sloppiness is making the workload higher on myself later when I deviate off an assigned altitude.

Next lesson will be more unusual attitude recovery using partial panel and some other stuff which I now forget.

Another ferry flight

Yesterday in the evening I did another ferry flight for Cabair, taking an AA5-A to collect Matt and Angela from Biggin Hill Executive airport who were in turn taking a Piper Warrior to maintainence.

The route is really easy as it is pretty much straight East from Blackbushe, however the London class A is very close by so I would have to make sure I don't infringe their zone and with the TMA above I have to remain under 2500AMSL. I dial in the VOR at Ockham and also the VOR at Biggin Hill itself on NAV2, the AA5 I am flying this time has no DME so I take a stopwatch to time the legs and work out the planned time over first the Ockham VOR and then arrival at Biggin Hill.

After departure I get Flight Information Service from Farnborough who ask me to climb to 2400AMSL to avoid a jet passing below coming into Farnborough, once clear I descend back to 2000. I follow the VOR radial to Ockham and then change course slightly towards Biggin Hill. I call up Biggin Hill ATIS on COMM2 and listen to both frequencies. After a short time I request frequency change to Biggin Hill approach who ask me to report at 4nm to run. Approach frequency is extremely busy, with mainly jet traffic in and out.

I am tracking the radial OK and shortly pass what looks like a grass airfield.. thinking this is the gliding site at Kenley I inform Approach that I am approximately 4nm away, I am told to remain clear of their ATZ for a moment, so I circle here until they tell me to join on right base for runway 21. I can see the airfield ahead. I join for right base however see no other traffic, which is strange, checking my stop watch I confirm that I have flown the requisite time so this should be Biggin Hill ahead. I descend to 1000 on their QFE and make for right base.

Approach soon advise me that they don't have me in sight and ask me to confirm my position, I am working this out and realise that the airfield is in fact Kenley, with it's long tarmac runways it is deceptive. My mistake was basically not to pause the stopwatch during the hold earlier, therefore I forgot to factor in that time into the ETA. I continued on towards Biggin Hill and approach asked me to contact tower, they basically assumed I was totally lost, which I wasn't but I was happy to accept their detailed instructions to bring me onto final.

On final I received clearance to land so read back the clearance and thanked the controller for his assistance. Flying down final seemed to take forever, I practiced with holding a 300fpm descent rate to keep the PAPI lights with two white and two red. The runway was huge and the two taxiways either side had several large jets waiting for me to land, I thought of the poor pilots at the hold watching me descending at 70knts, must have looked agonizingly slow.

I landed nicely and was asked to take first exit onto taxiway Alpha, from there was given taxi instructions to hold at Alpha 4. Matt and Angela landed behind me so after a long taxi round this busy airport they dropped off the Piper and climbed onboard the AA5. The return to Blackbushe was uneventful and splitting the workload with Matt doing radio gave me more time to get familiar with the area, I had never flown out this way before so lots of landmarks to learn.

Anyway good flight and a reminder to double check everything!

IMC Training and ferry flight

Yesterday I started training for the Intrument Metelogical Conditions (IMC) rating, James is to be my instructor for the IMC so we met up early at Blackbushe. There was also a need to stop off at Denham airfield to pick up another pilot who had taken one of the club aircraft over to there as a ferry flight.

After a briefing we got airborne into rough conditions and low cloud, due to the route being under the London TMA we couldn't climb above 2500AMSL and therefore had to remain VMC, so I had to don the hood restricting vision to just the instruments. The hood went on right after take off and the first lesson focussed on climbing and descending, turning and airspeed control with sole reference to instruments. James also asked me to close my eyes whilst he threw the aircraft around alot to illustrate how the inner ear can decieve the brain as to movement. The instrument scan was also practiced, using the AI (Artificial Horizon) as the primary instrument and scanning out to the other instruments in turn, each time returning to the AI between checking individual instruments. The instruments in the scan differ according the maneouver being performed. Later on in the rating the training includes partial panel, simulating failure of electric or gyro instruments, but for now it is all full panel.

After a short while I was vectored on to the approach for Denham and was allowed to remove my hood as we crossed the lakes on base. We stopped and picked up Nigel and then departed back to Blackbushe, again under the hood. More of the same stuff on the way.

Back at Blackbushe we decided to go up again for another hour, however this time I hoped to use Lima Sierra, partly because of the cost factor and also it is the aircraft I fly regularly. This morning was in G-CCAT an AA5-A cheetah.

Having A checked Lima Sierra, we took her up and again on with the hood, before long we climbed into real IMC and I was able to remove the hood. Flying for extended periods of time in total white-out conditions was a new experience and at first slightly disconcerting, the cloud was dense cumulus and was pretty bumpy air. I found just flying the aircraft to require alot of concentration, with each adjustment requiring thought before action. Again we practiced climbing, descending at specific rates of descent, i.e: 90knt descent at 300fpm, or 90knt at 500fpm, turns onto headings and also tracking a VOR radial. All turns were rate one turns which varies according to the airspeed and is indicated on the turn coordinator. James handled the radio through-out and I carried out FREDA checks between scans, for example I would focus on the AI then glance at the fuel guages then back to AI, then heading, then back to the radio to set next frequencies, then back etc.

Finally we descended below the cloud back into VMC and so back on with the hood. Approaching Blackbushe, James made me keep the hood on until 300ft from the threshold on final, vectoring me there with headings. There was a fairly strong crosswind but an OK landing resulted.

The IMC will be hard work but alot of fun I have decided, later on will come unusual attitude recovery in IMC and ILS approaches, holds etc.

Cornwall again

Posting this a little after the event due to time constraints in the past couple of days. Monday was May day and therefore a public holiday, so we decided to head to Cornwall, this time to visit a WWII airfield called Perranporth which was hosting a fly-in and BBQ for pilots and the public.

The night before I carefully performed weight and balance calculations as we were flying with four of us, Tris & Vicky, Mike and me. Luckily the girls are both light! So we were within limits, I decided to reduce weight further by only taking 3/4's of fuel on board, giving us more margin. The plan was to depart around 9am, which would mean we would have lots of time in Perranporth, however in the morning the skies were overcast with a weather front moving accross the South East of England. The wait for the weather to pass gave me time to prepare the aircraft and the fuel and then we grabbed breakfast at Blackbushe.

We departed at around 11:40am with the plan to route accross to Bridport and from there follow the coastline all the way round to Cornwall. Once in the air it was pretty bumpy with a stiff headwind, I wondered if anyone was going to be ill, especially in the back. The visibility however was amazing, so was pretty nice flying aside from the rough air, I couldn't climb to find smoother air as by this time although the sky was now blue there were scattered clouds at 4000AMSL.

Nearly at Bridport we decided to stop for a break at Dunkeswell airfield, this was approximately half-way so planned and flew a diversion direct to Dunkeswell. This airfield is on a hill surrounded by woodlands and hills, with the strong wind it was obvious landing here would be challenging. We joined overhead and entered the circuit, one other aircraft was on her second attempt to land so we fell in behind her on downwind, at circuit height the air was very rough. There was a 25knt crosswind straight accross the runway which was gusty and the other aircraft had to go around again, she told ATC she would try one more time before departing for somewhere else.

I kept 10mph more speed than usual to counter the windsheer on final and followed a gusty descent towards the runway, only 10 degree of flap also and prepared myself to go around if needed. As expected windsheer caused us to drop which required a burst of full power, I managed to keep Lima Sierra on the centreline just and touched down on one wheel as a gust picked up the other wing, she soon settled onto both mains.. phew hard work.

We stopped here for an hour, and got a few teas, we watched other aircraft landing or going around again, everyone was having the same problems we did. The leg to Dunkeswell from Blackbushe had taken almost two hours flying time due to the headwind, I anticipated another hour and a half until we reached Cornwall. Take off was again challenging, and was pretty hard work as soon as we were airborne the wind was trying to push us way off the centreline.

We climbed to 3000ft and headed straight for the coast, over the water the air was smoother but still rough. The coastline looked spectacular in the sunshine so we followed that around. At Exeter I was asked to descend not above 2500AMSL due to inbound 737 for Exeter, I complied and before long we watched the 737 pass us at 3500AMSL on our left hand side. The Captain/FO was looking out for us but couldn't see us, so I called and mentioned I had him in sight.

The trip from this point went very quickly despite the slow groundspeed as there was a whole lot to look at. We crossed over the coastline again heading for Perranporth. Perranporth is right on the cliffs on the West coast of Cornwall and alot of other traffic was either inbound or outbound from there, we descended a touch and joined the circuit overhead. So far so good, however I missunderstood a simple instruction.. aircraft landing were to use runway 27 and aircraft taking off runway 23.. so I managed to line myself up for runway 23 doh! Another aircraft was lined up ready to take off as I turned onto final, I proceeded slowly until asked by the controller to confirm I was lined up for 27.. I apologised and went around. Then in a feat of amazing stupidity I managed to make the same mistake again! This time I realised my error as I turned final so called that I was going around again. Third time lucky I lined up correctly for 27 and heard a comment to other traffic from the controller "Take off blah blah blah.. look out for the Cessna 172 on final.. again!". The landing here was thankfully unchallenging.. so at least I didn't get the opportunity to embarrass myself further. As we taxied we noticed a small crowd of people (the public and other pilots) next to the tower, I asked Mike to don the hi-vis vest and carry the kneeboard hoping that they would think he was the insane pilot that had just been fooling around overhead. He laughed and declined so I kept my dark sunglasses on for the walk of shame towards the crowd.

We had missed the BBQ sadly as it was now late on, but managed to get burgers. We relaxed here for awhile in the sunshine before going for a walk towards the cliffs. The walk was past some old antiaircraft gun emplacements with bunkers just below, and along the cliffs the scenery was stunning, great way to relax.

After a time we walked back and I carried out the planning for the return to Blackbushe, as time was now getting late I decided to go direct to Blackbushe and we would now have a tailwind so the return home would be much quicker. I also took on more fuel here to be safe.

We departed at around 6:30pm having spent around two hours enjoying Cornwall, it really was a pity we couldn't have got here earlier in the day. The flight back was amazing, very few clouds were now evident and the air was totally smooth, allowing for hands off flying. I climbed to 5000AMSL to make better use of the tailwind and our progress was much improved. Very little other traffic was around also so the radio for the most part was silent.

There is something special about watching the sunset from a vantage point in the air, the sky was a mix of orange and pink shades. We landed back at Blackbushe at around 8:30pm, just before the last of the light disappeared.

Everyone enjoyed the flight, and we all agreed that this was an excellent way to spend a holiday Monday.