Newton's laws of motion as applied to me.

Doh!

2006-07-27T09:42:00.000+01:00

Apologies for lack of posting.. life has been hectic to put it mildly. Since my last post on 11th May I have been flying a fair amount, accumulating 43 more hours to my log book. I have found since achieving the pilots license, a whole world has opened up for me to explore, at the moment I have barely scratched the surface but have managed a trip accross the channel to Ostende in Belguim and have flown above clouds over the mountains in North Wales.

My IMC training is completed albeit the final skills test which is scheduled for next Wednesday, which I am half excited about and half dreading. The IMC has proved to be an exacting course but enjoyable and has improved the accuracy of my flying enormously.

Over the next few weeks I will attempt to get some updates on here with some photos of the highlights of the past 43 hours.

IMC Lesson #4

2006-05-11T15:40:00.000+01:00

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

2006-05-05T16:06:00.000+01:00

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

2006-05-03T11:51:00.000+01:00

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

2006-05-03T11:24:00.000+01:00

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

2006-05-03T10:16:00.000+01:00

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.

Late flight

2006-04-30T11:35:00.000+01:00

On the spur of the moment I decided to go flying again yesterday, the weather was beautiful so figured I couldn't let it go to waste. I called a couple of friends of ours, Mike and his wife Vicky and asked if they wanted to come along. They did so we all met up and headed to Blackbushe.

Vicky had to yet to fly in a light aircraft, and she is coming along on tomorrows trip to Cornwall therefore it was a good chance to see if she likes it before tomorrow, as the flight time will be a couple of hours each leg.

We departed at 6:30pm after the airfield tower had closed for the evening, so all radio was to "Blackbushe Traffic". Matt an instructor I know was doing a PFL with his student so we waited at the hold until they landed. Then we went.

I had not planned anything other than checking the weather and the NOTAMS so headed out to familiar area over to the west and just flew around for a bit. Vicky enjoyed it, she was sitting in the front right seat with Mike in the back, Mike took some photos. The weather was equally as good in the air, with superb visibility and only some scattered cloud at around 4000. There was also little other traffic which surprised me, I had expected it to be really busy on a day like today.

The fuel pumps were closed before we left therefore I didn't have as long as I would have liked in the air, so we headed back after around 45minutes of flying aimlessly around. The landing was a fairly good one and an improvement on my last couple.

Afterwards we went for a beer at the bar and got talking to another couple of pilots, one of whom is another forumite on the flyer.co.uk forums. After awhile we went back for a BBQ after collecting Tris.

Nice way to spend an evening.

Test flight

2006-04-28T18:29:00.000+01:00

Spent this afternoon at the airfield with our engineer taking a look at the oil problem, the problem was a gasket on one of the magnetos (which have just been replaced with new ones). The engineer was excellent and fielded alot of inane questions from me, as he fixed the plane.

After the work was done we went up for a test flight and she flew beautifully so no further problems need addressing.

Whilst at the airfield I booked my first IMC lesson with James an instructor for next week, I intend spending the next few months getting the instrument rating. Also if this good weather holds out the 1st of May trip to Cornwall now looks possible to go ahead. :-)

Isle of Wight again

2006-04-26T21:04:00.000+01:00

See previous entry for this mornings flight.

This afternoon I took Lima Sierra for a sight seeing flight around the Isle of Wight, the weather remained good although convective activity as the sun warmed the earth made flying a little bumpy. Mike brought his video camera along and was able to capture some excellent footage.

The flight down to Isle of Wight was amazing for the fact that there was very little radio activity from Farnborough radar, I expected due to the weather that every man and his dog would be flying but it was eerily quiet. This caused me once to ask for a radio check from Farnborough just to make sure that I hadn't suffered a radio failure.

I followed the coastline round the island, descending fairly low over the water to give a good view of the white cliffs and the 'Needles', Mike was smiling and was amazed by the experience. Mentioning that it almost seemed surreal. The waters of the English channel below looked almost tropical and the trees inland are starting to turn from winter brown to the greens of summer. Once again over the water the air was smooth and therefore flying was easy with a couple of fingers on the control column to steer us round the contours of the island.

Circuiting the island takes a good amount of time, therefore after one trip round I headed back to Blackbushe. The route back was totally different with many aircraft on the frequency including several French pilots who had flown from Le Touquet, for the most part they struggled with our very quick and busy airwaves. They also spoke with heavy accents which the controller tried to understand but often had to ask them to repeat.

Approaching Farnborough was interesting, I requested clearance to transit their zone, however the controller was on two frequencies and was clearly running at max load. He had several aircraft under his control (IFR commercial jets), to which he passed heading and altitude changes. The controller asked me to route to the North West of the airfield and maintain my present altitude of 2500ft, to which I accepted and complied. The controller continues to pass directions to his departing aircraft. Shortly Mike points out that the aircraft is too our right, I look and he appears to be climbing and passing behind, he then whilst I am watching turns in an intercept course conflicting with us and is nose down. He is less than a mile away and now heading directly towards us! I carry out an emergency descent which leaves Mike's stomach floating about a 1000ft overhead. All this happens pretty quickly and it is only by taking this action that the risk was avoided. The controller had descended the aircraft onto our altitude explicitly and I wonder if their TCAS had warned them that we were in conflict. Anyway no harm done.

I was still outside Farnborough's ATZ and so orbitted while I gained clearance through their zone, I was told to observe and follow the helicopter on the left hand side which was passing through en-route to Odiham. I turned and slotted in behind him, keeping him in our 10 o'clock position and a good distance away, although I had to 'S' turn a bit to avoid overtaking him. I soon left him to join the adjacent Blackbushe ATZ.

On final I did a terrible unforgivable landing! I bounced on the front wheel... duh! I have actually never done this before.. and although it was a very soft bounce it reminded me of my capability of screwing up basic things. I recovered it after a short hop and the final touch-down was good.

Anyway aside from these events had a really good flight and Mike loved it also, we spent the next hour or so discussing flight training.

As a side issue, Lima Sierra has recently developed a problem with leaking oil which appears to be worsening. I checked the oil and topped up to around 7/10ths full before we set off after landing and flying two hours she had lost 1.5l so was reading just under 5/10ths. I calculated that she was losing about 0.7-0.8L of oil per hour and the evidence was dripping onto the front wheel pant. This sadly means she will now need to be grounded until the problem can be rectified, also there are suspicions she is not producing full power. Our engineer is coming to take a look at her on Friday and I have volenteered to take him for a test flight and to be on hand to assist the inspection. I am hoping rather optimistically that a flight I had planned to Cornwall again on 1st May is able to go ahead and the problem can be solved before then.

Lots of flying

2006-04-26T19:30:00.000+01:00

7.10am I get a call from Cabair asking if I could get there as early as possible to do a ferry to Cranfield, I managed to get down to the airfield for 8am as promised. Unfortunately I had yet to plan to actual flight so spent the next 10 minutes writing a VFR flight log and examining the route. The Wx reports looked excellent although it looked likely I would have to remain around or below 2000AMSL due to cloud and also to skip under some controlled airspace.

The aircraft to ferry was another AA5 although this time the more powerful 180hp AA5-B 'Tiger', which I have limited time on (read two hours). Cranfield wanted to use the aircraft at 8:30am however due to having to refuel before departing I didn't leave until 8:44am!

The Tiger leapt on the ground eagerly with just me aboard and once in the cruise was happy at 125knts at 2300rpm. Flying this aircraft was fun. The route itself was simple enough and after 35 minutes I was near to Cranfield, the problem was I was not confident that my assesment of my position was entirely accurate, I could see a large town ahead but was unsure if it was the town I thought it was. There are two other large towns nearby therefore I decided rather than just assume my planned course was right I would dial in the VOR based at Cranfield and check with that. However at this point I realised this simple task was not proving to be as simple as I expected as G-JENN had a different set of instruments than I had ever used before. After several futile attempts to pick up the VOR radial I decided to just ask Cranfield Approach for a QDM which I could use to verify my exact position. It turned out I was where I had hoped to be so was therefore a wasted exercise, however at least I had allayed my fears.

The weather was gorgeous this morning although kept me under 2000AMSL the whole way with scattered stratus and a few cumulus. I could have gone on top but the altitude was also restricted in various places on the route by controlled airspace above and I figured be better to stay well clear of it.

After Approach passed me to Cranfield Tower I was asked to join on downwind for runway 24, lots of aircraft were in the circuit as this is a training college for commerical and airline pilots. At late downwind I was number one to land, on final I could see a queue of around 5 aircraft waiting at the hold for me. The runway is long here and I knew I would want to be towards the end of the runway in order to avoid taxiing for miles so I decided to deliberately land long, however I stupidly allowed myself to pick up a bit too much speed therefore making the landing longer than intended. I suspect my landing was condemed by many pairs of critical eyes of all the commercial pilots, bastards that they are! ;-p

Anyway enjoyable flight and I was satisfied that it went well despite my long landing. After dropping off the documents for G-JENN another aircraft had arrived to pick me up. J another instructor had also taken a ferry to Cranfield to drop off another aircraft so E picked up both up. I elected to sit in the back on the return to Blackbushe.

E took the aircraft above the cloud layer and J handled the radio, was fun just sitting in the back appreciating the sun on the clouds. At one point J had to grab controls to take evasive action with steep right turn to avoid another light aircraft on the nose. E had been checking instruments at the time and therefore missed seeing it, easily done. Evasive action was to be a theme for me today as it turned out, but more on that later.

At Blackbushe I grabbed a coffee than headed back home, I had another flight planned this afternoon to take a friend flying. Mike is interested in taking flying lessons himself although had yet to fly in a light aircraft, so I figured we could take a sight seeing trip down to the Isle of Wight (my favorite place), which I will post later about.

Good luck

2006-04-25T15:16:00.000+01:00

Just a short note about another excellent blog I regularly read; Clumpy is about to take the last part of her commerical skills test after months of training. So good luck Clumpy!

Lack of flying

2006-04-25T15:05:00.000+01:00

The weekend trip to Cherbourg went ahead, although without me.. number of factors conspired against me forcing me to pull out on the morning of the trip. I will however get another chance during the summer no doubt.

I reserved LS for yesterday and today, on both occasions had to cancel due to miserable weather.. we have extremely light winds, relatively warm temperatures and high dew point, you guessed it, fog and mist! Sadly total IMC conditions. The weather tomorrow is forecast to improve immensely however so I have made a third reservation to take up a friend who is interested in learning to fly himself.

A at Cabair called me to offer me a couple more ferry flights for this afternoon, but due to wx I will now do these first thing in the morning, which is excellent. This week my flexibility with work is extremely good because I am waiting for acceptance of a technology proposal I submitted last week which can't be agreed until next week! Therefore rather than sitting around doing nothing I may as well fly as much as the weather allows. I will also be flying LS Friday with our engineer, he is going to take a look at a problem we may be experiencing with loss of power output from the engine and a slight oil leak.

Ferry flight to Elstree

2006-04-19T13:06:00.000+01:00

Cabair offered me a ferry flight this morning, just to take G-KINE for her annual check. The route to Elstree is fairly tight along the Heathrow control zone and also the Luton zone so as this was my first time visiting Elstree a new instructor kindly agreed to come along. Even though it was his day off.

It has been awhile since I have flown an AA5 but quickly remembered the speeds and where everything was in the cockpit. The navigation proved easy as there are alot of visual references enabling us to stay clear of the class A controlled airspace, infringing it would likely mean a loss of my pilots licence hence was critical to keep on top of the navigation. Weather was pretty hazy and we were skimming under the cloud at between 1800-2000AMSL with vis at around 7km, good enough. Landing at Elstree was uneventful so we parked up and awaited our lift. Fiona and Angela arrived in another AA5 and we jumped in for the return journey.

Sitting in the back was really funny as Angela and Fiona were having fits of the giggles, this was a training flight for Angela with Fiona the instructor. Angela pulled off a very nice landing back at Blackbushe.

Only 0.7 hours P1 time, but good to get back in the air with Lima Sierra still out of action having magnetos serviced, also it was my first FREE flight! I hope to get as many ferry flights as I can in future.

Grr no flying

2006-04-18T08:45:00.000+01:00

Lima Sierra has a magneto problem which is preventing her from starting at the moment, therefore she is with our engineer this coming week to get fixed. Also the past few days have seen me turn from a regular citizen into a activist, long story but a building developer has decided that a small patch of land near our home is suitable for building towering apartment blocks on. This has prompted all my neighbours and I to protest the planning application as it really will have an enormous impact on our local area.

In terms of flying my next trip is next weekend, flying to Cherbourg in France and staying there a night before flying back the next day.. should be fun!

VFR Flight Log

2006-04-08T19:58:00.000+01:00

Created a small PDF file which prints out 2 x A5 VFR Flight Log sheets, maybe useful to others so figured I would post it on my blog. Get it here.

Cornwall trip

2006-04-06T20:01:00.000+01:00

Ok so I lied, it has taken me two days to write this report.. however here it is:

The plan started about six weeks ago, my dad mentioned that he had an idea about a flying trip and wanted to know my thoughts.. my dads father-in-law Tony was approaching his birthday on the 4th of April and my dad wondered about taking him for a flight. Tony is long retired now but in his younger days he used to race sail boats after WWII in the olympics, one of the boats he used to sail has now been restored and resides in a Maritime museum in Falmouth, Cornwall. The thing is he suffers from back problems and a seven hour drive to Cornwall would be an arduous affair if not impossible. Tony also in his youth had some flying experience in gliders but again had not flown for decades.

Therefore the plan was to make subtle enquiries as to firstly whether he wanted to come flying and secondly how long did he think he could cope in the air with his back, keeping the visit to Falmouth a secret for now. I had worked out an estimated flight time of nearly two hours not allowing for any wind, which he felt he could do because he would be so distracted by flying he wouldn't worry about his back. Therefore all now depended on the weather.

As time drew closer to the 4th I planned the flight properly, at least the route and noted down frequencies etc.. the first leg would be from Blackbushe to Compton Abbas as Tony lived only 15 minutes away from there, we would then pick him up and then fly down to the South coast at Bridport. Next we would continue to fly along the coastline round the many jags, cliffs, seaside towns all the way to the western corner of England.. Cornwall. Once at Cornwall I selected the closest airfield to Falmouth, Truro airfield. This is a privately owned airfield with a short (530m) grass runway, from there we would take a taxi cab to Falmouth.

The planning was by far the most adventurous I have undertaken to date, we had to cross two marked danger areas off-shore (D012 and D009) along with a couple of NOTAM'ed areas where military aircraft were carrying out target practice on towed targets. I called the RAF operations to ask what the likelihood was that I would get cleared through these areas. The RAF guy was real helpful and told me what aircraft where going to be doing at what times and what altitudes and gave me a couple of frequencies I could talk to en-route to get Danger Area Crossing Service (DACS) under radar supervision. I asked him to ask the pilots to please not shoot at anything Cessna shaped.

On the third of April the weather forecast was looking excellent so I called dad and told him it was almost certainly a go and we arranged to get to Blackbushe at 8.00am.

I woke early and completed the navigation planning for the first leg before dad arrived to pick me up, he was running a little late so we didn't get to Blackbushe until 8:30am. I carried out a meticulous preflight and realised we needed to pick up fuel, so we filled up which took more time. We finally departed at just before 10am. The winds were directly behind us so Compton Abbas was a fairly short flight with a ground speed around 130knts. The weather was amazing, stunning visibility with 40km and only scattered cumulus at around 5,000, makes one hellva change from the past few flights which have been mostly less than 10km.

This is the second time I have been to Compton Abbas, having visited earlier on in the year.. I warned dad about the bumpy but fun runway. This time we would be landing on runway 8 the opposite from before.

I joined the circuit with only one other aircraft joining from the opposite direction, and made an OK approach with an OK short-field landing, not my best but satisfactory. We bounced along due to the undulating surface and came to a halt barely a third into the length. I swung off into the longer grass and parked next to a nice looking Bulldog. Tony was there waiting for us so we went inside and grabbed a coffee. I completed the planning for the next stage down to Truro, just having to work out the wind drift, true airspeed and fuel required.

We got into the aircraft with Tony in the right-hand seat and dad in the back, and soon was taxiing to the runway. A Tiger Moth was nearby and we watched as it was hand-propped, I thought I bet that is fun to fly on a day like today. The runway proved funny again.. we were bouncing along over the crest of the hill and I was trying hard to make sure I kept the nosewheel up without lifting off prematurely before having enough speed. We were now three-up with full fuel so almost at MAUW, the take off began uphill on grass before reaching the downslope, so all combined meant Lima Sierra limped into the air and needed a Vx climb to miss the trees at the end of the runway. We cleared them with plenty of room fortunately.

Reaching the coastline only took around 20 minutes, I obtained clearance through the danger areas using the frequencies given to me the day before and flew just offshore. The water looked amazingly serene up here and once over the water any lumpiness in the air vanished. Water heats air evenly therefore we don't get the same kind of convective activity as we do on land.

Tony was clearly loving the flight, he was animated and pointing out all the places he knew along the coast. It really was beautiful, all the little seaside towns, dramatic cliffs and rock formations. I had totally forgotten how picture perfect our coastline can be, considering I live just outside London and am surrounded by a modern concrete jungle. The further West we flew the quieter the radio became, it seems very few people other than the Royal Navy heli's and the RAF jets were taking advantage of the weather. The whole flight along the coast gave us so much to look at that the time evaporated. Soon enough we entered Cornwall just below St Austell, looking to the South West we could clearly see Lands End and the shape of the bottom corner of England.

The next challenge was to find Truro airfield, I could see where it should be by reference to the town of Truro and the windfarm the airfield is adjacent to but I couldn't see the airfield itself. I asked Tony and dad to look for it also as it should now be below us. I circled round and then realised the small innocent looking field below was in fact it, wow.. small! I tried calling up the airfield but had no response, therefore I decided to circle again and try and pick out which way the windsock was pointing. It was basically directly across the runway at about 10-15knts. I decided I liked the look of 32 (totally forgetting that the runway is on a hillside with a 4 degree slope from North to South) so entered a descending left base for the runway and making blind calls.

This was a real shortfield landing, if I messed this up we would likely over-run so I decided early that if I definitely couldn't hit the numbers I would go around for another attempt. Sure enough the first approach was poor.. the downhill slope created a visual illusion which meant I came in too flat and also too high to make the numbers. I went around. The next approach was much better, I dropped all 40 degree of flaps to bring us in steeply at the slowest airspeed I could get (61mph) and forced myself to begin the flare before crossing the hedge and threshold. As we came down I pulled it out of the sideslip for the cross wind and we touched down firmly right on the numbers and rolled to a halt.. the runway surface was much better than Compton Abbas with no bumpiness. Total landing roll was around 180m, which impressed me greatly, I am sure the Katana could not have got into that space on a short grass surface.

We parked up on some nearby grass and hopped out. The flight time had been just one hour and 45 minutes due to the helpful tailwind, certainly beats the seven hour trip by car!

The female owner of the airfield was nearby at a small hut with her children, she had come out to greet us. We chatted awhile and found out we were one of the first visitors this year, no other aircraft where here at all! Immediately the West country attitude was apparent, laid back and casual, we were made to feel very welcome. The airfield was basking in the Spring sun and being on a hill gave us a good view all around of the cornish hills fading to the coast. We called a local taxi firm and then had a picnic on the airfield while we waited for it to arrive.

The taxi arrived and took us direct to the museum, Tony and dad went inside while I stopped outside to have a smoke, telling them I would catch them up inside. I walked over to the quayside and looked out across Falmouth bay, that moment was priceless. The warm air was soft with salt and gulls were calling out, the waves gently lapped the moored yachts and dinghies. A Royal Navy destroyer and command ship were a little way out and I could see the sailors busy on the decks. The sight of the many palm trees which live in the relatively warm climate in the West reminded me how amazing it was that only a couple of hours ago we were in the suburbs of London and now I am here. Amazing stress reliever.

I reluctantly left this paradise and went inside the museum, catching up with Tony and dad. Tony was again animated at seeing the boat he obviously held so much affection for, telling us of it's speed and the races. Sadly we didn't have too much time to hang around as I was conscious that the return trip would take much longer even though it was direct, the headwind would guarantee that. We proceeded through the museum but didn't spend too long looking at everything. A cab was again called and we resumed our journey, the cab driver spoke with that Cornish drawl which was excellent to hear, he was surprised and interested to hear we had flown down and asked a lot of questions.

When we arrived back at Truro airfield the owners again greeted us and we chatted for awhile. He is a commercial heli pilot and bought the airfield a few years ago, he does pleasure trips around Cornwall mainly in the summer and also offers instruction on his R44. I went to carry out a preflight on Lima Sierra, I only had 12 gallons of fuel left which wouldn't get us very far. I had intended to stop in at the much larger Exeter airport on the way back to refuel however a large tank here was marked as 100LL AVGAS so I enquired if he would sell us fuel. He was happy to, however mentioned that the tank had not been used hardly at all since last year so he would have to first test it. I helped him to turn on the levers and pumps as he recycled the fuel for awhile to clear any water that may have got into the pipes. He then poured a large amount into a clear plastic bucket to look for contamination, it was blue coloured, bright and no contamination was evident so I said I would accept the fuel. I proceeded to fill up both wing tanks to full. I checked the fuel drains on each tank twice.. no water again.

Next challenge was taking off again, hmm.. again we were at near MAUW due to the acquisition of the fuel, I knew I would have to take-off downhill regardless of the wind, which was incidentally still right across the runway. The owner had cut the runway grass today (I suspect for us especially) therefore we wouldn't get too much drag slowing up the take off run. The numbers worked in principal although with very little margin for miscalculation, I figured that I would need to be at 50mph by the time I was half-way otherwise I must abort and attempt to stop before hitting the hedge at the end of the runway. If I didn't get 50mph at that point and continued I would be committed and with trees and buildings at the end to clear it would likely mean disaster. Not for the faint hearted, I decided to keep my concerns to myself rather than alarming my passengers.

We waved goodbye to our hosts and taxied. I kept as tight in as I could to the threshold to make sure we got the longest run possible and opened the throttle.. speed started building.. 3rd of the length.. 40mph.. half-way.. 48 mph.. eek.. decided to continue.. we limped into the air at 55mph so kept the nose down to build up speed in ground effect then held 65mph in the climb out. We used most of the runway as expected and were able to clear the trees and buildings by an OK margin. Therefore a good result although to be honest this was the first time I really HAD to use every bit of the skills I had learnt on the PPL course, it gave me cause to wonder in hindsight the wisdom of attempting such things with so few hours under my belt. I think in future I would rather limit myself to 580m+ runway lengths, it is perhaps a part of the learning curve to discover what my personal limits should be. However hopefully discover them safely and in future alone. I suspect anyone reading this may think me reckless on this occasion, and I think they maybe right. If I had done this solo I would not dwell on it as only my life would be at risk, however I had two passengers with me, stuff to think about.

By the way anyone thinking of visiting Truro airfield, do so, my account is of a fully loaded 172 with no headwind to assist take-off run so don't let it put you off. The hospitality and setting was awesome and I will return here one day with a lighter load.

Anyway, on with the journey. The flight back was as expected slow due to the headwind which was pretty much directly on the nose, the weather remained superb as we climbed over the moors. We flew just below few fluffy clouds at close to 5,000AMSL giving us an excellent view of both the East and West coasts of Cornwall. We were flying with Flight Information Service the whole way although the frequency was very quiet with only occasional exchanges between Exeter approach and the professional pilots coming in under radar supervision. The way back was again excellent, plenty to see and lots of animated conversations between Tony and dad and myself.

After a couple of hours we found Compton Abbas although again hard to spot from the South due to being hidden along the edge of woodland. The time was now past 5pm and we joined overhead for runway 8 again. I called final and was told there was a 22knt crosswind, nothing like a good crosswind on a short soft runway for focusing the senses. I pulled off the first greaser of the day to Tony's compliments, I neglected to mention that I was trying to plonk it down as a good shortfield landing and failed... oh well.

We paused here awhile to say good bye to Tony who was extremely appreciative, today we had achieved something, we had put a huge smile on all our faces, and all made possible by the decision almost a year ago to take up flying lessons. This flying lark is good isn't it :-).

After checking the weather again and official sunset time dad and I set off back to Blackbushe. The sun was now beginning to sink below the horizon giving the few scattered clouds a rose tint with the lighter grey cirus high above. The air was now totally smooth and the radio almost silent, with seemingly hardly anyone else enjoying the flying conditions. We were both totally relaxed and enjoying the serenity of it all, away from the busy streets with their rush hour traffic and the mundane.

Blackbushe was now out of hours for the ATC service so we entered the circuit normally with calls to one other aircraft who called a straight in final about 20 miles out!?! We eventually ended up calling short final and landing long before the other aircraft appeared.

We then went to the flying club bar and got a couple of beers.. good time to reflect on the day. One realisation occurred to me at this point; I realised with a twinge of regret that in my adult life I had had far fewer adventures than I should have had. Today has been one of the best times of my entire life, I will be doing a lot more adventurous trips.

Long and amazing flight

2006-04-04T22:20:00.000+01:00

Well today marked the longest and most adventurous trip I had planned, I flew down to the South Coast and all the way along the coastline to the western tip of England and back. Total of 5.7 hours including 3 airfields in gorgeous spring weather. Many pictures were taken which I will aim to post tomorrow when I will also write up a decent report, however I am sure report or no report the memories of today will remain etched in my memory for life.

Instrument rating thoughts

2006-03-24T23:51:00.000Z

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

2006-03-23T19:08:00.000Z

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

2006-03-19T10:09:00.000Z

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

2006-03-18T18:57:00.000Z

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

2006-03-18T12:39:00.000Z

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

2006-03-15T20:16:00.000Z

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

2006-03-14T19:09:00.000Z

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

2006-03-11T19:11:00.000Z

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

2006-03-10T15:25:00.000Z

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

2006-03-10T15:03:00.000Z

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

2006-03-04T15:24:00.000Z

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

2006-03-01T18:53:00.000Z

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.

Compton Abbas

2006-02-27T16:50:00.000Z

Today I thought I had a slot booked with an instructor, however I had made a mistake, I DO have an instructor slot but not until Wednesday, the slot I booked today was just as a hirer. I decided anyway to go to a short grass strip to get some practice as I had by this time carried out all the planning.

The airfield I selected is Compton Abbas, which I heard was very nice. The weather was mainly overcast today at 4500MSL and few at 2500MSL which was fine as I wanted to cruise at 3500MSL between the layers. The strong winds of the past couple of days had reduced alot and was now around 12knts, this would make the landing more interesting at Compton Abbas as the wind was directly accross the runway.

I depart safe in the knowledge that I can have the aircraft the whole afternoon as strangely it seems it is a slow day at Blackbushe with few bookings.

The flight out to Compton Abbas is uneventfull, other than twice having to cross MATZ's which were both busy today, Farnborough radar were excellent with their traffic advisories. I very nearly flew right past Compton Abbas as it is pretty hard to see from the air as the surrounding terrain is a ridge of hills covered in green fields and woodlands, the airfield is sat at the top of one of these hills. The circuit here is also unusual with two dog legs to avoid overflying some small villiages and hamlets. I join from deadside with only one other aircraft doing touch-n-go's (I later find out it is a Citabria). On final the air is fairly choppy due to the wind rising off the nearby hillsides and I mess around with attitude a bit to try and get the airspeed I want, I also have an outrageous crab angle going on for the crosswind. Now to remember all the lessons on soft and short field landings. The runway is very narrow and runs downhill then uphill again, well has more character than the big dead level asphalt runway I am used to at Blackbushe. As I cross the threshold I bleed off the speed slowly while applying a touch more power to keep flying a bit and touch down very softly with the stall horn blaring.. ok I am down.. argh no I am not.. yes I am.. this runway has a load of bumps so the katana bounces gently along on the mains as I roll to a halt.

I shut down and get out, the view from the airfield is amazing, I will definately have to come back here in the summer. The parked aircraft here include alot of aerobatic types, a Pitts Special, a Vans RV6, a Bulldog.. they all look like fun. The airfield also has a small aviation museum but I decided I needed a drink so went and got a cold coke from the clubhouse. This whole airfield is pretty much GA and a commercial venture is not to be seen, makes a refreshing change. The people are also really friendly, the lady behind the counter chatted to me for awhile, apparently she first learnt how to fly tiger moths at Blackbushe.

The return flight is again mainly uneventfull, with only having to deviate from my flightplan in order to get clearance through one of the MATZ on the way back.

Really enjoyed the flying today and pleased that amazingly I didn't run into any hedges or trees or imbed the wheels into their nice crazy runway. God I love flying!

AA5 Check-out

2006-02-21T13:23:00.000Z

Weather this morning was fairly crap with cloudbase at around 2000MSL and a strong NW wind of around 16knts gusting 20knts, fairly ideal actually for a duel check in a new aircraft.

Matt was my instructor for today as Antonio is back in Spain for a week, their two teaching styles are different but both are gifted pilots and have enough patience to suffer my less than perfect aircraft handling. We basically have to go and do some airwork from the PPL course such as stalls, steep turns, glides, engine failures then a whole bunch of landings, the differences from the Katana will be briefed as we go.

After carrying out an A check together which is pretty much similiar to the Katana we depart, taxiing the AA5 is considerably easier than the Katana with a larger rudder and bigger pedals. The take off is different also, the AA5 being heavier requires slightly more speed (65knts at rotation) and at first I do not pull back enough on the control column, being used to the much more sensitive Katana. It climbs like a brick into some fairly turbulent air. We continue out to the West and climbing to a nice gap in the clouds. Flying amoungst large cumulus clouds is alot of fun and we have to weave and frequently change direction to remain clear.

The control column is easy to get used to, although I find the controls much heavier than the Katana, with the Katana only slight pressure on the stick is needed to turn and the stick has a much nicer responsive feel to it. Using a control column feels akin to 'driving' an aircraft around the sky. The next problem for me is the rudder, I find it very hard to retrain myself for the larger rudder, I am used to applying a lot of rudder in the Katana when turning and also when climbing and descending in order to keep co-ordinated, the AA5 however requires much less.

At 5000MSL we find a relatively large hole in the clouds so to begin with Matt demonstrates a power-off stall and the recovery. The stall is less benign than in the Katana as the Katana tends to mush with the nose bopping up a down, in the AA5 a wing drop occurs followed by the nose coming down, recovery the same. I carry out a few of these without losing any significant height and using the rudder to level the wings.

Next are standard steep turns, I carry out a few turns to the right to 60degrees of bank while applying significant back pressure to keep altitude. It turns out than the nose position in reference to the horizon is pretty much the same as the Katana therefore it comes alot easier than expected. Turns to the left are again the same. Matt and myself are fairly satisfied with those so we move on. Matt suddenly tells me I have an engine fire, so I go through the procedure, fuel off and engine secured and dive to VNE until Matt tells me the fire is out, I pull out gentle from the dive to best glide speed of 75knts and pick a suitable field into wind. The field is very close by and we are way to high still so I note the current heading of 180 and decide to do a hi-key maneouver so keep a bank angle of 30 degrees and keeping the field in sight. I roll out and we are lined up pretty much but a touch too high so full flaps and forward slip. It was clear we would make it so we climb away. Immediately after at around 600MSL engine failure again, I secure the aircraft and pick another field, this again goes well so climb away again.

We continue to around 2000MSL, now we are flying over a more built-up area with very few fields suitable for landing so you guessed it, engine failure again. Over to the far left is a suitable field but it is a long way, hmm can we make it, probably not but I go for it anyway. I turn towards the field and in doing so now have a strong tailwind, this makes alot of difference and we glide extremely well. Do all the normal stuff such as restart checks, mayday call, secure everything and before long all looks good, I allow the aircraft to pass the field on the left hand side so I can turn into wind. As soon as I bring it into wind it is like the aircraft suddenly stops gliding and starts descending quicker, of course this is an illusion.. an aircraft climbs or descends no differently with a head or tail wind. We do make it however just.

The next engine failure is not so good, I pick a suitable field out of very little choice, it is in fact three fields adjacent with what looks like small wire fences seperating them.. in the circumstances was still the best place. My mistake this time is to underestimate the wind, I mention that it is not into wind it will be accross the wind with a slight tailwind. The result is we reach the field fine but are way too high, I could circle but doubtfull I had enough height to complete it, therefore failed on that attempt. Matt takes us back roughly to where we were when he started the fan stop and demonstrates the same thing himself, although this time he uses a different approach to the field and was able to put us into wind. Lesson learnt.

Over-all the procedures were fine and in most cases I would have made a successful forced landing so satisfied I didn't screw it up to badly Matt decided we should do some unusual attitude recovery with questions on instruments etc. Closing my eyes I felt the aircraft apparently doing a series of aerobatics under Matt's control, basically he was trying to mess up my senses and succeeded. He told me to open my eyes and I have control. Speed rocketing upwards and wings banked, spiral dive so close the throttle and ease out of the dive whilst leveling the wings gradually. We do a couple of these including nose high. No problems so head back for circuits.

Circuits today are interesting with a strong crosswind and alot of turbulence, the more I fly in these conditions with an instructor the better really. The first landing is a normal landing and on final the wind is gusting around with airspeed fluctuating alot due to wind shear, the landing is not too bad for my first in an AA5. I do a few more touch and go's with different degrees of flap, each one is pretty hard work with the conditions. The circuit is empty apart from us which is ideal for a few glide approaches, so we do a few of those. Again the wind makes this pretty hard to judge as each time is slightly different. Only once do I have to go-around however and the remainder are acceptable although all my landings are not greasers that I regularly do in the Katana. The Katana being lighter however would be a real handfull in these conditions.

We land and Matt is generally pleased so tells me I am checked out and we don't need to do anything else. I therefore can now rent a four seater as well as a Katana so gives me hopefully more options and more availability of aircraft.

In comparing the two I would say the Grumman AA5 is nice to fly, it is easier in the cruise with a much better trim system than the Katana, the visibility is almost as good as the Katana also with a low nose attitude. It is however heavier, feels slower and is less lithe than the Katana, I think perhaps less fun to fly. The school also has Piper Warrior II's but I have decided they feel much to much like driving a bus in comparison to both the AA5 and especially the Katana.

I am hoping to fly again with Antonio next week to go fly some difficult circuits at another airfield with a short grass runway, this is in order to get some real short/soft field landings in rather than just simulated ones. The airfield I have in mind also has a wierd circuit to avoid over-flying some nearby villages.

Future plans

2006-02-17T17:48:00.000Z

At the moment a number of plans are formulating for my future now I have a license. The first one is investing in an aircraft, I have been looking at the options for group ownership and due to some very kind groups have been able to look at several aircraft recently. One in particular was very tempting, a fairly new Piper PA28 Warrior II with full IFR and airways fit, moving map Garmin GPS and a comfortable interior. In flight it was much more stable than I am used to but felt a little ponderous. The visibility also was much less than I am used to, but otherwise I could see the benefit of flying the aircraft as a tourer.

The next option came about in a strange way, I saw a small handwritten advert pinned to a noticeboard, advertising a citabria for sale so I called the number and was told he was selling on behalf of an Irish guy who wanted to buy one of his super cubs. This lead to a conversation on super cubs and he invited me down to take a look in their farm strip hangar.

I found the place and went in to a fairly non-descript hangar to be greeted by the sight of around 16 super cubs in various conditions, some missing wings and some complete. Nearly all had Isreali airforce markings. Basically they were recently bought from the Isreali airforce as a lot and are being fully refurbished. It was immediately apparent that much care was being taken over this process and the quality of the finished articles is simply superb. The selling price of each one is around the $85,000.00 mark (in USD because currently the work is being carried out under the FAA rather than the more costly CAA), with the exchange rate being favorable this gives me an option to invest in a vintage aeroplane which will still cruise at 110knts and land in the smallest places. Flying a taildragger also very much appeals. I have been offered a test flight in one at the earliest opportunity which I intend to follow up.

The next aim of mine certainly for this year is to get the IMC rating, I am considering doing this in the USA as the cost is almost a quarter of the cost here, even throwing in the cost of the flights still is far more attractive.

Flyingwise, I plan to cross the channel this year and do some flying in Europe, particularly the idea of flying down to Italy via the Alps seems like fun.

First passenger flight

2006-02-17T14:30:00.000Z

I had a two hour slot reserved yesterday morning intending to be my first passenger flight, my dad having agreed to come along for a ride. My intention was to take a scenic route and fly down to the coast and the Isle of Wight. The problems began the night before, weather reports were showing broad weather fronts moving accross the UK from the South West with CB's and thunder storms, and a reported wind of 240/20G40. I therefore ruled out flight in my mind and phoned my dad to let him know it wasn't possible.

Come the morning I called Blackbushe to cancel the booking and to my surprise learnt that flying was going on and the weather was not as bad as reported, the wind whilst strong was pretty much straight down the runway. Therefore late change of plan. I called my dad and he was game, I warned him the conditions will be a bit rough but nothing to be concerned about. I checked the METARS and TAFS along with the NOTAMS and all in all although the weather looked generally poor VFR flight was definately possible, I would just have to avoid clouds. Due to my lack of preperation first thing (in mistakenly ruling out flying) we arrived late.. almost an hour late. That gave us just 1 hour to have a fly around, therefore I decided to go to familiar territory where I did the majority of my training.

The preflight proved annoying, the fuel was almost empty requiring further delay to fill up, secondly the borrowed club headset was broken requiring a trip back to the office to pick up another one, more delay. After briefing my dad on what we were going to be doing we departed. My take off was reasonably good, although once in the air I experienced alot of turbulence and wind shear passing over the trees at the end of runway 25, this whilst not alarming made me make a mental note that returning later was likely to be the same so to be prepared.

Visibility was fairly good, although not as good as I hoped and certainly not over to the West where I had intended to head, I obtained flight information service from Farnborough Radar and went North towards what looked like a large break in the front. The journey out was at around 2500-3000AMSL variable due to avoiding the odd cloud and proved to be a bumpy ride. This did not worry my dad either as he is an experienced flyer (although not a pilot). We headed over to Reading area to take a few pictures of a sailing club where he owns a boat, a clear patch of blue sky showed through a large hole in the clouds and I decided to head through the front keeping the option of turning back should this start getting worrying. We passed by a large black CB pouring rain which was basically from ground level till at least 10000ft.

We broke free of the line of the weather front and entered into beautiful blue skies with the sun shining down, the air become smooth and I was able to climb to 4000ft. Another weather front was approaching from the West but was still at least 40nm away giving us time to safely stay in this area. At this point I received a relayed call from Farnborough Radar, requesting that I return back to Blackbushe because the weather had deteroriated significantly, I acknowledged the call and paused for thought. The weather front we had just passed through was now overhead Blackbushe and therefore on the ground I suspect they imagined I was out flying in the grasps of the large nimbus clouds or would be unable to come back in to land. From the air to me the situation was more straight forward, at no time did we enter IMC or risk entry into IMC conditions, we were flying in excellent conditions between the two fronts, I had a full tank of avgas and several divertion options in my immediate locality. I was however mindfull that their request could not be ignored so I reported that I was returning to Blackbushe. Intrestingly I heard other Blackbushe based aircraft then report they were also returning. The direct route back would place me into the heart of the CB, therefore I decided to fly to the South a distance in order to stay VMC and give the weather front time to push further to the east and away from Blackbushe.

After flying some distance towards Basingstoke, I received another call from ATC asking me to confirm I was heading back to Blackbushe. I replied that I was but taking an indirect route via Basingstoke in order to avoid the nasty cloud. Perhaps I should have made my intentions clear on my first radio call, point noted.

Overhead Basingstoke I had to descend as we were now entering the back of the weather front at 2000AMSL the air was once again choppy and forward visibility at best 8nm. I made another decision, I would continue but only a short distance and would divert if I didn't feel comfortable with this situation. After five minutes of this I was down to 1200AMSL with the clouds just over the canopy.. this is text book 'bad situation' with a lowering cloudbase and worsening visibility however the runway lights at Blackbushe appeared ahead. I reported I had Blackbushe in sight and requested frequency change. The Blackbushe frequency was alive with the sounds of a fairly shaken pilot in a PA28, he was saying that the circuit was extremely turbulent and he needed all the runway to get down. This worried me slightly I have to admit, the PA28 is a considerably heavier and more stable aircraft than the Katana we were flying and by the sound of this pilots voice he was more than a little shaken. Next decision of the day... I took the decision once again to depart if this was beyond my comfort level. After-all I knew better weather was now to the West and I had plenty of options to land elsewhere if needed.

As I entered the deadside I was already down to circuit height of 800QFE with the canopy just below the clouds, I crossed the runway and joined downwind which whilst bumpy was not alarming. In actual fact the weather would not have allowed us to continue any further North or East, glancing to the West I could already see the clear blue sky we were flying in earlier moving in towards the airfield. Turning final I anticipated alot of turbulence and wind shear, therefore decided to use only one stage of flap and keep the speed high. Sure enough bit of a crazy approach but the wind was straight down the runway and I have certainly experienced far worse with 25knt crosswinds flying with Antonio. (Picture taken on downwind).

The landing was a good one much to my satisfaction, I had half expected to embarass myself in front of my first passenger. We parked up and shut down, only for a guy to appear at my left window. He explained he couldn't speak English but indicated that he was there to wash aircraft and gestured towards the gates. I understood so started up and requested to taxi to the gates, which I was granted, on the way I was advised to look out for the citation jet which was starting up at Gate 1 and that I should hold. I turned onto the taxiway and saw the aforementioned jet so stopped thinking that the jet would take another taxiway (the usual route) to runway 25. After a minute or so he began turning towards us and it was then clear he was going to squeeze past us on the left.. sigh.. I should have given him more room. I suspect a few comments by the Captain and FO would have been directed my way from their cockpit as we all strained to watch our wingtips as he passed. Once he was clear I taxied over to the gate to further gestures from the foreign guy.

All in all a short flight, just 45 minutes airborne but was strangely fun. My dad mentioned he enjoyed the flight very much despite the short time and the adverse conditions we both then went and grabbed some lunch in the airfield bistro. He is looking forward to the next flight and hopefully we will get the chance to do it again soon and for a longer period.

This flight was also a good test of my decision making, it also makes me appreciate the amount of flying during training where conditions were poor. I think without having experience of strong crosswinds and marginal conditions today would have been well beyond my comfort level, as it was I tried to make early decisions and was always mentally ahead of the conditions.

I have a 4 hour slot booked in for early next week with Mathew, another instructor, in order to get checked out for the club Grumman AA5's. This process may take more than 4 hours to cover everything but at least it will get me most of the way there.

A somewhat late post

2006-02-17T14:07:00.000Z

Doh! where do I start.. I have not posted for some time (September eek!), this was largely due to work and life which has occupied far more time than anticipated. Also I guess an element of laziness crept in, the longer I didn't post the harder it became to get back in to posting.

Oh well, I will try to bring my diary up to date in a fashion and make more effort to keep this blog going in future.

First thing is first, alot has happened since September. I did manage to achieve the PPL after a long delay due to health and work which all combined to mean I didn't get to take the test until December. The test itself was strange and is worthy of a post on it's own which at some point I will revisit.

Solo Skill Test Practice 2

2005-09-25T13:33:00.000+01:00

A very short report today. I had the aircraft booked for a couple of hours today but the weather wasn't good with scattered cumulus around at 1900AMSL, alot of rain showers also. This ruled out doing anything too adventurous so I decided to just do some circuits.

Another student returned from some circuits and he looked very tired and hot. He mentioned how choppy the conditions are today and I figured I would go do a couple and see how it is.

I decided to carry out a short/soft field take-off at first, as soon as the wheels left the ground I could feel the aircraft being blown around in the fairly stiff wind. My climb-out I have to say was damn hard work.. airspeed all over the place and it took alot of effort to keep the wings level and in balance. I turned crosswind and had to descend to get back to circuit height, in fighting the choppyness on climb out I had allowed it to climb a little high. Downwind was slightly less choppy although required alot of tracking into the wind, I called to touch-and-go.

Final was again incredibly choppy, at several points the headwind component dropped off causing the katana to sink which meant adding power. The landing itself was ok, although I realised I had made an unforgivable error by not carrying out finals check, doh.. carb heat to cold, prop full rpm.

The next circuit was the same.. very choppy. I decided at that point that I would come in early, the conditions were such that I couldn't really concentrate on different landing/take-off techniques as all my concentration was being used to keep the plane from doing something crazy. I am also not experienced enough yet to become over-confident and that mistake on the first circuit was a reminder that I am still very much a student. I think it was better not to push my luck. I therefore called to land on downwind and once again had a hell of a fight on base and final to control the aircraft.

Once on the ground again I felt drained after just a couple of circuits, it really takes it out of you flying in those conditions. Therefore only 0.4 logged today sadly, but I am glad I chose to come early. Next flight will be next Saturday, probably a duel flight again.

Solo Skill Test Practice 1

2005-09-24T17:50:00.000+01:00

After a long working week I was looking forward to get back in the air, I called Blackbushe this morning and asked if they had an aircraft free for a couple of hours. They did so I planned a short flight around the local area. The route is one I have flown before therefore I familiar with the local landmarks, but I plan thoroughly anyway.

Foxtrot Victor hadn't been flown today, so I carried out full checks and set off on the route. The cloud today was at around 4000ft and left plenty of room to practice general handling, once over an area clear of built-up areas I did a gentle turn to check for other aircraft, all clear so started a few 60degree turns. My first turn was poor.. I lost 200 feet.. hmm I cast my mind back to my lessons on these, my next attempts are much better, I maintain altitude ok. I spend about ten minutes turning both left and right at 60degree turns and satisfied these are ok I practice an engine failure which is ok.

Flying around today I feel a little guilty.. I am supposed to be preparing for the skill test but to be honest I am just having a load of fun! I didn't take my time as seriously as I intended, but what a way to leave all the troubles of work behind me. Freedom is a word much misused in everyday life, but up here it really MEANS freedom.

I reluctantly returned to Blackbushe and logged 1.1 hours solo.. which now completes the requirement of 10 hours solo for the JAR PPL.

Tomorrow I intend to practice circuits if the weather is good but it doesn't look to hopefull as a weather front is moving in bringing strong winds and storms.

QXC Report

2005-09-20T12:10:00.000+01:00

A little late I know for this report, however last night I managed to celebrate with the usual copius amounts of beer thereby rendering myself unable to operate a computer. Anyway.. on with my report.

The night before (Saturday), I spent a couple of hours planning the routes and completing the elements of the plog that I could, collecting as many frequencies of airports/airspaces as necessary and working out the track direction and distances. All that remained was to calculate true and magnetic headings, true airspeed and times, all of which is dependent on the weather. I also kept an eye on the 18-hour TAFs and every weather forecast I could get my hands on, in general the forecast sounded ok, with good visibility and a cloud base around 3000AMSL.

I tried to sleep but the route kept running through my head, I was thinking of all the things I would need to do at various points. I was feeling typical excitement just like as a kid waiting for Christmas day. I did eventually fall asleep, but my aim of getting a ‘good nights sleep’ was not entirely fulfilled.

My alarm woke me at 7am, I immediately rose to go check the weather. All looked good and was pretty much as forecast, some mist and low cloud was showing over to the west of the country but was expected to lift by midday. Winds are light and variable therefore I chose to fly magnetic headings and adjust as necessary on route if the wind becomes a factor. I drink a lot of coffee whilst completing the planning.

At 8:30am I arrive at Blackbushe and hang around a while waiting for Antonio to return from an early lesson he has. Whilst waiting I keep mentally flying the route. He returns and we go brief, mainly on the RT I will need to do at various points. The route crosses two areas of restricted class D airspace which will therefore require clearances to enter, this means accurate flying to maintain altitude and headings and close attention to messages from ATC that I will need to read back. I have a few nerves but I am pretty confident that I won’t screw up to badly.

I book out and set about doing the ‘A’ checks, all is good so I taxi over to the pumps and get a full tank of fuel. Then I am set.

Antonio wishes me best of luck and instructs me not to lose him his license (I am flying on his license therefore any screw-ups such as airspace transgressions could raise problems for him).

I depart, the moment I open the throttle on the runway as is usual all nerves disappear to be replaced with concentration on the task ahead. I climb overhead Blackbushe and request Flight Information Service from Farnborough which is quickly received. Turn on to the correct heading for my first waypoint and start the stopwatch.

The conditions are fairly smooth, not requiring much input from me to remain wings level and once trimmed LIMA SIERRA maintains 3000MSL on her own. Visibility is also good, about 20km at least which makes the navigation easy. I arrive overhead the first waypoint on time, which is always satisfying when the flight goes according to plan. Farnborough tell me to freecall Bournemouth approach, so I tune in the ATIS for Bournemouth. At this point I had begun descending to 2000AMSL to make sure I stayed out of the Southampton CTA which begins at 2500AMSL up to 6000AMSL, this caused a small problem in that the ATIS message was badly distorted and unreadable. I checked my track was outside the controlled zone then once satisfied climbed back to 3000AMSL to get a better reception. As I climbed the broadcast became clearer and I noted the information.

I contacted Bournemouth approach and gave my present position and ETA to Stoney Cross (a visual reporting point outside of their airspace), they gave me Flight Information Service and told me to report at Stoney Cross. I read back correctly which gave me more confidence in my RT.

I descended back down to 2000AMSL and continued towards Stoney Cross, the air was now a lot bumpier and visibility had dropped a bit but I kept checking map to ground to ensure I stayed on course. Once overhead Stoney Cross I reported as such and was told to contact Tower, which I didn’t expect as I was expecting clearance to enter their CTA before then. However I contacted Bournemouth Tower and they said “GOLF LIMA SIERRA, cleared to enter right base for runway 25 number two behind the Duchess.”, I was then a little unsure whether I was cleared into the zone so I replied “GOLF LIMA SIERRA, confirm cleared to enter your zone?”. The lady then read out clearance instructions which I read back, all was good and I now felt happy to proceed.

I entered the zone at 1500AMSL and soon had Bournemouth in sight so entered right base, I reported as such and then was told that I am now number one to land and the Duchess is number two. Fantastic I now have a fast airplane bearing down on me, oh well I put it out my mind and turn final.

I have to say by final approach was possible the best I have ever done, I carefully played with the power to maintain the glide-slope down to the threshold flare and touchdown gently on the centreline just after the numbers. That landing I was very pleased with. I cleared the runway and then followed the instructions given by Bournemouth Ground to go to Bournemouth handling. As I taxi into the handling area a couple of children are watching from beyond a fence taking pictures, so I give them a wave and continue in to the parking area, a guy directs me where to park with gestures I remembered from the Air Law study.

I shut down and realise that’s the first leg done! I get a cup of coffee here along with a signature from the nice guy at Bournemouth handling after he checked with the tower that they were happy I didn’t screw anything up. I phone back to Blackbushe just to let them know everything is ok and speak to John, he has been looking at the TAFs at Gloucestershire airport and they are now showing few cloud at 1500AMSL. That in itself is not a problem, I can avoid low clouds unless they start becoming more than just a few.

After watching a 737 arrive I depart again. The next leg is the longest on the QXC and the most challenging; however the success of the first leg has given me confidence.

I depart North and am told by Bournemouth Radar that I have multiple contacts showing on radar on a reciprocal heading at the same altitude, so I climb a couple of hundred feet and decide to turn on my landing light for a short time to make myself as visible as possible. I never see the traffic and don’t have any nasty collisions so I change back to Farnborough Radar and switch off my landing light.

The navigation goes to plan however I find that I have to descend below 3000AMSL my planned altitude due to lowering cloud the further North I fly. Whilst flying near Newbury I see a movement and see a large bird flying ahead, it passes directly over the canopy within 20 feet in a flash. Whoa, would have ruined the day had I been flying a touch higher as no-way could I have reacted to it in the time since first seeing it till it hit me. This is one reason I prefer flying higher than 2500AMSL, less birds.

I reach the next waypoint according to plan, however the visibility now is poor, a lot of low cloud is around with a base of 2000AMSL and the haze towards the west limits visibility to approximately 6km. I circle once to check all directions, to the East the visibility is much better with less cloud, with that in mind I decide to continue West knowing that if it gets any worse I can turn a 180 and return to Blackbushe early. Although this would effectively fail the QXC it is simply not worth taking risks for.

I contact Brize Radar and request clearance through their zone via Lechlade, they tell me to contact Brize Zone, which I do and am cleared to enter the zone remaining VMC, I am given a squawk code and set that into the transponder. Other aircraft are reported in the area and I am informed another aircraft is heading towards me from the South West, I look out my left window but don’t see it. After a short time, the controller asks me to check my transponder, I realise that although I entered the squawk I didn’t switch it from standby to alt. Doh! I got distracted by the warnings of aircraft nearby.
Navigation now becomes more important because I am flying low with poor visibility so I check the map constantly to make sure I am on course. After awhile I glance to the left and see a converging aircraft, he has already seen me and is diving to pass underneath me. We pass fairly close, and this reminds me why keeping a good look out is important.

Flying through the controlled zone I have to alter headings a few times to avoid low cumulus clouds floating around, however the visibility doesn’t get any worse and I know my position so it is safe to continue. I exit the zone and contact Gloucestershire.

I am really enjoying this flight.. the low clouds look pretty incredible floating past the wings and the terrain is interesting with hills and streams passing below. I cross a range of hills and see Gloucester appearing ahead along with the airport shortly afterwards. I am cleared to enter their ATZ and to descend on the deadside for runway 27. I arrive overhead the airfield at circuit height of 1500AMSL and do a standard overhead join. The circuit goes smoothly and after clearance to land I carry out another good landing.

I book in and gain another signature from a very nice lady at Gloucestershire, so go get a coke at a nearby pub. I had hoped to get something to eat here but the cloud overhead looks ominous and I figure I should set off soon to avoid getting stranded here. I sit in the pub garden which is surprisingly busy, some people are watching aircraft land with binoculars and notebooks, I notice them looking at me whilst I have my chart and kneeboard out checking my route back to Blackbushe. I don’t stay long, then return to book-out. This is done so I check the ATIS which is giving 20km visibility and few at 1500ft, hmm 20km is far from accurate!

I take off again and climb straight out, avoiding a large steep hill, once past the hill I turn towards the final leg. My altitude now is 1500AMSL and I am just below the cloud. I pass overhead the range of hills and have to divert a bit to avoid an aerial on one of the hills. It passes to the left of the wing.

I have to admit at this point I was concerned, I knew the weather ahead was improved but right here was not good, I was having to fly very low to stay VMC and this makes navigation harder. Once again I decide to carry on for a short while, if no improvement then I will divert to another airport, Kemble looks likely as I doubt I can return to Gloucestershire. I am cleared to enter the Brize zone again and fly through, the cloud base has lifted here to 2000AMSL although I still have to skirt around some lower clouds. Fine moisture appears on the canopy as I am flying just below the cloud base, I use carb heat a lot.

Despite the less than ideal conditions I am feeling elated, I have almost done it! Also the challenging environment gives me a sense of adventure.

My planned route had taken me well above two restricted areas on the return leg, however the cloud prevented me from flying that high so I had to skirt around both checking the map and making absolutely certain I didn’t infringe.

1 hour later I arrive back at Blackbushe, rejoin the circuit and carry out my worst landing of the day.. a good landing but a little firmer than the last two. I taxi back and switch off. Once I exit the aircraft I realise how tired I feel, I have been flying for around 3 hours today and covered around 300nm. The whole experience was fun and I simply loved it, the freedom of flight, the challenge of the RT and navigation and the dramatic environment.

Walking back I spot Antonio with another student, he is about to set off on a lesson so he shakes my hand and congratulates me then asks about the trip. I tell him I will wait around at Blackbushe until he returns from the lesson, then we can debrief.

I wait around and the whole time today events are running through my mind, it is almost unbelievable to me that I have just done it, today really showed me how much I have learnt since starting out in May. The smile was firmly on my face and the sense of satisfaction is enormous, this beats the first solo in my mind.

Antonio returned and we had a little time to debrief. I tell him the story of the flight, and they mention while I was gone they had checked the TAFs along with the forecast and had noticed the conditions were worse than expected. To be honest had those conditions been forecast I would likely not have flown the QXC today. Antonio asked me if I managed to get the registration of the bird near Newbury so I can file an Airprox report. In telling him about the flight I mentioned that whilst near the Southampton zone ATC contacted me and told me to leave the zone immediately as I had stopped traffic at Southampton airport. This was of course a joke and he didn’t buy it.

Anyway, next now is the final skill test, he is going to arrange it with an Examiner he knows is a good one, apparently he is very personable but firm and will not let me get away with anything on the test. This makes me feel good about the test, I am not in this to just get my license, I am in this to be a skilled pilot and a safe pilot. If I fail the test because the examiner is hard, then that’s a positive thing, it shows me what I have to do to achieve that goal.

I will continue to fly probably once a week whilst I complete the remaining exams, at least one solo to complete the PPL requirement for 10 hours solo flight (I have 9 hours). Then aim to take the skill test in approximately three or four weeks time.

Anyway, apologies for the long report, this is as much for me to remember the events of today.

Qualifying Cross Country

2005-09-18T20:06:00.000+01:00

Completed the QXC today, was an excellent experience although too tired to write coherently after a long day, therefore I will leave this report to tomorrow. :-) Anyway, decided the QXC beats the first solo for the realisation that I can fly!

Lesson 37, Nav + Pleasure Trip

2005-09-17T19:21:00.000+01:00

Having not flown in about 12 days I managed to set a new record for myself, the longest time having not flown since I started back in May. I had a couple of hours booked for Saturday as a duel navigation flight and thankfully the weather came good in time.

Antonio told me to plan for a short trip to Petersfield and from there we would divert to an as yet unknown destination. Petersfield is to the South East of Blackbushe and a new direction for me so I wasn't familiar with the landmarks from the air, which led to an embarrasing mistake of pointing at a small town and declaring "there.. there is Peterfield!" said in a triumphant tone. Antonio asked me "..are you sure?" revealing my error for what it was, a mistake. Petersfield was actually the next town along and visible from the right hand window.

From there I was given the freedom to go next where I wanted, visibility was excellent and I could clearly see the Isle of Wight far to the South so I picked that as my choice. We flew accross the Solent which was a new experience, crossing water and looking down on the countless sail boats and shipping in this busy sea lane. The Isle of Wight is beautiful, with undulating terrain and mostly bordered with tall white cliffs, so we flew fairly low around the coast line following the cliffs and then over the port.

We then set off back to Blackbushe, time sure flies. On the way back Antonio said we should divert to Dunsfold airfield so I carried out a standard divertion, worked out the heading and the time, checking minimium safe altitude and airspace restrictions. Then having done that, decided to ignore my calculated heading and fly roughly in the direction my gut told me it was... doh! We got there eventually but was sloppy navigation. From there I was told to just use the map and get us back, no calculating headings. I managed to get us back ok but I was hesitant and not thinking as clearly as I should do.

To tell the truth I was relaxed and just enjoying being in the air again and the rust had definately set in. 2 hours logged today and QXC hopefully now tomorrow if the weather stays good! Whilst back in the office completing the log book I met another student of Antonio's who kindly introduced himself as a reader of my blog, nice to know I have readers! :-)

Weather misery

2005-09-15T12:52:00.000+01:00

More bad weather this past week has led to several cancellations of the QXC, under some rules the visibility has to be 10km or better and so far it's been worse with mist and fog in the mornings. I have another date booked for this coming Tuesday but looking at the expected weather ahead for next week does not look to promising!

It's a little frustrating as I have now not flown in awhile and I am almost at the end of the course, it would be ideal to get the license before the worst of the autumn/winter weather sets in. Breaking the momentum I suspect will lead me to need more lessons to stop any rust setting in.

Three down, four to go

2005-09-11T17:48:00.000+01:00

Passed the Navigation exam today with a fairly respectable score of 88%. The actual exam was easier than I had anticipated and really I should have taken it a little sooner. I did however use the entire 1hr 30min time allowance and then had to rush to answer the remaining five questions due to time running out. A couple of questions I got wrong because I missread the questions, it seems the exam authors like to write questions that contain alot of misleading data so will watch for that in future exams more carefully.

Anyway, I still have four more exams to worry about; Human Factors, Aircraft Technical, Flight Planning and RT.

I am hoping to study each night and complete all four exams by the end of this month in readyness for the skill test. No doubt this goal will slip as I am a software developer and therefore have creating vastly ambitious timescales down to a fine artform.

Wx cancellation

2005-09-10T19:26:00.000+01:00

Todays weather is low cloud, humid air and plenty of thunderstorms around. No good for flying in so the lesson I had today was cancelled. The weather looks like it will improve over the coming few days so hopefully I can do the QXC.

QXC Cancelled for today

2005-09-08T10:49:00.000+01:00

The weather was not looking to good over to the west of the UK today with alot of low cloud showing up on the METAR's and TAF's (1500AAL). I probably could have flown, but it would likely have meant dodging showers and low cloud and could have been a problem when crossing controlled airspaces if I couldn't accept clearances in order to remain VMC. I am not concerned though, I would rather do this on a day with good conditions rather than giving myself problems. Will try again next week.

Just found this on the flyer.co.uk forums; the REAL forces acting on an aircraft. So very true!

Lesson 36, Gloucestershire Nav

2005-09-06T11:12:00.000+01:00

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.

Lesson 35, Haze and decisions

2005-09-03T15:32:00.000+01:00

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.

Lesson 34, Nav

2005-09-02T22:29:00.000+01:00

A short report tonight..

Today I had a flight after work, a solo navigation exercise to Fordingbridge via Whitchurch. The navigation went very smoothly and I found time to practice just some general aircraft handling, the conditions today were quite bumpy and hazy due to the high pressure area sitting directly on top of the south east of the country so this gave me an opportunity to practice mainting my heading and altitude in less than perfect conditions. This practice went well so on the return leg from Fordingbridge I practiced just different power settings and attitudes. I find by setting actual targets during the flight gave me a chance to be critical of my own flying and to achieve improvement.

I had hoped to get more radio experience today however both radar services I wanted to speak to were temporarily out of action, therefore I amused myself by telling traffic in the area that Farnborough Radar or Boscombe Radar was not operational when they attempted to contact them. Because I had no Flight Information Service I set squawk of 7000 (VFR) and just reported my position, altitude and intentions at various intervals to Farnborough Traffic.

I arrived back at Blackbushe after around an hours flying and after gaining rejoining instructions carried out an overhead join, unfortunately I didn't see another aircraft on downwind and I cut inside of him. I reported downwind the moment I finished turning, then I hear "GOLF WHISKY CHARLIE is downwind with Katana in sight" said in a distinct spanish accent. At that point I figured out.. oops I probably have just cut in front of my instructor.

I landed and afterwards apologised to Antonio and his student for jumping in front of them, for some reason I just didn't see em. No harm done fortunately but I must be more vigilant in future.

Just before I departed today I went back to my car to leave some gear behind, however in doing so I managed to lock my car keys in the boot of the car (DOH!). Once back at Blackbushe I had to call my wife and ask her to come over with the spare set of keys, which she did.

After debriefing a jet arrived (Cessna Citation) the pilot of which was a former instuctor at Blackbushe, I had the opportunity to talk with him briefly about the aircraft and also take a look inside the cockpit. Very very nice aircraft.

Not long after, Antonio invited me out for a beer with some of the other instructors. We headed down to a local pub and sat outside in the garden, drinking beer and talking aviation/swopping funny stories. Good way to end a good day.

Lesson 33, Thruxton Solo

2005-08-29T14:24:00.000+01:00

Today was the day for the Thruxton solo flight, I wake up this morning feeling optimistic as the weather outside looked good with clear blue skies and calm wind.

I arrive at Blackbushe early so I can complete the planning which is made easier from the last two visits to Thruxton, plan completed I call Thruxton to 'book in' and whilst on the phone I ask for the runway in use and the weather. The runway at the moment is 25 again which is good for me as I landed on it yesterday, however the weather is not so good, they currently have fog covering the airfield although it was lifting. I tell them I will call back before I leave to check the weather again.

Antonio returns from his first lesson of the day whilst I am starting the 'A' checks on Echo Hotel, he goes in with his student whilst I continue the checks, fuel is below a quarter so I taxi to the pumps and the man fills it to full. I then go back to parking. A little time has now past and I discuss the weather with Antonio, Echo Hotel is needed back at 12:30 and after that it doesn't look likely I will get a plane therefore I decide to call Thruxton again to check the situation now. Happily Thruxton tell me the fog has lifted and is now scattered cloud at 1500ft so I decide to go, if the cloud is too low overhead Thruxton when I get there I will just abort and return back early.

Antonio checks over my plans and briefs me, I think he is reasonably confident as am I. Strangely today I felt totally ready to do this trip. So I set off.

One thing I have been doing recently which has bugged me was allowing my altitude to fluctuate along with my airspeed, I decided shortly after taking off that today I would work on that. I climbed in the circuit to my desired altitude of 2500AMSL crossed the centre of Blackbushe runway and started the six t's, along with obtaining FIS from the nice people at Farnborough Radar. I requested also MATZ penetration however the MATZ was closed today so therefore I was cleared for Odiham MATZ. My first checkpoint was abeam Basingstoke and the moment I arrived I checked my time, absolutely spot-on.. it's a good feeling when the planning all works. My heading also kept me directly on track and my altitude was continously 2500ft with no deviation, so far so good.

At this point I felt really good, I had time to admire the scenery en-route and also felt ahead of the aircraft, thinking back to my first navigation exercises I realise I have made alot of progress. Flying solo gave me more time to think all the time, I was constantly checking my flight parameters such as heading, altitude and airspeed and managed to keep all of them correct.

I arrived at my next checkpoint on time again and began to descend to 1500ft to enter another MATZ as per the arrival rules for Thruxton, whilst descending I made a mistake by telling Farnborough Radar "GOLF ECHO HOTEL is changing frequency to Thruxton on..." rather than requesting frequency change. The controller forgave this and replied "Frequency change approved..". Before long I had Thruxton in sight directly ahead of the aircraft along with a long parade of clouds, at 1500AMSL the clouds were slightly above the canopy which was fortunate, so I requested joining instructions. The circuit here was empty at the moment and I probably could have done a straight in approach but I decided to stick to what I know and do a standard overhead join. During the circuit there was a lot of turbulence and I had to work hard to keep flying straight and level however when I turned final the perspective was good. The final approach was a little bumpy with a headwind that kept dropping off and gusting causing me to play with the power continously to keep on the glideslope, the landing was a greaser just beyond the numbers.. very pleased with that landing.

I got taxi instruction and was told to park between a Cherokee and an Archer which I did, shut down and then proceed to do the check-in/book-out. Whilst there I took a break and bought a coke, sitting outside on a bench with a view accross the airfield. Today was amazing for aircraft, there were a mixture of different older types, including a Boeing Stearman painted in bright colours with the words "Utterly Butterly" painted on the side. I saw it's pilot and crew outside, the crew being an attractive 20 year old girl dressed in a sponsered catsuit, she was a wing-walker. I decided when I get my license rather than buy a GPS unit I am going to get a bar on the top of my aircraft to try and encourage girls in catsuits to be my passengers.

I looked at the time and realised I had to be getting back so I quickly finished the coke and headed back out.

After start-up I taxied the long distance back to the threshold for RW25, seems I was a little slow because as I began my engine warm up checks the Stearman taxied up next to me, he reported he was ready for departure just before I did so I waited while he took the runway, giving me a wave as he passed. Cat-suit girl was sitting in the front seat rather than on the wing/tailplane/ailerons.

The flight back was much the same as the flight over here, I followed the procedures and these kept me on course and on time. Reaching Blackbushe I descended on the dead-side and joined overhead, the turbulence was now pretty bad, at circuit height I was getting thrown around alot. I turned final at a good height and immediately lost the head wind so started sinking real fast, I put on some power to arrest the rapid descent and continued trying to get a nice glide slope, the wind was varying alot and I was having to grip the stick tightly as she tried to roll first one way and then the next and the airspeed indicator was up and down all over the place. I arrived almost on the threshold but was too high so did a go-around. The next circuit was much the same although the final was a little more stable and I landed with a small hop.. darn would have been nice to finish the flight with a good landing but then on the other hand the conditions were not to good.

Antonio congratulated me and we had a few minutes to discuss the exercise, I really enjoyed the flight and it has given me a huge confidence boost. I am starting to feel like a pilot rather than just playing at one.

Next milestone is the qualifying cross country (QXC) which will hopefully take place in the next couple of weeks if the weather is kind. Before then I have some additional navigation lessons and a solo flight to Bournemouth which again should be fun. After that is preperation for the final skill test along with some more instrument practice.

Lesson 32, Thruxton Two

2005-08-28T18:55:00.000+01:00

The object today was to complete the Thruxton cross country exercise, due to last attempts dramatics. The weather today was perfect for flying, excellent visibility and 20knt winds at 2,000ft keeping the air clear, en-route there were however alot of thermals which I will talk about shortly.

The planning stage I now find very quick to do and it has become fairly straight forward to use the flight computer. Therefore after a short planning/briefing we were in the air.

I won't go into too much detail as the enroute flight was entirely uneventful, the Navigation this time was good and my radio skills have improved, I am gaining confidence now with the radio. When we had visual with Thruxton we could see two other aircraft in the circuit so I joined overhead and then to the downwind leg, we turned base and just before turning to final, a PA28 called final from 2 miles out. We had him in sight and no doubt he us but he didn't initially appear to want to give way to us and asked if we were going to land, I then turned final and called as such. This distraction was enough to screw my approach a bit I was too high and airspeed was all wrong. I recovered the approach but it gave me alot of work to do in the short final stage. Had I been solo I would have elected to go-around. Anyway the landing itself was good so no harm done. Sadly today we didn't get a chance to use the grass runway (31/13) but instead had the asphalt runway 25.

We parked and Antonio bought me a coke (I forgot to bring any money with me.. doh). We chatted awhile and watched some interesting aircraft coming and going, like a Chipmonk and some Pitts specials a Piper supercub was also in the parking area. I must fly one of those one day!

Time was getting late so we departed back to Blackbushe. Again the return flight was largely uneventful.

Conclusions today, I feel I made progress.. the Navigation was much improved as was the Radio, I made a small mistake on the way out by not descending soon enough for the MATZ Thruxton lives under, but now I have made that mistake I won't do it again. Also I need to practice just maintaining altitude, today was quite difficult as we were flying from thermal to thermal so for the same power setting/attitude the altitude kept rising and falling.

Tomorrow is my first solo land-away again to Thruxton, looking forward to it! :-).

Lesson 31, Thruxton

2005-08-23T23:10:00.000+01:00

Good things that happened today; I landed on my first grass runway. Bad things that happened today; the plane was unable to fly us home from aforesaid runway. Fortunately (surprisingly?) through no incompetence on my part/

We are running late again today due to schedule problems and lack of aircraft, fortunately the delay gave me more chance to run through with Antonio all the various radio calls I will need to make. Getting it straight in my head before the flight is a good idea. I prepared the flight plan earlier today along with the route and timings, today’s flight was to Thruxton and is a very easy navigational route. As soon as Lima Sierra was back we went out and carried out the checks, over the past few weeks Lima Sierra has been having a minor problem, when the nav lights are switched on the Low Volt warning light comes on and the Amp meter shows a negative charge. This is still the case today, we started up and taxied with just the Anti-Collision Lights and soon the Low Volt warning light went out.

Once in the air the flight started well, I climbed in the circuit as usual and this time made radio calls for Flight Information Service and MATZ penetration earlier. We were identified on radar just leaving Blackbushe circuit. Excellent, now I immediately entered the frequency for Thruxton ready in advance. My planned heading was to be 261 which I maintained for the next ten minutes, after that time Antonio checked the GPS and pointed out it was also showing 261, all was well. Next I had a brief moment of insanity and once again convinced myself that a small village to the starboard side of the aircraft was a point on the map, telling me we were off course. I therefore decided to break from the planned heading and try to correct the track to what I perceived was to the port side. Dumb.

After a couple of minutes of this lunacy I noticed that other interesting points on the map looked closer than they should be and the stopwatch was reading the time we should be over the village I thought we had just passed. I glance to port and notice oh.. there is the village, requiring us to head back to the track I was originally following. Lesson learnt now I hope, trust my headings and stop fixating on individual navigational points (twice now I have convinced myself that what I am seeing when I look outside matches up to the map based on one single reference).

I place a call through to Thruxton which goes well and proceed to descend to circuit height, we are informed runway 31 is active today which is a grass runway, cool something new. I fly an ok circuit giving myself plenty of downwind time seeing as this is the first time landing here. My approach is pretty poor but then it is a weirdly distracting final to 31, you fly firstly over a small hill which gets pretty damn close then the ground drops away again below before rising again right before the runway. The wind is reasonably strong also and reported gusting to 30knts. I stay on centreline and flare a bit to high as I misjudge the distance to the grass, however the landing is very soft, had that been tarmac we probably would have bounced. Antonio briefed me on the grass runway technique of maintaining back all the time to keep the weight off the front wheel also keeping full flaps set whilst on grass taxing. The grass runway was a new experience but a good one, I am looking forward to doing more grass runway landings, Antonio suggests we come back here and do some touch and goes here to get more practice at the technique.

Thruxton is a nice airfield which has the bonus of being situated in the middle of a race circuit, I imagine bringing my Z4 here for a bit of fun. We head over to the Charlie point and book in and out again then we have to head back again as sadly no time to grab a coffee (also the club here looked closed).

We are all set to leave, turn the engine.. prop spins once or twice and then nothing.. hmm, try again and turn off everything other than the battery, same result. Once more.. and the prop turns a quarter of a turn before running out of juice. Battery is dead.

We leave Lima Sierra on the grass and head back to the tower. They have witnessed our trouble starting her and offer some help, the Katana sadly has no external power point they can attach a jump lead to so we remove the cowling to get to the battery. Soon some rescue services guys arrive and offer to help but we have to bring the aircraft near to the fuel depot to get access to a power lead and charger. We push Lima Sierra the fairly short distance to the pumps and a standard 12Volt charger is attached to the battery, it reads 50% and is set for “quick charge”. Antonio calls the guys back at the Cabair office and lets them know of our problem, they will send another aircraft to pick us up if needed but we are hopeful that the charger given enough time will enable us to start, so we agree to wait for 30 minutes with it charging then try again.

During this time several other aviators come over to ask what the problem is and offer sympathy and their ‘good luck’s. The guy in the tower especially was helpful, lending us the use of his telephone and some advice. We continue to hang around on the racetrack area laughing and lamenting the situation. After awhile we decide to give it another try, as Thruxton is about to close service as a licensed aerodrome, meaning that no rescue or radio services will be provided, we notice that the charger is still reading at 50% and doesn’t appear to have increased at all in the past 40 minutes. We detach the charger and replace the cowling and jump back in. Nope no good, dead battery for sure.

Some suggestions were made whether we could hand crank the prop to get it started but sadly the katana has a Rotax engine which cannot be started like that. We are asked what we are going to do by the tower man, he says we can put the aircraft in their hanger over night as the weather tomorrow will be crap so Antonio and me try and push Lima Sierra into the hanger, the hanger contains several aircraft already but there is a single space available, we soon discover that support beans at the front of the hanger are not wide enough for the Katana’s wings. We spent about 20 minutes trying to fit her in at different angles but it just wasn’t going to work.. so we ended up leaving her half in the hanger and half out the front. Meanwhile, Thruxton tower called Blackbushe on our behalf and reported that it was a no-go and could they come pick us up.

Shortly afterwards we remained sitting on a bench aside a race track looking across an airfield while the sun slowly began to set. The helpful airfield staff had now gone to were helpful airfield staff go at night and Antonio is having a breakdown of some kind. “There.. there is a rabbit! Look!.. I saw it.. I promise.. can you not see it?”, “Look aircraft on final! See it? Can you see the lights?”… ten minutes later.. “ah it was a bird”. What with the events of the past couple of hours and Antonio’s imaginary rabbits it was turning into a funny surreal night.

After awhile the clubs Piper Warrior arrived with John flying and Peter as instructor (John is getting his check for the Warrior), we jump in and soon are back in the air. Flying as a passenger again is strange but funny thanks to the constant bantering from Peter and Antonio many insults are exchanged in good humour. Everyone has had a pretty long day today I am grateful to them for working late to come pick us up.

The Piper is a very comfortable aircraft I find out, it is fairly new (2001) and has a nice GPS and Avionics system. I think I will try and get checked out on the Piper after the PPL.

At one point during the flight Peter starts to pitch the Piper up and down rapidly to watch Antonio and Me rise and fall in our seats without any power to do anything about it which was pretty funny. The sun now has almost set and we land back at Blackbushe.

Today was good if for no other reason than to see a side of aviation I haven’t seen before also to see the helpfulness of other pilots and the staff at Thruxton who were pretty amazing. Perhaps the value of the lesson was in itself better than a normal lesson.

Lesson 30, New Airport

2005-08-21T19:05:00.000+01:00

Today's lesson was a nav flight to a fairly local airport called Thruxton, Thruxton is also a well known racetrack and the racetrack orbits around the runways. This required a bit of research and planning as it will be the first time I have landed anywhere other than Blackbushe. I obtained the airfield information from AIS and carefully plotted the route and times, noting all the radio frequencies I will need, Thruxton has no tower and just operates a Radio service.

Having completed my plan etc I hung around waiting for Antonio to get back, once he returned he briefed me on what I will need to do for this trip including joining the circuit and the frequencies. Thruxton is PPR which means Prior Permission Required, this involved a telephone call however no-one answered and checking the race diary it was discovered that a race was on today and therefore the airfield is closed. Damn.

Ok well rather than do Thruxton it was decided to change plans and fly instead to Bournemouth, this trip is normally done after the Thruxton trip and the solo Thruxton trip. Bournemouth is a world of difference from Thruxton; it is an international airport with Approach, Tower and Ground services and therefore involves clearances and careful flying.

I have to re-plan for Bournemouth as quickly as possible so I complete the new navigation involving three legs there and three legs back. Lots of frequencies to record however Antonio helpfully hands me a laminated Bournemouth plate listing all the details and showing a map of the runway and taxiways. This should be interesting.

Another pilot based at Blackbushe was there today, a good guy who is willing to talk with a lowly student pilot such as myself, he was taking his Sister for a pleasure flight and decided to also go to Bournemouth. We agreed to meet at Bournemouth for a coffee.

Due to the delay in leaving we carried out a quick start-up and taxied out in no time. Soon we were airborne and climbing in the circuit, the weather today was fantastic.. blue skies with only scattered fair weather cumulus and the visibility was amazing. From 2500AMSL above Blackbushe we could see Heathrow in the distance. The first leg of the navigation was uneventful I stayed on track although was slightly behind on the expected time and also obtained Flight Information Service from Farnborough. I reached our destination for the first leg and began circling while I sorted out the radio stuff in my head before proceeding; next I tuned to Bournemouth Approach and made a hesitant call for clearance into their controlled airspace. I read-back ok but to tell the truth I was feeling under pressure and didn't do this confidently, following that step I tuned the ATIS and struggled to hear and record a crackling voice giving information, meanwhile my navigation was going remarkably ok at least till the next waypoint. I found the waypoint, time was good and then placed the call requesting clearance through to the CTA, my read-back was again hesitant and poor although they understood. Around this time I kind of stopped navigating, which is not a good thing.

Continuing into the CTA Antonio pointed out that we were off-track and at one point had climbed above 2000AMSL, something we were explicitly instructed not to do. I turned onto the correct heading and had Bournemouth in sight we were cleared to enter right base for runway 26 following another aircraft. Base leg was flown much further away than I am used to and when turning final we were a little too high, fortunately the final was huge. We got clearance to land and I proceeded to carry out an ok landing, at this point my brain was still trying to catch up to the whole process.

The runway at Bournemouth is simply huge with the centreline appearing to be as wide as the entire cockpit area of the Katana. We are asked to leave the runway at the second exit and then given clearance to taxi to the apron for small aircraft. It is a long taxi and we arrive seeing Brendan's Grumman AA5 parked on the apron, a guy guides us into a parking space with hand gestures.

Phew, that was really hard work.. the final leg of this flight I found my workload was very high and I found it overwhelming. I know this comes with practice but I felt a little out of my depth. Had Antonio not been there instructing me what to say and pointing out my navigation error I could easily have screwed this up badly. The next time I visit Bournemouth I will be solo so I NEED to learn from this experience and take note of everything.

After shutting down we meet with Brendan and his sister and have a drink and smoke, this gives time for a little more reflection. My general navigation I am happy I understand what I need to do and how to accomplish a successful route, however when I throw radio procedures into that it I consistently fall behind the aircraft and the subsequent chain of events seem mind blowing. One lesson to come out of this, prepare ahead of time the next frequency I will need, this means enter it on the radio well ahead of time. Antonio tells me that apparently everyone struggles on their first flight into Bournemouth and therefore I shouldn't be too annoyed about my performance.

Bournemouth airport is pretty cool, we watched a 737 come in to land on runway 26, I am looking forward to coming back here when I have more time.

Sadly due to time constraints we soon have to head back before Blackbushe tower closes for instruction purposes. There is an insurance restriction on Blackbushe that all training flights must end at or before 6pm, kind of a shame really as the summer evenings would be a great time to fly. We set off again and are soon cleared to take-off. The route back is going to have to change if we are going to have any chance of making it back before 6pm so we decide to cut across an area of the route to make it as direct as possible and also to fly at an increased cruise speed of around 110knts. We clear the CTR and change to Farnborough Radar for FIS, and head towards Basingstoke which is visible from a long distance away.

The flight back is much easier as fewer clearances to worry about and my radio calls are better.

We make excellent time and join downwind for Blackbushe at just before 6pm; we are on the ground when 6pm arrives.

Was an interesting lesson and I think I can learn a lot from this experience, Antonio agrees and suggests we do another duel flight around this area just to get additional practice with clearances and read-backs.

On a side note, Peter Wilms who I forgot to mention in an earlier post berated me for not mentioning his name on this blog, so therefore I am mentioning him now. Peter is the chief flying instructor at Cabair and a decent guy held in high esteem by his colleagues and the community at large, he is an inspiration to firstly myself and I am sure many other people. Peter also saved me £60.00 by way of correcting the flight time figures, hence this glowing appraisal ;-).

My next flight is likely to be to Thruxton or perhaps over Southampton in some more restricted airspace, I am hoping to fly once this coming week and after that concentrate on my exams.

Lesson 29, Controlled Airspace Nav

2005-08-20T21:13:00.000+01:00

Blackbushe being close to London offers no shortage of controlled airspace to pass through or transgress depending on intent. To date I have only flown in class G airspace or through military control zones and kept below the London TMA (class A airspace), therefore the point of this navigation lesson is to get some experience of crossing a class D airspace along with loads of RT (radio) practice.

The navigation is also further afield than I have flown before, heading into the Cotswold's which features some pretty nice scenery. For those not familiar with the area, the Cotswold area is hills and valleys featuring many typical Old English villages many of which date back to the 16th century or earlier. Plenty of visual references along the route should make the navigation fairly easy and I feel pretty confident about the nav part of this (mistake).

I arrive for the lesson early so I can get the planning done. I also take it upon myself to annoy the instructors who I think have too little annoyance in their lives and therefore I felt it was my duty to add some. For this purpose I decided to wind my stopwatch for a long time.. "click... click.. cliccccck" and do other distracting things such as measuring my fingers in nautical miles on my ruler, other body parts were also helpfully suggested. The problem with using the aforementioned appendage is it came out at 75NM but then required reduction for exaggeration factor, personally I believe the CAA should regulate that non-standard body parts are not used when calculating flight plans. When informed that usually we just measure thumbs for quick reference on a map I then asked how many thumbs are consumed in weight of fuel over time at 90knts.

Anyway, enough of the foolishness.. on with the report.

Antonio returned and ran through my carefully devised plan, briefing me on the various calls I would need to make and also checking I had all the required frequencies recorded ready.

I pre-flighted LIMA SIERRA which incidentally is becoming second nature now although I still make sure to use the checklist once past the external inspection. We then set off by climbing to 3,000AMSL in the circuit, turning to the calculated heading and started the stopwatch.

The first part was good, we stayed pretty much on our intended track although fairly early on I needed to request permission to transit the Benson MATZ, I put in the frequency for Benson and made the call but got back a reply saying the MATZ was currently inactive therefore we were free to cross. The call I made was not perfect. I then tuned to Brize Norton Radar (LARS) and requested flight following, again not so good. During this period of rapid calls and responses I managed to climb higher than planned for and also deviated slightly from track. I could determine our position visually but didn't immediately correct to bring us back on track (Note to self: don't accept that situation, if the track is wrong.. correct it!) also during this period of time I looked at the time for a checkpoint and realised it hadn't increased from our last checkpoint. This raised several possibilities, either time itself had stopped, we were flying at the speed of light, or my stopwatch had broken. It turned out to be the later, damn damn.. I overwound it back in the club!

Shortly after this discovery it was time to request if the nearby Abingdon gliding field was in use, I made a request to Brize Radar and they informed us it was active and to avoid it. I then made a request to transition the Class D CTR around Brize Norton airfield and was cleared through at 3,000AMSL avoiding Abingdon and maintaining VMC. These calls were better and I managed to read-back the instructions ok although with some hesitation.

I did manage however to maintain track and altitude passing through the CTR which was good and also skirt around Abingdon. We soon cleared the zone and resumed navigation, Antonio managed to get the stopwatch to start again but pretty much my confidence in the timepiece had evaporated. Here I made a silly mistake, I became fixated mentally on finding a railway track I was expecting to see, I didn't spot it. Common sense dictated that ok I probably past it but I ignored that and convinced myself in my head that the wind was carrying us to the west of track (it wasn't) I therefore elected to fly at an altered heading to see if I could spot it.

I knew our position from visual references on the map but still didn't wise up to the fact that my planned heading was correct and I had deviated because of a single point of reference. Before long I realised we must have past our destination and glancing over my shoulder to the left I saw the destination to our East and behind.

Important lesson learnt and another note to self. Do not allow myself to become fixated on a single point of reference, if I can't see it it does not mean that it is not there and I should look at the plenty of other references around.

I flew to the disused airfield and circled above, Antonio gave me a diversion to another point on the map so I maintained position with the rudder and drew a new line on the map, worked out the heading given a 20knt tailwind slightly to the west and worked out the expected time we should reach the destination. Doing this in the air while flying is pretty fun, focuses the mind. One other thing, below us it appeared that the airfield was being used as a film set with what looked like bombed out buildings and an aircraft parked there. I wish now I had brought my camera.

Once armed with a new heading I continued and once again requested clearance through the Brize CTR, this time I was determined to get everything right. The call was improved and I maintained our track and altitude and airspeed successfully. We left the zone and I kept checking our position on the map ensuring no deviation from the heading, it became apparent that the tailwind was having more effect than I had calculated for the divertion so from that I worked out a new arrival time of 17 minutes which turned out to be correct. The track also was not to bad, although we arrived slightly to the right, again wind factor played a part.

I then transfered to Farnborough Radar for our home leg and Antonio instructed me to fly us home just using the map, this area I am pretty familiar with now so it wasn't a problem to pick out the nearby landmarks and set course for Blackbushe. We also practiced another PFL, this went textbook and I am silently pleased that it doesn't require too much thought on my part and is becoming second nature now. Although during the PFL I momentarily depressed the Press To Talk button on the stick as I was about to simulate a mayday call.. oops.. that could have had bad consequences had I not realised my mistake.

We arrived at blackbushe just before the tower closed and I carried out a pretty strange approach as a Piper Archer in the circuit before us flew an enormous circuit. I had to follow him around and I turned final and remained at circuit height for what amounted to a straight in approach. Antonio simulated an ILS approach with his fingers forming the two needles.

My landing was ok but not quite to my satisfaction (I want absolutely perfect landings everytime).

Anyway so ends an interesting an productive lesson, I made some mistakes but I will learn from them and generally it wasn't too bad. Lessons where I make no mistakes means I don't learn a whole lot. My aim now is to improve my RT confidence further, I am too hesitant and when I need to make a call I think too much about it magnifying the act when it really is no big deal. My other mistakes largely happened because I was spending too much brain resources dealing with the radio. My next lesson is tomorrow depending on the weather, another weather front looked to be moving towards us today so I am half expecting a cancellation.

Lesson 28: Solo XC

2005-08-18T17:48:00.000+01:00

Wow what a day.

Last night I didn't sleep too well because of the heat and also thinking too much about my flight today, this was annoying because I had to sleep in a little longer this morning and therefore didn't feel particularly good.

Anyway, I arrived at Blackbushe and started my preperation in the clubhouse assuming that I might get to do my solo XC today, I planned the route, fuel, checkpoints etc. Whilst waiting another student was there preparing for his qualifying cross country we both were listening to pilots returning hearing if the haze was ok today. Apparently the haze was really bad this morning but it was getting better and better.

Antonio returned with his previous student and an interesting story, he was flying with his student in the local area practicing steep turns and stalls. They were flying with Flight Information Service which should warn of any aircraft in the immediate vicinity. During the flight he looked to his right and saw a huge 4 engined jet heading straight at them and at about 200 feet away, he immediately grabbed the controls and yanked the stick back to climb the jet passed just below them within a few feet! That qualifies as an Air Prox report. The Grumman AA5 they were flying had right of way and it is likely the jet never saw them and were probably flying with GPS autopilot (No TCAS??). Scary.

After everyone had finished discussing this incident I am given the OK to solo. One kind geezer buys everyone a chocolate covered icescream so I sit there briefing with Antonio and another instructor and another first time solo XC student whilst the icecream melts all over me. Eventually, Matthew the other instructor tells me to go wash my face as I am covered in melted chocolate and he can't take me seriously.

We run over all the things I need to know such as lost procedures, airspace rules and rejoin instructions. I demonstrate enough knowledge for him to sign me off to fly solo so all is good. The other solo student is flying the same route so he sets off first and I hang out awhile.

Walking out to the aircraft I am feeling a little apprehensive but also eager to do this, a few nerves are healthy as they focus the mind and if I didn't feel apprehension it would likely be a sign I am over confident (which is a bad thing). I carry out the checks carefully and soon am on my way. Once I am in the air the nerves dissappear and I get a sense of elation that here I am doing this.

The wind calculations today were difficult because everywhere is reporting variable wind direction, therefore I instead chose to fly the magnetic heading and check early on to see if I am tracking my marked line on the map. I make a good radio call to get Flight Information Service (FIS) and proceed to my next checkpoint. I am slightly to the right of track so I adjust to bring myself back to track and then decrease my heading slightly as it appears the wind is pushing me out a bit. The rest of my checkpoints appear where they should and at the correct times. I reach the first waypoint, loop around a bit overhead to make sure then restart the navigation to my next waypoint.

During the flight I frequently carry out FREDAI checks, probably too frequently! and maintain a good look out. I also get some unexpected radio practice when I am asked to state my current position and my intentions from there (I was squawking with the transponder so I found that odd as earlier they had confirmed identification and my position). The radio today is really busy, alot of traffic is around and on this leg in particular I see a number of different aircraft and gliders.

I reach my next waypoint ok and begin to circle around, the haze is now better and visibility has improved alot. I am really enjoying just circling the waypoint and get a feeling of total freedom. I request MATZ clearance for the final leg home and receive a reply "Roger, GOLF LIMA SIERRA", hmm inconclusive so I request again and keep circling, after awhile I don't get a reply so instead decide to skirt around the MATZ and remaining in sight of my track. I climb also to 3200ft to avoid some heavy traffic around the popham airfield because looking around I can see many aircraft around 2,000 to 3,000 feet (apparently there is a fly-in going on at popham hence the very busy skies).

Once clear of the MATZ I return to my intended track and soon sight Blackbushe in the distance, I get rejoining instructions and carry out an over-head join. I inform Blackbushe Information I will do a touch-and-go and come in to land. My landing is a greaser although the moment I touch down I hear some very strange noises from the wheels like a rattle sound the aircraft also tries to veer to the side of the runway.. despite heavy rudder input, crap, I quickly apply full power and lift the nose to do an unexpected short field take off. I do a go around and thoroughly check the brakes then call downwind to land, I decide to hold off landing till at slowest possible airspeed so on late final I keep some power on and allow the aircraft to float a foot or so from the runway with full flap, the airspeed drops off to around 40 knots and I touch down very smoothly. Once again the aircraft makes a horrible noise from the wheels and I can feel alot of vibration it still wants to veer but this time I expect it and counter with full rudder and brakes. I taxi off the runway all the time with this bad sound.

Once back at parking slot I shutdown and take a look at the undercarriage, there is nothing obviously out of place but I have to report this anyhow. I go into the club house and am greeted with a handshake and questions about the flight, I am still feeling totally pleased and a similiar feeling to my first solo. I report the problem I had when landing and the aircraft will be examined. I also hear a previous student earlier today flared at 200 feet and had a hard landing in LIMA SIERRA which may be the cause of this problem, when I did my checks and taxi before I didn't notice anything amiss though.

Anyway excellent fun, I hung out for quite awhile at the club chatting with Antonio and enjoying the sunshine and the moment. Tonight I think I will have a couple of beers to celebrate. :-)

Lesson 27, Nav and Diversions

2005-08-17T16:57:00.000+01:00

I was very psyched up to do the first solo xc this morning however when I arrived at Blackbushe, Antonio informed me it was a no-go today due to the poor visibility. At the moment we are sitting under the Azores high pressure area with calm winds and relative humidity at 87%, the dust coming in with the high pressure meant that a heavy haze is sitting over the country. From the ground the weather looks fantastic with clear blue skies but looks are deceiving.

Instead of the solo route, Antonio suggested a change so that I didn't get to practice the route first with an instructor (intentionally). I was slightly disappointed as I had done alot of preperation before hand and talked myself into readyness for the flight, oh well.. shit happens.

We took off and once in the air I could see for myself how bad the haze was, it felt like sitting in a goldfish bowl with visibility at about 5 miles max and no visible horizon. I set off on the route and the first leg was uneventfull, once we reached the waypoint about 25 minutes later Antonio suggested we climb above the haze (being carefull not to enter class A airspace for the London TMA). I maintained our position over the waypoint and climbed to FL55, amazing we were sitting just above the haze and the air was silky smooth with perfect visibility all around except below, the line of the haze was totally distinct.

We now deviated from the planned route, Antonio told me to take him to Compton using the VOR, I set course and on the way we were approaching controlled airspace so Antonio demonstrated an emergency descent to show how to cope with engine-on-fire. Basically we dived steeply with the airspeed sitting just below VNE in the yellow. We leveled off at FL30 and I continued to the VOR, eventually arriving directly overhead, following VOR needles is pretty much a breeze.

Antonio then says "Ok take me to here" pointing at the map, I start to circle the VOR and let go of the stick, maintaining the bank with the rudder so I can use my hands to plot a new course on the map. This is tricky as I lacked enough eyes, one set to watch the VOR below to make sure we are staying in same position, second set to watch the instruments and third set to plot the course. I was required to give heading corrected for the wind, distance to the destination and the time we would arrive there, again taking account of the headwind component. After 4 hours of circling I finally had the answer (well slight exaggeration but took me awhile), one other factor was there was alot of thermals around today and the air was far from smooth.

I set off on the newly worked out heading and before long I was pleased to see we were exactly on track, I did however forget to reset the stopwatch therefore the time calculation had to be based on adding the 3 minutes that I flew with incorrect stopwatch.

After 10 minutes the destination appeared directly ahead. We flew overhead and found the time was also correct given the 3 minute adjustment. So far so good. Damn.. PFL, I didn't expect it which was a good test. This time I did the procedure perfectly although once again picked a field too close by meaning that I had alot of height to lose, I started 'S' turns and ended up too high so I made the mistake of looking to the next field instead which we were at a perfect height for. Antonio said no, bank.. this is the only field.. so I turned a tight turn which is pretty cool at low altitude and was then set-up perfectly for finals. The thing is I always underestimate the glide capabilities of the Katana. All in all though the PFL was good, had that been a real emergency I could have made a landing in a clear area and the procedure was followed.

I regain the lost altitude and circle whilst getting clearance to transistion the Odiham MATZ, once approved I resume navigation back from here to Blackbushe.

Incidentally, now the haze has much improved, the wind has picked up from the South and is clearing away the haze, visibility is now pretty good and we have a horizon.

We reach Blackbushe, the circuit is clear for once so Antonio suggests we do another High-Key manouever. This worked out fairly well although I turned towards downwind and final a little early, once again underestimating the glide of the Katana.. however we did make the runway just not the numbers.

Another good lesson, was a long lesson today but practiced alot of things and was very productive, my radio skill is improving and understanding of Navigation and diversions has improved. I was offered a few more solo circuits if I wished to kill the remaining time but today I declined, I needed a drink and also the day is baking hot in the cockpit at circuit height.

Hopefully solo will now happen tomorrow providing the conditions are good, if not solo then a much further xc duel will happen crossing lots of controlled airspaces. Fun.

Lesson 26, More Nav

2005-08-16T17:46:00.000+01:00

Another fine day today, beautiful sunshine and only scattered clouds should be good for flying! I spend the morning planning out the route and constantly checking the weather for any signs of change in the wind or cloudbase. In drawing out the course I run through the flight in my mind whilst looking at the map, really aquainting myself with the area all around the route, hopefully once flying it, it should help me to recognise any deviations from the plan.

The weather reports today were basically saying VRB/5 or CALM at 2,000AMSL and 5,000AMSL which means winds at 5 knots from a variable direction. This whilst good for flying is not good for calculating an accurate heading to steer, I therefore decide to steer the magnetic headings and be ready to adapt those headings in the air if the wind starts causing us to drift.

On the map I write all the information I will need for the route (as well as completing a proper VFR flight plan). Writing on the map means everything I need to navigate is right there in front of me, without having to look elsewhere. I also copy the flightplan information on to my kneeboard as a back-up.

Various scribblings on my chart

Today will be a challenge because I have to cross a MATZ so will need to make a call at whitchurch to request a route through the zone. Radio is one area I hope I will improve this flight as up till now I tend to easily fumble what I want to say, which is kinda strange as I am often called to deliver training to Solution Architects, Developers and Management therefore ordinarily I am quite confident speaking in public. The radio really should be easy for me but for some reason it's not.

After briefing Antonio I head out, carry out the transit checks and take her over to the pumps to gas up. Antonio joins me at the pumps and after refuelling we start to set off. I complete the engine checks and then realise, hmm I need the toilet.. damn. Antonio finds this really funny because only earlier he was telling me about his qualifying cross-country where he had to divert to another airfield for the same reason. I therefore have to take her back to the gate and go do my thing.

Ok finally, we are off. I climb in the circuit and then set heading for Grove, the first waypoint. I know it is a disused airfield but have no real idea what to expect visually once there. I make the radio calls to request radar flight information service and am warned of intense ariel activity en-route, lots of gliders out today. Worth mentioning that I messed up this call slightly but overall managed to sound coherent at least.

The weather towards our waypoint is fantastic, although there is a heavy haze. One point we passed had a interesting looking particle accelerator so Antonio took a picture of it. The picture came out bad, partly because of reflection in the canopy and also the haze.

Haze over typical countryside

Particle Accelerator in the distance

Before long the first waypoint appears in front of the nose, outstanding! no wind drift and I maintained the planned heading. I carry out a sweeping circle to the right and fly back over Grove airfield (it's a wartime airfield since left to go into ruin, some of the buildings looked like typical wartime hangers but sadly no tower remained). I set the next heading and drop 500 feet as the cloudbase here is about 3000 feet and there are alot of gliders hugging the cloudbase. The next leg is uneventful and I keep a constant visual check at the map and what I see around our position, all is good. I sight our next waypoint, a small town with a river and railway track running along side. Suddenly Antonio pulls the power, PFL. This time I follow the procedure so all is well, I pick a field although a little close by therefore I do a spiral turn while maintaining best glide speed of 70knts and then a forward slip to lose height as we are on 'finals' for the field. We will make it so I recover and then Antonio tells me to resume navigation, at this point we are around 800AMSL and I have lost site of the waypoint due to the low altitude so I conduct a climbing turn and look around for reference points. I spot Andover off to our right hand side in the distance so establish our position and then continue climbing and return to the track.

Once overhead Whitchurch I again make a turn to the right and during the turn make the radio call to request MATZ penetration, we are cleared through at 2,500 feet and told to avoid Odiham CTR. I stick to the planned heading and pass all the points detailed on the map more or less at the expected times.

Antonio snaps a photo overhead Basingstoke.

Goofing around on final leg

Finally we have Blackbushe in sight directly in front of us so enter from the dead-side and come in for an OK landing.

Antonio is very pleased as am I, I really prepared well for this exercise and that preparation paid off, FREDA checks come naturally and the 6T's are becoming easier. Radio is still my weakest point although I am improving, I am going to try re-reading the communication section in the JAR course.

Once back we debrief a bit and I grab a coke, I have a little longer scheduled time today so I decide to go and do some solo circuits for the remaining half-hour. These circuits go well with 3 good landings.

Hectic day but really loved every minute of it. The plan for tomorrow has changed, first solo navigation eeek!

Lesson 25 Navigation and Solo

2005-08-15T15:13:00.000+01:00

I woke up this morning a little later than I intended so as soon as I was awake I was at the computer planning for todays flight whilst drinking strong coffee. I download and print the latest weather reports from the met office website for both pressure charts and wind/weather, along with the METARS and TAFS for the immediate aerodromes near my planned route. Also I check the notams to make sure the planning is taking those into account.

The route is the same as intended yesterday so this gave me a little head-start but I still had to recalculate the headings due to the lessor wind today and higher pressure. I am getting quicker now using the wizz wheel flight computer, practice certainly pays-off so it is not long before I complete the calculations and then re-check everything.

I arrive on time at Blackbushe and brief Antonio about the weather and the course, at the moment there is a fair bit of haze so Antonio suggests I go and spend the next hour doing solo circuits while the morning haze dissappears as it seemed to be improving gradually, then after the circuits we can go do the navigation. I go do the A checks for Echo Hotel and after refuelling I go up first with Antonio for a couple of circuits just to check me out again (club policy) and to make sure I have not adopted any bad habits. Afterwards Antonio jumps out and I go up alone.

Flying solo again feels completely ok, I just enjoy the freedom of it.

On my first circuit another aircraft is flying downwind fairly slowly, a Cessna 172 by the look of it and I am rapidly catching him up, as I turn downwind I am directly in his six so I flip up the trigger guard and open fire, all eight machine guns in the Katana shudder and the bandit goes down. Ok well that was my imagination, I decided instead to spare him and to just follow him on downwind slowly. He flies a rather long downwind leg so I extend even further to allow him more time on base and finals.

The rest of the circuits where pretty uneventful although I did do a GA just as I was a little higher than I would like on late final.

I land, park Echo Hotel and grab a drink before the next flight.

Ok Nav time. I was hoping today that the smoother conditions would make it easier to concentrate on the map reading also it is a beautiful day today with only scattered light cloud and 10 knt winds at FL30.

Rather than go into boring detail I will summarize the flight. The flight was a world different from my last effort two days ago, today I felt focussed and confident and that made all the difference. The headings I had calculated along with the times were absolutely spot-on today and this time I was able to follow the map and know our exact position at all times. The improved weather conditions made it easy to hold my heading, airspeed and altitude mostly to within 50 feet. The radio calls today came more naturally although I did miss a couple of calls directed at us, partly because I was so focussed on the navigation. Antonio mentioned that, just like when learning anything it will become a whole lot easier and I won't need to concentrate as hard as I am now.

Through-out the flight I forced myself to carry out the standard FREDA checks along with the navigation checks and by the end of the flight they were becoming so I didn't have to think about doing them.. they just 'happened'.

On the return leg to Blackbushe Antonio pulled the power to simulate an engine failure, unfortunately I immediately messed up the procedure by calling Mayday and the mayday message before even checking the fuel and engine. I realised my mistake the moment I opened my mouth, but carried on with the procedure albeit not in order. Had that been a real event my engine could have restarted and I would have been faced with a bill for a cancelled Mayday call. The thing is at least is I know the procedure, I was just focussed so much on the navigation it threw me a bit. Antonio let this one go, partly because the remainder of the procedure was ok and also because my navigation was going well. But no doubt he won't let me off so lightly next time I mess it up!

We re-joined the circuit at Blackbushe and to cap it off had a good landing. All in all excellent day. The plan for the remainder of the week is more navigation including landing at another airport and crossing a military ATZ and hopefully doing the first solo navigation flight at the end of the week.

Next lesson tomorrow and new route.

No go

2005-08-14T17:38:00.000+01:00

Strong winds and turbulence meant today's lesson was cancelled. A high pressure weather front has just moved in and the forecast is for a very fine week ahead, which is good because I am hoping to fly everyday this week.

Despite the cancellation I prepared the navigation just for practice, three legs this time. At the moment I am planning navigation using pilotage which means using a chart, flight computer and stopwatch, it is actually pretty hard work planning a route but good fun none-the-less.

I have another lesson tomorrow morning so hopefully I will get to fly the planned route , although I will need to recalculate the various variables such as headings, airspeeds and fuel consumption due to the changes in the wind forecast.

Lesson 24, More Nav

2005-08-13T12:48:00.000+01:00

I havn't flown all week so have been looking forward to todays lesson.. the only problem was I managed to forget the time of the lesson, for some reason I had it in my head that it was this afternoon. I call the training school to check the time of the lesson and it turned out to be at 9:30am .. hmm thats like now! damn. I get myself sorted out and head down there as quickly as I can, arriving 30 minutes late.

Because of my lateness this morning we have to rush the planning part of the navigation lesson, this isn't good and I don't feel 'with it' mentally this morning, my brain just hasn't awoke. We plan a heading according to the wind given on the met form and mark points on the map to check navigation along with the times we should reach those points. This is a single leg so should not be to difficult.

Antonio does the checks this time to save time (I take longer) and I decide to do a short field take-off which is easy. I climb in the circuit and proceed with the navigation once we are at 3000AMSL and over the centre of the runway. Heading is good, altitude is good and airspeed is good.. not a bad start. I make the radio calls and request change to Farnborough Radar and then request Flight Information Service from Farnborough. My radio calls were improved today, partly because I didn't put any pressure on myself.

Before long we arrive at the first 'checkpoint' marked on the map, we are maintaining the correct track and pass the point at the expected time, almost dead-on. So far so good...

Before I go, I should mention the weather, to the East a large occluded weather front is rapidly moving towards us and although our current position is in sunshine with scattered CU cloud the air starts to get very turbulent.

The next checkpoint is less easy to see from the air, it's a railway track crossing our track. I spot the railway track ok but I don't take notice of other references which should have told me we had drifted off course. Before long, I am not seeing what I expect to see, at this point I realise we have drifted. I check the heading and it is correct, damn the wind has changed significantly. We change heading by around 15 degrees to bring us back to our intended track.

The next check point arrives and we are now back on track although running 2 minutes behind, the air now is very choppy and it is increasingly hard to hold altitude, airspeed and heading. None-the-less we arrive overhead an old disused airfield, our destination. Antonio pulls the power to simulate an engine failure. I decide to land on the old runway so set the aircraft up for a downwind. I then make a mess of the procedure.. damn.. I know this stuff but for some reason I can't seem to concentrate. I try and make a turn onto base leg but at 45degrees of bank.. she doesn't turn! the choppyness and strong wind just won't allow me to turn at this low airspeed and altitude is now falling away rapidly. We recover the situation. In those circumstances it would have been foolish to continue to rescue the maneover as this was a practice, I would have had to increased bank angle to around 60 degrees to force a turn at a low airspeed. That would be asking for trouble. If this was a real situation I would have selected another landing area to the other side and close by.

I set course for blackbushe, following pretty much the same path we took on our way out. We do a couple more engine failures which again I mess up. The whole time I am trying to maintain our course and know our position in relation to the map, I keep getting asked questions about our present position and what landmarks are. I am feeling stressed now and can't seem to focus my mind. Soon it becomes obvious we are not on course as I can't see the railway track I was expecting. We are heading to far to the South. I correct and we do another engine failure.. by this time my brain has gone into meltdown and I barely know my own name let alone be able to follow a procedure.

Heading in towards Blackbushe I make the required calls after first having to circle outside in a holding pattern while waiting for radio clearance from Farnborough Radar to switch frequency. I enter normal circuit and fight the turbulence all the way to landing. The landing was smooth but not on the centre line.

All in all, I left blackbushe feeling annoyed with myself. After a bit of reflection I actually shouldn't be to hard on myself, the conditions were not good today with strong turbulence and a significant wind direction change rendering our calculated heading totally incorrect once in the air and one hell of a lot to think about all the time. Being late this morning kind of didn't allow me time to settle into the task.

More flying tomorrow where I hope it will be much improved!

Lesson 23, Navigation

2005-08-07T23:15:00.000+01:00

I arrived a little early for todays lesson, so just hung around for awhile as Antonio was out with another student, I took the chance to learn how to read the NOTAMS on the club computer. Whilst hanging around I was listening to other people waiting for their flights, for most of them it was a first introduction flight and it reminded me it wasn't that long ago that I was in their place.

The weather today was good, light winds and scattered puffy cloud at 4000AMSL with 9999 visibility, it promised to be a nice flight.

I learnt that the schedule was running behind a little but was fine just relaxing and drinking coffee while I continued waiting, Antonio returned and we went into the briefing room to talk navigation. Navigation is something I have been looking forward to learning more about so I enjoyed the long briefing. It was necessary to spend quite a bit of time talking about nav and also explaining how all the various equipment a pilot has to use, such as the flight computer and the 1.500.000 chart. We planned out a single leg about 30NM away and made the calculations on wind, magnetic adjustment and ground speed and marked these onto a VFR flightplan. On the map we marked various points where railways or towns were nearby and marked the times we should be at these points. A new checklist was introduced today, the 6T's:

T - Turn (are we on heading?)
T - Time (has the time been set/marked?)
T - Twist (DI agrees with compass?)
T - Throttle (cruising at 90 knts?)
T - Talk (any radio calls or frequency changes needed?)
T - Track (are we tracking along our marked line on the map?)

Using this checklist frequently during the flight should be simplicity itself to get where we want to go... the problem is remembering it! Like most checklists I have learnt to date it always takes me time to get into the swing of it.

With route planned we set off, unfortunately due to the long briefing and the later than expected schedule we have very little time today but we decide to fly as far as we can and if necessary turn back early. We both shared the transit checks on Lima Sierra for speed and was soon taxing for take-off. We climbed in the circuit and at one point hit a nice thermal which gave us a huge boost in feet per minute. I continued around the circuit and was at the desired 3000 feet on the 'final' leg, I faked a call 'GOLF LIMA SIERRA on finals' and then exclamed we were too high, Antonio laughed and said 'FULL FLAPS'. Looking around was pretty amazing, the visibility today was just awesome and all the green fields, woodland and city areas were basking in the late-day sun.

Overhead the runway I started the 6t's with some prompting from Antonio, well the 6t's soon turned into the 3s's; started, stuttered and stopped. Damn I need to memorize things better! Anyway I set the right heading and maintained 3000AMSL but then realized our airspeed was around 110knts.. hmm reduce power some, it took me awhile getting the right airspeed of 90knts and then I noticed our heading was off and altitude had dropped to 2500AMSL. This happened because I trimmed early on at 110 knts for 3000AMSL and then didn't trim for 90knts, yes I am a dork. Ok not a good start, Antonio directed me to the map and I worked out we were further along then planned for (the first mark on the map was for 6 minutes and we had already past that point at 5 minutes) and also we were to the right. I compensated by returning to the planned heading.. second mistake and a fairly obvious one to all but super dorks. The principal of compensation means that I needed to turn to a heading less than the planned heading for a approximately the same time that I was heading more than the planned heading.

On the more successful side, I was at least able to pick out landmarks shown on the map and establish our position even if it was screwy.

We got about a third of the way along before the time was up and we had to return, flying back gave me time to ponder my errors and alot of them happened because I wasn't mentally ahead of the aircraft. My brain was working hard concentrating on the navigation part and I just forgot how to control the airplane! Usually I can maintain altitude and heading without any problems but I allowed myself to get distracted and therefore wasted time correcting mistakes, all the while the navigation is getting ignored. It reminded me of the first circuit I flew, it was much the same, I got behind the aircraft mentally and afterwards it sucked as a result.

We rejoined the circuit with an overhead join and fell in behind another airplane on downwind, he was flying slow and low (I assume he was doing a glide) so I set up for slow flight and extended the downwind leg a bit to allow him to turn final as I turned base. The approach and landing today was good despite the 8knt crosswind, in fact barely felt it kiss the runway. Having a good landing was a nice feeling as my landings recently have gone downhill.

The time was now late and everyone had pretty much gone home so I hung around with Antonio chatting outside for an hour, I am sincerely glad I have a very able instructor who is on my wavelength.

When I got home I decided to bring out the chart and plan a few more legs to exotic far-away places like Southampton and Windsor (about 30 minutes flight time both) just for practice and to reinforce the ground lesson. I doubt I will get to fly during this week as the lesson I had booked I regrettably had to cancel due to work commitments. Next likely lesson will be next weekend where we will continue with the navigation.

Lesson 22, PFL's and Navigation

2005-08-07T00:23:00.000+01:00

Writing this fairly late so a short report this time...

Todays lesson was focussed on consolidating all previous lessons up till this point and also an introduction to navigation. We began with a ground lesson on VORs, NDB and DME along with explaining some of the controls on the GPS, this was real good as I have been practicing this a fair bit using Flightsim.

I had more or less the whole afternoon booked with Antonio's time and G-BWLS so there was less time pressure than usual, this helped me to focus more on the lesson. We began with a short field take-off and then some radio practice obtaining flight information service and talking with ATC, I am getting slightly better at communicating on the radio, just need more practice and also to relax a little more. On the way to the practice area Antonio tested me on general maneovers such as balanced turns to a given heading (had to be precise), steep turns and stalls in all different configurations. Once at the practice area we did some practice forced landings and some general emergency procedures along with carrying out all the regular checks during normal flight. Also practiced a forward slip, s-turns and discovering wind direction from the air.

There was alot of traffic flying around randomly today, mostly gliders. I learnt that most gliders pretty much go where they want to regardless of other aircraft, on several occasions I was forced to avoid them as they turned directly into my path. I do however understand that they have right of way so no problem.

The first part of the lesson went well, it was good to revisit things I hadn't practiced in awhile such as stalls. Antonio was pleased so we moved on the navigation stuff, I found this more difficult than I had thought from the briefing, for some things always seem easier when discussed on the ground. We practiced turns with just the compass and also timed turns and messed around with nearby VORs. Amazing thing VORs, it is fairly easy to work out your exact position by discovering which radial you are on for two seperate VORs. The GPS was also good, messed around with entering waypoints and using the compass and timed turns to follow the course the GPS suggested (Antonio twisted the DI around).

Finally we returned to Blackbushe following a radial and using the DME to establish our distance. Entering overhead Blackbushe we did a High Key maneover in a glide all the way through Low Key and then to land, the maneover was fine.. the landing very bad, I made a huge mistake of trying to adjust my airspeed by dipping the nose too low to the ground and then having to rapidly flare.. result.. hard landing followed by a bounce. Once again I am taught not to get over-confident and not to try crazy things that I have been TOLD never to do, I.E dip the nose right before the flare. We do a few more flapless landings and a go-around due to another aircraft on the runway, thankfully these are much better.

Today, total of 1.8 hours. Excellent lesson all in all, only the mistake on landing was a bit of a bummer. More navigation tomorrow.

I only want one!

2005-08-06T12:31:00.000+01:00

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.151822,-110.823791&spn=0.007521,0.010225&t=k&hl=en

Think they would notice if one mysteriously vanished?

Lesson 21, Crosswind Circuits

2005-08-04T22:15:00.000+01:00

The intention this morning was to carry out another hour of solo circuits, however the weather did not comply. The sky was mostly clear with scattered cloud however the wind picked up, the METAR reported 10knts which didn't feel right standing on the apron with the wind gusting around.

I went up with a different instructor; Mark as Antonio is on holiday, our plan was to check-out the wind in the air and if all was well then I would solo. We took-off and did the first circuit, the wind strength immediately became obvious once in the air and on final to land the tower informed us of 15knt crosswind gusting 20. My first landing was poorish, largely because of the turbulent air. We went around again and Mark mentioned that I was unable to solo in these conditions (there is a 10knt maximum legal restriction on student pilots). Rather than ending the lesson I decided to get in some more crosswind practice, we did another 5 circuits which I was generally pleased with as I got another opportunity to practice different crosswind techniques.

The first technique is the conventional slideslip; the aim is to line up straight with the runway and drop a wing into the wind and apply a sideslip, this requires a little more co-ordination although is easy to maintain a constant descent onto the runway due to the better visual aspect. The problem with the sideslip is in gusty conditions the approach can easily go astray and any strong down gusts towards the lowered wing can cause a steep wing angle in a split second (experienced this) cross controlling at low air speed in gusty conditions is risky. The second technique is the kickout method, for this method the aircraft is crabbed into the wind during the descent on final with the centre of gravity tracking the extended centre-line, the aircraft is kept straight and level and in balance with the rudder. The flare is carried out in this configuration and just prior to touching the ground so the aircraft is flying a couple of inches from the surface with no sink rate you lower the upwind wing to place the wheel onto the runway whilst kicking the downwind rudder to bring the aircraft straight out of the crab, this causes the aircraft to track straight with no drift from the centreline, once established reducing the bank angle places the downwind wheel onto the surface followed by the nose wheel. The kickout technique is basically a side-slip executed right at the point of touch-down.

Having tried both techniques I am now convinced of the kickout method as each landing ended up straight and gentle. I guess each pilot will have his own preference but so far this appears to me mine, although I guess the technique could vary for different aircraft, that I will have to find out in time. I have been lucky to have practiced quite a few crosswind landings at between 15 and 20knts, apparently many student pilots have to often wait for months for the right conditions. I enjoy the challenge of it and hope I will get more opportunities over the coming months.

Other observations to note here; the Katana has a maximum demonstrated crosswind of 15knts, it seems a little low to me as the Katana has very reactive controls, only the slightest of movements on the stick and rudder is needed to bring it out of a dangerous bank angle, on the downside being so light it tends to get blown around a little more than the heavier four seaters (so informed by my instructors).

Anyway fun! I would have liked to have clocked up another hour of solo fight today but the crosswind practice was very worthwhile. It was also mentioned today that I am pretty much done with circuit practice and any further practice I do in the circuit should be at my descretion and only solo, mainly to build self-confidence. I think it is worthwhile for me to solo a few more times in the circuit and no doubt I will get plenty more chances.

Flying the Katana

2005-08-04T09:50:00.000+01:00

I ran accross a good article on the Katana, well the Diamond Eclipse which is a newer model. The article tells it how it is. Diamond check out ...Incidentally Justin's website is an excellent read.

Photos

2005-08-01T09:13:00.000+01:00

As promised here are a couple of shots taken during my solo yesterday:

Engine checks

Taxi for take-off

Lesson 20, Solo Circuits

2005-07-31T16:29:00.000+01:00

Today wifey a.k.a Tristine decided to come along and watch me fly, I told her about what to expect as I was doing solo circuits today providing the instuctor cleared me to fly. We had to wait around for 40 minutes until a plane was available as todays schedule had slipped back a bit so we grabbed a coffee in the airfield bistro. Tristine was asking lots of questions about the aircraft and flying, it felt good being able to answer them.

Once Foxtrot Victor returned with it's previous student I went out and carried out the transit pre-flight checks, these checks are getting quicker and quicker each time, not through complacency just through not needing to refer to the checklist as often. Mathew , another instructor soon joined me (Antonio was having a well earned day off) and we proceeded with the take off routine.

I carried out a couple of circuits with Mathew, which went well so on the second landing he jumped out. I refueled the Katana and then departed on my own, giving Tristine a wave as I passed her at the apron. I felt relaxed and calm as I carried out all the engine and pre-takeoff checks and before long was in the air. I noticed once again the weight difference, the Katana climbed like a rocket upon take-off.

My circuits were pretty much boring and effortless, strange for me to say that, I mean I enjoyed flying but the circuit procedures have become second nature now. I did not accept any mistakes in my circuit and all the time flew to the best of my ability. I set a goal for myself today, to improve my judgement of the approach with different flap settings as this is an area that needs work. I believe I achieved my goal, my approaches got steadily better with each circuit and the landings were on the most part good, although my last touch-down was a small bounce.

Today I did 0.8 hours solo with 6 circuits and landings with full flap, 1 stage of flap and no flap, I have scheduled in a morning slot on Wednesday to do more of the same.

Tristine was very patient waiting and it was really nice to have her there supporting me, she watched the entire time and managed to take a few pictures. (I will try and post them soon).

Roll on Wednesday!

Lesson 19, PFL's and IMC

2005-07-30T16:42:00.000+01:00

Todays lesson marks the longest I have gone without flying since I began training, therefore I was desperately keen to get back in the air. The weather today is warm but with many layers of cumulus cloud overhead with scattered showers and a light wind. The weather was not ideal for solo circuits today therefore we decided to leave the circuit and go do some duel practice forced landings.

I first had a long briefing discussing all the symptoms and causes of engine failure, such as fuel starvation or ignition failure. All of these I had discussed before but this time was in much more detail. We briefed on the procedure; to establish best glide speed and look for a suitable landing area before trying to restart the engine and carrying out the appropriate steps. Then making a mayday call and finally securing the aircraft such as turning off fuel, electrics, ignition before landing. Alot of steps to remember but I have been assured that I will practice all aspects of forced landings many many times until it becomes automatic.

It started showering outside so I waited around awhile while Antonio went to grab a sandwich, as soon as it stopped I went out and pre-flighted the Katana. Antonio caught up with me as I finished the checks so I took off and headed towards a countryside area favoured for practice landings.

Once in the air a smile soon developed. The weather was simply amazing, we were flying at around 2500AMSL and passing overhead small occasional cumulus formations along with more cloud above. Through breaks in the clouds the sun streamed through highlighting all the little rain showers coming from individual clouds. We avoided much of the rain but occasionally flew into some just for the fun of it. Before long we reached our intended practice area, it is a very beautiful area, miles of fields, wooded areas and hills with the occasional ponds and streams. (The area I am talking about is South of Newbury). It is days like today that are probably the best for flying and you truly get an appreciation for the beauty of nature and the weather. At one time we passed close to two other aircraft flying in formation, one was a PA28 the other we were not sure about. Farnborough radar kept us informed the entire flight of nearby traffic avoiding getting uncomfortably close.

Antonio pulled the power suddenly and immediately I began the procedures discussed earlier. This was going to take a bit of practice as in my first effort I forgot to pick out a suitable landing area. On the second attempt it was much better, everything was good and we went through the entire process, initiating a recovery before the wheels touched the ground. We had plenty of space in which to practice and stayed clear of any built-up areas (farm houses) and power cables. We continued to do PFL's for the next hour, each time Antonio would catch me out by asking to climb to 3000ft then pulling the power just after establishing the climb, he would also pull the power while banking onto a given heading. All of this was excellent practice! Most instructors will prevent the aircraft getting below two or three hundred feet above the ground however Antonio's opinion was that that was not real enough. I couldn't agree more, completing the PFL to the point of no doubt about making a successful landing was highly valuable and really reinforced my confidence in the aircraft. Also was a lot of fun buzzing corn fields to within a few feet, before climbing away.

The PFL's went very well, I need to work on them more to become totally automatic with the procedures and no doubt I will get alot more practice to nail the lesson 100%. Antonio suggested we try something new, IMC flight. Now I have been looking forward to this, just to experience it. Antonio is IFR rated and therefore it was no problem to fly into some cloud. The cloud was actually pretty thin in most parts so Antonio restricted my view to just the instruments then gave me instructions to follow such as heading changes, altitude changes and both at the same time. I have had alot of practice doing this on Flight Sim 2004, where the instruments are the primary focus rather than the view outside the aircraft, this practice paid off and I felt at home doing this. Antonio expressed his satisfaction.

Finally to cap off the lesson I did some navigation using a map and trying to establish our position (all the flying with restricted view had totally thrown my ideas about our position) then to head back to Blackbushe. At first I incorrectly guessed that a town to our left hand side was Newbury but soon established that it was in fact Reading by looking at the motorway and nearby lakes, I then estimated the correct course to Blackbushe from here. After ten or fifteen minutes maintaining this course, Blackbushe appeared in our 12 o'clock position (directly ahead). Blackbushe Information informed us the circuit was presently unoccupied therefore we requested a glide approach. I flew directly over the runway at 2000 AGL and Antonio cut the power, I did the PFL checks then banked around to the left at best glide and eventually lined up the runway, we were a little high so set full flap and landed softly about a third way in to the runway. I did one more circuit to practice another full flap landing which was not so good (I seem to have lost the technique on full flap landings, so need to regain this!).

So concludes a long and productive lesson, I am still smiling now as I gotta tell ya I enjoyed every moment! I am flying again tomorrow this time for solo circuits if the weather holds out (it is forecast to improve).

Wx bad

2005-07-27T09:07:00.000+01:00

Another cancellation this morning due to the weather. There is heavy rain and thunderstorms expected to last untill the weekend which will likely scrub any chance of flying before next week. My next actual lesson is on the 6th August, so it will mark the longest break from flying since I began taking lessons. Although the weather is a part of aviation, it has come at a particularly irritating time for me, having carried out my solo I now want to consolidate that experience.

Cancelled

2005-07-24T08:24:00.000+01:00

This mornings lesson was cancelled due to the weather, at least I guess it has brought a little welcome relief from the recent heat and humidity. Next lesson is on Wednesday morning before work.

Good lesson learnt

2005-07-23T13:53:00.000+01:00

Today I was scheduled to do some solo circuits, the weather didn't look too great (overcast with spots of rain) but was good enough for circuits. I turned up and soon the aircraft returned from the previous lesson so I carried out the 'A' checks. Antonio came out to give me a hand and just as I finished the checks another student appeared at the plane saying "I must have the plane now" .. Antonio and me look at each other as if to say "????" he said he had it booked (which he didn't he had booked the next hour after me). Anyway Antonio went in to speak to the operational staff while I remained with the other student, he was clearly aggravated and began to complain to me about the fact that he has had alot of cancellations because of weather and he has yet to solo despite having many hours. I figured, jeez if he so annoyed I will let him have the plane as he obviously needed the time more than me. When his instructor turned up he mentioned he wanted to do three hours of circuits, to which his instructor said no for all the obvious reasons (I mean one hour of circuits can be hard work, let alone three!).

Therefore I gave up my slot and was instead offered this students slot for one hour later, more was said on this matter by various people which I can not write about here. To tell the truth though I didn't mind, I was just surprised someone would be willing to fly when he was feeling pretty angry.

The hour soon passed, we watched some private jets arrive along with a large private helicopter. Out stepped a bunch of very well dressed, obviously very rich people on their way to watch their horses race at Newbury. I felt suddenly underdressed in a pair of cords and a t-shirt.

Echo Hotel returned and I went out to meet the aircraft, after the other student thanked me (he seemed alot calmer now) I assured him it was no problem and took over the keys. I carried out the second A check of the day and taxied out with Antonio beside me, our plan was to go up for one or two circuits to check out the flying conditions, if it was good I would then solo. At engine run up I did the normal checks, however when I switched to R magneto, whoosh.. down went the rpm's and the engine began running badly, ok not seen this before. Left was fine, right was inconsitently dropping way way too much rpms, we tried it at different power settings and it appeared that below 1500rpm it would start rough running, then around 1200rpm it suddenly dropped off to struggle to idle even. Not good, I stated immediately I would not fly today (especially not solo) like that, Antonio also agreed no way could we go like that. Antonio took some notes for maintainence and I taxied and parked.

One of those days today! but hey at least I got two more 'A' check practice and 10 minutes taxi practice! ;-) Still once again, I think positive things came from this experience.. at least now I know what I am looking for when I check the magnetos.

Early this morning before coming to Blackbushe I drove over to a nearby flying shop and invested in a headset, a David Clark H10 13.4 as was recommended to me. At least I got to test that out briefly also.

I have a 2 hour slot booked for tomorrow morning but it doesn't look likely to happen due to the weather worsening, tomorrow is expected to be strong and heavy rain, so I think I will likely study instead.

Lesson 18, Solo

2005-07-22T19:28:00.000+01:00

Thankfully I did get to do my solo after-all. The time today passed slowly and with each passing hour I thought my chances of soloing today were steadily decreasing, however at around 4:30pm I had a call from Antonio to say I can do it.

I got there as quickly as I could, scared that the opportunity would slip from my grasp once again, or they would change their minds about letting me loose with an aeroplane. Once I arrived I had a short wait for G-BWEH to return with it's previous student, while waiting my nerves started to jangle, I just wanted to do this! It was actually a fairly surreal moment, I knew I could do the solo but some doubts crept in. Things like the active runway (07) I had not practiced in awhile, and the thoughts of checklists etc.

Before long EH returned so I jumped in with the chief flying instructor and we got going, then everything went wrong. My take-off was just unbelievably poor.. I allowed the aircraft to lift too early, we touched the runway gently before taking off again! Argh.. bad.. I have never taken off so badly before and I can't explain why I did this time. First circuit was passable, at least I remembered the checks although I managed to screw up the height on the circuit, approach with flaps was poor. Landing good thankfully. Second circuit was a little better but again way way poorer than I have been doing up till now. I was expecting him to refuse the solo, however the moment we touched down he asked me "ok ready to go on your own", I was initially unsure whether he said that because he had confidence in my terrible display or was just trying to get out the plane away from this madman pilot!

I decided at that point that I had to go.. I knew I could do allot better and was determined to get this right.

Funnily enough, once alone in the aircraft, all my apprehension about soloing evaporated. I taxied and carefully ran through all the checks, making sure nothing was missed then taxied out for take-off. After another Katana landed I received the call "Golf Echo Hotel, take off at your discretion, wind is 090 06 knots" so off I went. The Katana shot into the air much quicker than I am used to, the weight difference solo sure made a difference. After completing the turn onto crosswind I was already at circuit height so reduced power and turned onto downwind. Checks completed and radio call made I was advised of two other aircraft, I saw a piper come from my left and join on downwind ahead of me. I was number 2 to land behind him.

Whilst up there it felt strange to be flying alone, I felt a sense of serenity and also was acutelly aware of all the little noises and movements of the aircraft, this felt great!

I turned crosswind after watching the Piper pass my starboard wing on his final and decided I would do a normal flap landing, so lowered 1st stage of flap and set up the aircraft to descend at 70 knts. I turned final and lowered 2nd stage of flap, hmm.. ok she doesn't want to sink so much with just one in the aircraft, reducing power.. hmm starting to look high still. I made the decision to continue with the descent rather than go-around because there was enough distance still so cut to idle and glided in gently. The landing again was different, she did not want to land! The Katana just floated for quite away before gently dropping on to the runway, I bounced a tiny bit then maintained back and then landed properley. Lesson learnt, landing solo will take a bit of practice.

I cleared the runway and Blackbushe Information called out "Golf Echo Hotel, congratulations on first solo!" I thanked them and taxied back to parking. Antonio came out to greet me and congratulate me, I thanked him also for getting me to this point. By this time the event was sinking in, I was wearing a dumb grin. We went inside the office and everyone immediately offered their congratulations, then the jokes started, Antonio mentioned that I will solo allot more now so I accused him of being afraid to fly with me.

All in all, I am still buzzing with the experience and I can't wait for tomorrow’s hour long solo, providing the weather holds out. For now I am going to head out to a pub to hoist a drink to the air gods!

Wx is not my friend

2005-07-22T11:16:00.000+01:00

Woke up early this morning having spent the previous evening going over emergency checklists for engine fire, electrical fire etc, in preperation for the check-out before solo today. I drew back the curtains and clear blue sky with nearly no wind, all looks good so I head down to the flying school. Time I arrive there cloud has appeared overhead and there appears to be alot of haze, looking accross the runway the far trees look fairly obscured, hmm this is not looking good.

Before long Antonio arrives as does Peter, the chief flying instructor, he decides to go up and check the weather in the air as the METAR reports cloudbase at 1300ft, which may be ok for the solo (circuit height is 800ft AGL). While he is gone Antonio and me chat for awhile, discussing procedures and his first solo experience, it is good and he does a great job of keeping me relaxed.

Peter returns and says it is excellent weather for solo flight, nearly no wind, smooth air but visibility is just too poor due to the rising haze. I am dissappointed but then these things happen.

I *might* get a chance to solo later on today, depending on the visibility and if space can be made on the schedule for both Antonio and Peter. I will post again if I do get to go, otherwise it might happen over the weekend. I am so psyched to do this I hope I don't get another week of waiting.

Lesson 17, High Wind Landings

2005-07-18T17:02:00.000+01:00

Today I woke up expecting to solo (given Antonio's permission), the sky was clear of cloud, sun shining and a light westerley wind. However as the day wore on I checked the TAF's and each one predicted strong winds and rain, sure enough time it got to my lesson there was a 20knt wind from the West but no rain as yet.

Whilst waiting around I went outside and watched others coming in to land, several landings were aborted and saw one aircraft balloon three times and bounce 3 times before landing. All aircraft landing looked to be having a few problems of some sort with the strong wind.

Antonio returned from his previous lesson and I was glad to hear the words that I can't solo today because of the strong gusty winds as I definately would have decided not to fly solo in conditions like these. He mentioned that it is very bumpy up there and hard to land. He said I can fly duel but I might not like it once in the air, he left it up to me to decide. I decided to fly anyway as it will be good practice to carry out some landings in weather like this.

During the pre-flight the plane was getting blown around quite a bit and Antonio explained how the conditions will be on the aircraft in flight, this was good as it is far better to know what to expect. We gained a reluctant sounding clearance and were soon into the air. Immediately I saw what he meant, climbing was made difficult by the constant fluctuation in airspeed I also was off track as I climbed out. I turned crosswind and the aircraft is getting thrown around a whole lot, I struggled up to circuit height just in time to turn downwind. I decided I would carry out a flapless approach and began my base descent and final, the whole time the aircraft is bucking around but hey at least it's exciting! During final I was struggling with the airspeed as it was fluctuating from 50 knts to 100knts rapidly as the aircraft bumped around and I struggled to keep the wings level, I ended up much to high as a result so initiated a go-around. The tower advised me a helicopter was below taking off from the helicopter runway (yes they have runways?!?) following the runway I looked out of my left window down at the chopper grass runway and saw a chopper swinging around madly from side to side, it looked out of control for a moment then regained straight and level flight, phew... it looked very close to becoming a nasty incident. (It was a training flight and the instructor took over).

I went around for another go, this time I decided that my ASI was not much good to me when it is swinging around so I concentrated solely on the position of the nose in the horizon and the feel of the aircraft and kept a good look out. Another flapless approach and this time better, the aircraft was still bucking around, dropping 50ft or so before lifting 50ft and trying to roll one way or the other with the wind. This time my landing was good although I needed alot more power right up to the threshold to keep her where I wanted her.

I did several more of these circuits during which the rain started, flying in the rain was a new experience but not a bad one, Antonio was a little surprised I could handle these conditions which increased my confidence. All in all I made 5 soft good landings in difficult conditions and therefore was very pleased with the lesson, I am glad I decided to fly because now I know how to handle those situations in the future as the weather is not always going to play nice. We noted 220/20 + 5 Landings in my logbook and turned our attention to the solo.

My next lesson is on Friday, Antonio has asked me to prepare to solo on Friday because I am more than ready. Friday will be a short lesson, I will firstly do a couple of circuits with Antonio then a circuit with the chief flying instructor to clear me to solo and then the solo itself. I just hope the wind backs off!

Air Law Exam Passed

2005-07-17T15:39:00.000+01:00

The past few evenings/days have found me revising in preperation for the Air Law exam, I am using the AFE study books by Jeremy Pratt and have found them to be simple to understand and easy to read. I decided this morning I felt confident with my recently aquired knowledge and therefore went to Blackbushe to sit the exam.

The exam paper was challenging and I only managed a score of 85% which was slightly dissappointing, there were two questions I really should have got right and mistakenly didn't. I did however manage to get more than the 75% required and therefore gained a pass result. This now means I can solo tomorrow perhaps, depending on Antonio's confidence I won't kill myself in the process.

With hindsight, I have had alot of lessons recently and this has meant my practical flying knowledge has exceeded my theoretical knowledge. I'm thinking now would be a good time to ease back on the practical side, reducing to one or two lessons a week in order to give me the time to cover the other exam material adequately. I have a week off work booked in August where I plan to fly 2 hours each day, which I will keep as I hope to cover some of the navigation curriculm within that week, but until then I will spend more time concentrating on the theory side.

Lesson 16, Aircraft Carrier Landings

2005-07-14T10:27:00.000+01:00

I was intending to sit the Aviation Law exam this morning but following revision last night I did not feel entirely confident that I had revised enough. I didn't want to take the exam knowing that I had reservations about my understanding of the subject, I want to sit it when I know I fully understand. It would be foolish to needlessly fail an exam.

I went to Blackbushe early anyhow to let them know I wasn't going to take it today which was fine and Antonio asked if I wanted to fly instead, flying sounded good so up we went.

This morning was so hazy due to the overnight dew rising into the atmosphere, although not a cloud was in sight it was barely VMC even though the METAR was giving 9999 vis. My first circuit was routine, approach was good, speed good, landing .. poop, a big steaming pile of poop. Up till now I have never had a truly bad landing, but this beat my previous failures. Basically I was concentrating on lining up exactly with the centre line and touching down on the numbers, I miss-judged my speed and flared much to late. Touched down fairly hard just before the threshold, bounced a bit into the air before touching down a second time. Antonio commented "excellent aircraft carrier landing!". Although I was appalled by my landing, Antonio mentioned he regularly experiences far far worse at the hands of students. In hindsight I am glad I landed badly, it has taught me to not to become over-confident!

We carried on and did a mixture of approaches, with full flap, no flap and glide, along with two Engine Out simulations. My subsequent approaches and landings were thankfully good. Once landed I took the aircraft over to the fuel pumps and after refueling Antonio told me to taxi the aircraft back to the parking area and put her in the second bay, my first solo taxi. All went well although was a little strange being alone. I parked and returned to the office to complete the log book.

I will now sit the Law exam over the weekend, giving me a little more time to prepare and then fly and hopefully solo on Monday morning.

Lesson 15, More Glide Approaches

2005-07-13T10:51:00.000+01:00

I don't have long to write this report so I will keep it shorter than usual. Had an excellent lesson this morning, the sky was cloudless and zero wind although visibility was poor with heavy heat haze.

The aim today was to polish off approaches/glide approaches/precision landings, we soon got in the air and did some circuits although this time as we were alone in the circuit we practiced a much tighter circuit, on downwind keeping the runway under the middle of the left wing. This is good practice for smaller airfields. We started with flapless approaches, this was made slightly more difficult because of having no wind to slow the aircraft down. Initially was not perfect, I was getting the approach correct and the nose on the centre line but flaring too late and missing the numbers. I resolved to touch the numbers from now on! and the next few landings were perfect, right on centre line and right on the numbers. Antonio was very pleased and kept saying "omg, perfect!, do it again!". I then switched to a full flap landing to remind myself of the difference, before carrying out two glide approaches. Antonio told me to pull the power on downwind leg when I thought I could make it to land on the runway, I was just passing the runway threshold and thought hmm perhaps a little early but I will try it here. I did a wide sweeping turn through base and final at constant 70knts descent (from 800AGL) and just made a landing just short of the numbers. It was close but I made it.

These glide approaches are not part of the formal sylabus however it certainly has given me a much greater appreciation for the aircraft and also the perspective on the approach, all in all practicing these has made my approaches much easier to judge.

We again carried out some emergency procedures and all went well before finally returning to land.

Some wierd things happened recently..

Firstly, last night the police arrived in a chopper escorting a piper warrior to land. This turned out to be a student pilot on his first solo cross country (from another flying school) his radio failed so he squawked 7600 and flew straight into Heathrow controlled airspace, incoming and departing flights had to be stopped. He was intercepted and brought back to Blackbushe, I can't help feeling sorry for him and his instructor, who is now in a heap of trouble.

Lastly this morning after returning from the lesson we were in the office completing my log book when another aircraft outside collided with a parked Comanche. The aircraft responsible was being taxied for run-up by it's owner and somehow he managed to hit the front of the Comanche with his starboard wing. Some damage occurred to both planes and the owner of the Commanche soon showed up with his wife planning to fly this morning. As you can imagine, he was not overly happy.

I had another lesson booked in for tomorrow morning, however we decided it would be better for me to spend the time sitting the Air Law exam and then solo probably over the weekend (if a slot opens up) otherwise on Monday.

Lesson 14, Glide Approaches

2005-07-12T11:50:00.000+01:00

This mornings lesson was a repeat of yesterdays lesson trying to improve on flapless approaches and also to try some glide approaches (as part of Engine Failure procedure).

Preflighting was quicker and took around 10 minutes to complete and before long we were in the air. I felt much more focussed today and felt that I could improve, I think feeling positive and confident can make a whole lot of difference to flying ability.

The first few circuits were flapless and each one improved on the last. Antonio noticed I was chasing my airspeed alot by watching the indicator rather than looking outside so he covered the instruments with his map and insisted I judge my approach solely by looking outside. This made alot of difference, I was able to obtain the correct speed and glide to make a decent landing just beyond the numbers. Another good lesson learnt. I did several circuits and landings without any instruments and this helped my technique enormously, it is also very important to learn because if I am flying and I lose my primary instruments due to a pitot problem then I can still achieve a safe landing.

Something new today, midway through downwind leg, antonio cut power and told me to land on the runway. This I have to tell you surprised me, I thought no way am I going to make the runway as I have quite some distance to go to even line up. My instant thought was to turn immediately towards the airfield, however Antonio told me to carry on and fly the base leg and approach normally and maintain 70knts best glide speed. I continued downwind and then turned base a little earlier and the aircraft gradually sank lower and lower, now turned final and all was looking ok.. landed just beyond the numbers. The katana has an awesome glide! The glide began at 800 AGL and gave me good time to still complete the circuit. Antonio mentioned you couldn't do that in a 4 seater or many 2 seaters as they sink much faster but what he was trying to show me was that characteristic of the katana, this baby always wants to fly!.

We also carried out another couple of engine failure simulations which all went fine. So total of eight circuits and eight take-offs/landings without flaps. Todays lesson went very well and I made progress and no mistakes.

Antonio mentioned that I should sit the Air Law exam asap as I am ready to solo and he feels that it would help my confidence to reach that landmark. He is leaving it up to me now to decide when I want to solo. So more studying tonight and hopefully I will try and sit this on either Thursday or Friday. I have another lesson booked in tomorrow where we plan to do more instrument-less circuits and to continue to improve approaches. My landings now are more good than bad, although sometimes I deviate from centreline which I need to work on as I won't always have the luxury of a wide runway. In fact that is one disadvantage of learning at Blackbushe Airport (EGLK), the runway is huge, 4403ft long and 150ft wide. I think in many respects a smaller runway would be beneficial to learn from as it would force me to concentrate more on the centreline and touching down on the numbers.

Another pilot pass

2005-07-12T11:07:00.000+01:00

Clumpinglitter has now passed her final checkride and has gained her PPL. Congratulations! :-)

Lesson 13, Flapless Landings + Engine Out Sim

2005-07-11T14:14:00.000+01:00

I had another early morning lesson before work today, mainly to take advantage of the excellent weather. The purpose of today’s lesson was to try some different landings and engine out after take off procedures. Unfortunately I could not fly for long this morning due to work meeting therefore we only managed a 45 minute lesson with 5 circuits/landings and a couple of EOATO’s.

This lesson I did one landing with full flap and four landings with no flap, the main difference was the airspeeds, on base we use 80 knt descent and then on final a 70 knt approach. I found flapless landings easier than normal flap landings, purely because the plane is more controllable with a higher airspeed. Each landing was a “greaser” which was good and I am starting to get more of a feel for landing, however I found I was eating up long stretches of the runway unnecessarily, this was happening because I am being too gentle with the throttle and need to cut the throttle earlier.

I made a few other mistakes today, my approach judgement still needs work and twice today I forgot to carry out finals checks, another stupid mistake was my hand kept leaving the throttle when taking-off. I need to be more consistent and just not forget simple things like this. I have to admit my mind was not as focussed this morning as it normally is when I fly, partly because I was aware of the time constraints. Still, no excuses I MUST not allow myself to be non-focussed when flying, it is quite literally a matter of life and death.

On the positive side the engine out simulations went like clockwork. Tomorrow’s lesson I believe will be more of the same and I will try to polish my weak points with the circuit/landing. I plan also to spend this evening revising for the air law exam.

Lesson 12, Engine Failure Practice

2005-07-10T11:48:00.000+01:00

The weather this morning was a complete contrast to yesterday, beautiful clear skies and light wind of around 6-8 knts. The purpose of todays lesson was to practice some more circuits and landings and also to try some engine out procedures.

I arrived on time and Antonio was already at the aircraft carrying out the pre-flight A checks. Today I decided to bring along a video camera to record the forward view from just behind the cockpit in the luggage area, I rigged this up so it was holding firm. Antonio asked if I was planning on making a documentary, so I replied "yes, I am doing a documentary on rogue flight instructors", after that he accused me of being a secret member of the CAA.

I completed the pre-flight checks and we were soon in the air. The first circuit was good, nice approach and the landing was my best yet, couldn't even feel it touch the runway! Antonio was impressed and made it clear he now expects me to do that everytime! After climb-out from the touch-and-go he pulled the throttle to idle at around 500 feet and I carried out a little hesitant engine failure procedure, my mistakes were obvious such as raising the nose immediately to slow to 70 knts (best glide speed) rather than allowing the aircraft to slowly achieve 70 knts. I told myself I will do this better next time.

We did some more circuits and touch-and-goes however none of the landings were as good as my first. One more engine failure practice which was much improved. On one of the circuits I turned final and noticed a Cessna still sitting at the runway threshold, I was distracted by this I was half expecting a go around and therefore did not concentrate on my approach. This led to me being far to high on the approach. I quickly lost height by cutting the throttle to idle and by this time the Cessna was taking off, following a steep descent I made a landing but bounced slightly this time. Antonio told me quite rightly that I must concentrate on my approach and not allow events to distract me, also pointing out that a go-around can be decided at a much later stage. On the next circuit I began my flare before touching done and Antonio called "Go around", and I was able to quickly get the aircraft into the right configuration and successfully go around. Lesson learnt.

I have found that carrying out the circuit now has become so much easier, I am always mentally well ahead of the aircraft now and the circuit therefore seems like a much slower process than before. Antonio mentioned I am ready to solo now, which makes me excited and nervous at the same time. On the one hand I know I can do it, I just have yet to prepare my mind for taking that responsibility. He suggested I take the exam on Air Law, Operational Procedures & Communications during the coming week as that is required before I can solo.

After the lesson today I checked my video camera and discovered it had recorded all of about 3 seconds footage! damn. I must have hit the record button twice and therefore end up pausing it. Oh well, will try again to capture some video next lesson.

Lesson 11, Circuits and Landings

2005-07-09T14:49:00.000+01:00

I arrived at 8am this morning but the cloud base was clearly very low with alot of mist over the runway, so I didn't hold out much hope of getting some flying today. I saw Antonio and commented that the weather was looking crap and he replied "no, it's excellent for taxi practice" which made me laugh. The cloud was sitting at 700ft AGL and a dew point of 14/13 so hence alot of mist. I hung around for awhile but it was not improving so we called the lesson off.

However, this afternoon Antonio called me and told me the cloud has lifted enough to do circuits so I jumped in the car and headed back to Blackbushe. I preflighted much quicker this time and before long we were in the air. Todays lesson was to continue practicing circuits and also to focus on landings.

I did 8 circuits and carried out 8 landings, Antonio just sat back with his hands well away from the stick for the most part and mentioned that he was very pleased with the circuits and the landings. The landings were all ok, although one I bounced a small amount, the rest were smooth, on the centre line and good. I had one experience worth mentioning while on approach, I was at 300ft AGL, full flaps, descending at 60knts with an 8knt crosswind and a bump in the air caused the nose to pitch up suddenly and brought on a short wail from the stall horn, a wing dropped immediately and I surprised myself by taking corrective action with the rudder and power, without thinking. This was good, because it shows the training is sinking in and also it reminds me to stay focussed and to expect the unexpected.

Very pleased with todays lesson, landings are getting easier for me to judge now in terms of the flare and the approach. My next lesson is tomorrow morning, just hoping the weather behaves as forecast (the forecasters got it wrong today thats for sure).

Lesson 10, Stalls and Circuits

2005-07-08T18:47:00.000+01:00

I did not have a lesson scheduled for today however Antonio called me and asked if I wanted a lesson late in the day. I naturally could not refuse! :-). The weather today has been much better with the wind dying down and CAVOK conditions, in fact it is forecast to improve over the next few days further.

I arrived at Blackbushe and Antonio had just returned with his previous student. While I was waiting around we met and compared notes as to how we were doing, he has more hours than me currently at 25 hours but has yet to solo, I wished him luck and went out to preflight the Katana carrying out the transit checks.

The lesson plan today was changed because the conditions were good for having a second stalls lesson and we hoped to get in a couple of touch-and-goes at the end. Previously my stalls were ok although I had yet to nail the recovery in a full flap banking configuration, so I hoped I could remember the technique.

I took the aircraft out to the practice area and climbed to 3500ft AMSL and carried out the necessary 'HASSLE' checks, all was good so.. carb heat on, reduce power, full flap and banking at 30 degrees, raising the noise all the time and holding the bank angle with the rudder. Recover, carb heat cold, full power roll out with the rudder and raise nose. Sounds easy right? well it should be, but for some reason although my brain knew what to do, my body was non-compliant. I kept instinctively trying to roll out with the stick, this caused more height loss.

My second attempt was no better, Antonio then demonstrated the recovery and my third again was poor. This went on for a little while, either I was not holding the bank angle of 30 degrees with the rudder, not pulling back far enough or recovering badly. Finally I did one which was a vast improvement. It was frustrating because I KNEW what I was doing wrong on each failure yet repeated the mistake again, therefore I asked that I get another lesson on these to get it right.

We made our way back to Blackbushe avoiding alot of other traffic around and joined the circuit for a touch-and-go. The circuit today was very busy today so this added some pressure to get things right. Luckily my circuit was perfect and the approach was good and amazingly a very soft and straight landing just beyond the numbers. I took off again and went around for another go, again all was fine although had two amusing incidents on downwind, the first was the radio call. Today I was flying a different Katana 'G-BWFV' from my usual 'G-BWLS' and when making the call I kind of went "GOLF LIIFREFOXTROT VIERRA, I mean VICTOR! hahaha.. for landing on downwind", I am not sure what was worse, my radio call or the fact that Antonio was laughing and shaking his head. I received a response from Blackbushe tower of, "GOLF FOXTROT VICTOR, have you been drinking?". Anyway with both of us laughing I started turning base and Antonio said "there is a crosswind so we will do a flaps up landing" to which I replied "ya, ok" and then immediately selected one stage of flap out of habit! Antonio then went into hysterical laughter and pointed out my mistake, we laughed all the way to the landing.

All in all was a very good lesson despite how it sounds, I need to be sure for myself and Antonio that I am comfortable with stall recovery when in that configuration, and despite the frustration it highlighted my need to practice this more. Two more landings and good circuits were however encouraging along with my general flight handling. The funny moments at least leave me with a smile on my face.

Next lesson is tomorrow morning.

Bombs

2005-07-07T10:29:00.000+01:00

Just thought I would mention, London appears to be experiencing a terrorist attack. We are receiving calls from concerned spouses at work, whatever the outcome of today it will not be concessions to any agenda of those responsible.

Strong winds

2005-07-07T10:00:00.000+01:00

This mornings lesson was again cancelled due to strong winds at 17knts gusting to 22knts, the wind is blowing directly accross the runway and therefore beyond the limitations of the Katana. Oh well, can't always get favourable weather. Next lesson is on Saturday.

Cancelled

2005-07-06T17:55:00.000+01:00

I arrived shortly before my lesson was to start today but it did not look to good, the wind accross the runway was persistant and strong, Antonio soon got back from a previous lesson and decided to cancel it. It was just too strong and gusting around 20knts and landing is challenging in these conditions even for an experienced pilot. Instead, I had a briefing on engine failure on or shortly after take-off which was interesting because we ended up discussing how best to actually crash. As in if you know your going to crash into say trees, fences, small mountains and so forth, you can still orchestrate your own crash. We discussed how best to actually impact, i.e: tip the wing into the ground or obstacle which would reduce some of the inertia. Antonio preferred the idea of crashing head long, and personally I favoured the 'rip the wing off first' approach.

Nothing quite like spending an hour discussing your own potential demise! Of course, if I die in a flaming fireball plunging to the earth on my first solo I will be very very angry. The black humour is possibly not to healthy however I am a subscriber to the lifes a laugh and deaths a joke principal.

The reason for all this was I am due to practice engine-out's for my next lesson as well as continuing circuits. My circuit work from now on will be focussed on the actually landing as up until now I have been focussing more on the circuit procedures and approach.

Next lesson is scheduled for tomorrow morning, so hopefully this wind will lessen.

Lesson 9, Circuits

2005-07-05T12:59:00.000+01:00

After what seems a long break from flying I woke up hoping that the weather would be ok. Yesterday was real bad with torrential rain and heavy electrical storms although it was forecast to begin to clear for today. The weather recently has been strange, baking hot then a couple of days later heavy rain, then baking hot again. Anyway, at 6am the skies looked bright with only scattered cloud although a lot of grey on the horizon so I figured I would get down to Blackbushe as it looked ok for flying at least for now.

This morning was slightly different from my previous lessons, this time I was required to carry out the pre-flight checks with Antonio offering explainations for each step against the checklist. It is important that I understand what each step of the check is for and why it needs to be carried out. The past few lessons I have been slowly introduced to some of the checks, but today was all the checks in their entirety, needless-to-say this took a little time although I think after doing this a couple of times the process will speed up. The Katana is actually quicker to preflight than any of the 4 seaters or the Cessna 152 so I am informed.

The lesson today was to continue practicing the circuit, following on from last weeks success, the difference being the weather. There was a reasonably strong crosswind at 10knts gusting to 15knts and the air all the way around the circuit was pretty bumpy. To tell the truth I was kind of glad for the weather, I think learning when it is rough like this is beneficial for the future as I can not always expect smooth air and the wind blowing in the right direction.

My first circuit was pretty poor, I didn't feel 'ahead' of the aircraft and events were moving faster than my brain would respond. The reason the circuit became poor was because on the crosswind leg I allowed the aircraft to climb to almost 1000ft AAL and then had to spend time losing height to stay at the circuit height of 800ft AAL. This was a good lesson to learn, I must try to make sure I stay ahead of the aircraft otherwise playing catch up easily allows mistakes to creep in due to the increased pressure to carry out all the checks, radio etc.

Another very good lesson was learned today, on the third circuit I turned onto crosswind in a 70knt climbing turn at 15 degree of bank after the touch-and-go, a strong gust of wind hit the plane and I was at 45 degrees in an instant! This showed me the importance of keeping the bank angle shallow as had I been turning at say 30 degrees it could very easily of ended up at 60 degrees which at that height and airspeed would be 'a very bad thing'. As it was I was able to correct quickly and continue the climb and roll-out.

The past few days I had practiced the checks for the circuit and this practice paid off, I was able to complete all checks on each circuit without forgetting any. My approaches were on the most part good although I had a couple of occasions when I was either slightly too low or high. I corrected without input from Antonio. Landing was made a little tricky because of the air bumps, but I carried out one landing which was entirely my own, under the conditions this impressed Antonio as the landing was near perfect! (more by luck than design!). My rudder work after touch down and before taking off again was shaky and hesitant and this is something I need to work on.

All in all todays lesson was a success, I learnt some good points and consolidated my understanding of the circuit. I am hoping to fly again tomorrow should the weather hold out.

Money and Homework

2005-07-03T17:52:00.000+01:00

This weekend I decided to buy all the resources I needed for the ground school studies along with paying for 45 more hours of lessons, groundschool, fuel surcharges and landing fees, along with annual membership of the flight school. Expensive outlay but at least I can concentrate on flying rather than the financial aspects afterwards. Hopefully that will cover most of my costs until I achieve the PPL, excluding the actual checkride. For the benefit of others thinking of learning, to date I have spent around £1200.00 prior to this weekend and now have spent £6,500.00 so approximately £7,700.00, in my opinion a small price to pay for the privilege of flight.

Having now been armed with stacks of books, charts, rulers and a flight computer.. oh and some shiny new pens(?!?), I decided that as I wasn't flying this weekend I should make a start at learning the theory. To begin with I have to take and pass a written exam in Air Law & Communications and a Radiography test before I solo, therefore I gingerly began my studies with the appropriately labelled books. I will be taking ground school classes also shortly to reinforce self-study.

The fact is that every pilot has to absorb unholy amounts of information, this to me is somewhat encouraging. If the same principles were applied to the road you would not see so many muppets driving around. In my opinion, before someone is allowed to touch the driving seat of a car they should first have to undergo much stricter and a much deeper level of training than they currently receive.

Anyway, roll on Tuesday and my next flying lesson.

Lesson 8, Circuits

2005-07-01T14:49:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately I was not able to get in flight in between Tuesday and today as all slots were already taken and the weather yesterday was heavy rain and cloud. I went to sleep last night hoping the weather would improve by the morning as forecast and luckily the forecasters were correct, this morning the skies were looking fairly good and no rain.

Once I arrived at Blackbushe the cloud base was scattered at 1500AGL although was expected to rise to 2000AGL within an hour. This ruled out more Stalls practice, although Antonio expressed his satisfaction with my Stalls and felt it would be more productive to move on and concentrate on pattern work. I have been looking forward to learning the circuit in a real aircraft rather than a simulated one in FlightSim 2004, in FS2004 I have spent quite a bit of time practicing the circuit so I was hoping that would have prepared me quite well for starting circuits for my PPL.

After a briefing covering all the checks that need to be made at various points around the circuit we go out to take-off. During taxi, I suddenly notice that I had stopped even thinking about taxing, I was just doing it. Funny that something that was so difficult only a couple of weeks ago is now feeling second nature. My take-off was again improved on my previous lesson this time sticking directly to the centre line of the runway, to be honest, taking off used to make me feel a little nervous, now I find I am gaining confidence and all the nerves are gone.

Once airborne, I climb at 70knts and passing 300ft I start checks, brakes have pressure and parking brake is off, flaps are up, reduce prop speed to green sector, T’s & P’s all look good. I pass 500ft and carry out 15 degree bank to crosswind still climbing at 70knts levelling off at 800ft, the height of the circuit at Blackbushe. I turn to downwind and shortly begin downwind checks, brakes are off, landing gear is down (no undercarriage on katana), mixture is full rich (auto-mixture on katana), fuel pump is on, altimeter is set correctly and altitude is 800ft, I make radio call “GOLF LIMA SIERRA on downwind for touch and go” and receive request to report final, Carb heat check, T’s and P’s. Phew.. a lot to do! I then turn to base reducing throttle and attitude back to 70knts and set one stage of flap to descend gradually. Turning to final I set full flap, 60knts and crab to the runway (because of crosswind). Landing is good so around we go again.

Apologies to anyone reading all that in such fine detail, it helps me to recount the events to fix it in my mind. My first circuit went very well, I forgot to carry out the carb check on downwind and was reminded by Antonio and I was having problems this time around maintaining 70knts on climb, this was largely due to my mind being focussed on checks rather than actually flying the aircraft. We did several more ‘touch and go’s and the last one Antonio told me to do it without any comment from him, it went well although my final approach was bad, I was much to high.

The time went typically fast and it wasn’t long before we landed permanently. I felt elated because it went better than both I and Antonio expected, sure it wasn’t perfect but for first attempt I can not be to self critical. Antonio was very pleased and he said it was exceptionally good for first circuit lesson. I want to get back up there as I write this to continue the circuits. Apparently a few more of these with some practice aborted landings and practice forced landings and then I will be ready to solo, I am certainly in no hurry though!

I think I have four lessons scheduled next week so I hopefully will get increasingly comfortable with circuits.

Incidentally I had a couple of ‘OMG’ moments while flying today, the sudden realisation and awareness that I was flying an aircraft with a degree of confidence. It’s a good feeling. :-)

Lesson 7, Stalls

2005-06-27T11:59:00.000+01:00

I have been looking forward over the weekend to getting back in the air and strangely falling out of it again. This morning we covered stalls.

The weather was another beautiful day, clear blue skies with only some scattered cirus cloud. The lesson was scheduled at 8am therefore the sun had not yet had a chance to heat up the cockpit to an uncomfortable level (one definate drawback to the Katana).

We had a fairly short briefing, discussing stalls in different configurations and the differences in recovery, particular focus was on using the rudder to control the aircraft when stalled. I was happy with all the principals and looking forward to turning the theory into some practice, so we pre-flighted and I taxied to take-off. My take off this morning was much improved, I was slightly to the left of the centre line but at least I was heading straight this time!

After reaching 3,000ft in the practice error we tried a few straight and level stalls.. carb heat on, power to idle, maintain 3,000ft by applying back pressure to keep the nose up, airspeed is failing, nose is rising to maintain altitude, beeeeep the stall warning goes, hold it, hold it, the plane begins losing height and buffet causes some vibration, recover. Carb heat off, full power, neutral stick. After a few goes at this I have the technique down. We then try full power stalls which also goes well.

Next Antonio demonstrates stalling in a 30 degree bank with full flap. This is fun! I attempt this a number of times but I am having difficulty getting my feet to control the rudder. The idea is to maintain 30 degrees of bank, when the aircraft has stalled the ailerons are ineffective therefore we MUST use rudder to maintain the aircraft. I try this a couple of times but each time it is not so good, Antonio therefore suggests he take over the ailerons and I just use the rudder to get a better feel for it, at this point we are flying straight and level he calls a turn at 30 degrees. I practice just controlling and holding the aircraft in the turns just using the rudder. This was an excellent training technique, and helped enormously. My next attempts with the turning stalls were improved. I feel I need a little more practice but Antonio thought I did quite well and am almost perfect on the recoverys.

After what seems like 10 minutes in the air we return (my hour had elapsed). There is a funny situation occuring because this morning there is alot of ATC traffic going on and everytime Antonio goes to talk another pilot speaks first. Eventually we are forced to maintain our position just outside the circuit area until we get permission to change frequency to Blackbushe tower. We get pattern entry instructions, and I fly the approach to within a few feet of the runway before Antonio takes over to put her down.

This mornings lesson was alot of fun, really enjoyed throwing the aircraft around the sky and found stalls entertaining. The weather conditions also helped as the air was smooth, the sun shining and excellent visibility.

Next lesson is scheduled for Friday morning, although I really hope to get another lesson widweek. 4 days between lessons feels like a lifetime! We will be reviewing turning stalls with flap and hopefully if I can get that perfect then we will begin circuit practice.

An excellent blog

2005-06-24T20:29:00.000+01:00

I spent some time this afternoon read Mark's flying blog, he is way ahead of me in terms of lessons which makes it all the more intresting to read. His excellent blog can be found here: Pilots Licence 101..

One thing it brought home to me, there are alot of very good pens recording their unique but similiar experiences of learning to fly, mainly pens far abler than my own, and I really appreciate the effort they have gone to because it makes me feel very much part of a community.

Lesson 6, Sloooow Flight

2005-06-24T19:41:00.000+01:00

The weather these last few days has been incredible, we have been having a heatwave with clear skies so I had my fingers crossed that it would hold till this morning. My past two lessons at the beginning of this week were excellent in these weather conditions so hoped to get another good day. Well I woke up this morning early again and took a look outside, it was still very warm even at 6am with high humidity but the clouds had started to move in, and these clouds had attitude! a bad attitude I should mention, you know when the skies go ominously dark in one direction and suggest that impending doom is coming (or is that just me that tends to think that?).

Anyway I decide to stick the roof down on the car and head to Blackbushe, glancing up at various intervals to see what’s happening over head. When I arrive it is apparent the weather is not playing fair, the winds are gusting strongly in a variable direction straight across the runway. The report is that there are thunderstorms some distance to the West and these are slowly creeping closer, but we have a three hour window so we go.

The lesson for today is more slow flight, focussing on understanding and experiencing how the plane feels flying slowly whilst maintaining altitude. We will try a few different configurations, without flaps, with one stage of flap and with full flaps at different air speeds.

The plane is pre-flighted with me taking more of an active part in this process, although it is far from committed to memory, I plan to read the manual for the Katana to start learning the checklists whilst in between lessons. We fill up with avgas and I taxi out to the runway after the run-up of the engine and prop. Antonio helps line up the Katana ready for take off, I hold the differential brakes and throttle to 2000rpm then release the brakes and start picking up speed.. increasing the throttle to full with a little right rudder to compensate for the prop revolution. Then suddenly I am being pushed to the left by a strong gust of wind, I overcorrect a touch and manage to get a weaving thing going on, I like to think of it as my pre-flight shimmy. Fortunately my mincing down the runway is brought under control by remembering to be light on the rudder and allowing the plane to find her "niche". Once under control we get into the air smoothly and all is right again...

..that is until the turbulence hits.

Actually it's not too bad, but quite bumpy and I find I have to concentrate a bit harder to just keep the wings level and the heading. We ascend to 2000 ASL and start practicing slow flight, first without flaps, holding 2000 ASL at 50knts air speed, this is more difficult than I anticipated! The task is made harder by the sudden drops in height from the turbulence but eventually I start getting into the right configuration. I am treated quite often during this process by the sound of the stall warning horn telling me I am about to die, which I ignore, safe in the knowledge that I will be reborn as a frog in my next life (which as I understand is a far more interesting existence than commonly believed). We go on to try different configurations and once again after some initial difficulties became a little easier. The important thing to learn in this lesson was feeling the aircraft, the controls become very sloppy at these low speeds and the ailerons cease to be so effective, in fact using them to turn tends to create more drag. I learn to just turn at slow speeds with the rudder.

I also get the opportunity to revise again some more steep angles of bank which is always fun, made more so with the air bumpiness. We then head back to Blackbushe, time passes too quick in the air I have decided. Under Antonio's direction I take her round the circuit and line her up with the runway, this will be a flapless landing due to strong crosswind which is just gusting all over the place. Antonio takes the controls a few feet before the runway and brings her down, he flares and she starts to drop.. crabbing down the runway.. but then a gust causes her to lift again and float for awhile before he smacks her down with humorous but unrepeatable comment. This was the first time I have experience anything other than a perfect landing, but it was obvious that the unpredictable wind was the cause rather than any CFI error.

Today’s lesson went fairly well despite the conditions and the mincing session upon take-off, but it has taught me I still have much to learn, Antonio expresses he is pleased with the lesson and informs me that next lesson (Monday) will be stalls. I am looking forward to it as usual.

One other point to mention before I end this innocuous post. So far I have flown two different Katanas, G-BWLS and G-BWEH. I have got it in my head that I prefer G-BWLS for some unknown reason (Antonio insists they fly the same). Therefore she is now my "lucky" plane, and I am aiming to try for most lessons with her, I perhaps should give her a name "BoWeLS" seems the most obvious name and probably describes my flying capabilities quite well, but I have decided to stick with just "Lima Sierra".

Lesson 5, Spiral Ascent/Descent

2005-06-21T14:09:00.000+01:00

I woke up this morning to a clear cloudless sky (CAVOK) and excitedly got myself down to Blackbushe for the morning lesson. After the briefing we headed out and preflighted the Katana. The sun was already warm but due to early hour the aircraft had not yet turned into a pressure cooker thankfully, so we taxied out and I took off, in fact carried out the take off without stall warning sounds blaring and my instructor assuming crash position, so that is progress! Taking off is starting to feel easy!

I executed a climbing turn to the west and headed for the training area, on the way we reviewed all the manoevers learnt up to this point, and again this went good, we where however a little distracted by the weather. My instructor commented that this is the best weather he has seen since coming to England, (being as he is Spanish), and it truly was fantastic. Visibility was unlimited, we could see the southern coast of England and the Isle of Wight from only around 3,000ft so around 50 miles visibility, off to the east we could see the tall landmarks of London. There was also virtually no wind, 2knts variable direction so very smooth for flying, just a few thermals to interrupt the smoothness.

We began to practice various maneouvers, including turns at 45 and 60 degrees of bank which were much fun, the pull of the g-forces was totally tolerable. I found it fairly hard to maintain my altitude whilst turning at 60 degrees but after a time managed to keep the nose up. At 60 degrees the world looms very large in the horizon and although initially a little strange quickly became entertaining. We also carried out some spiral climbs and descents at a constant speed at various degrees of bank, which once I learnt the position of the horizon became a fairly easy to maintain the airspeed.

The next thing to attempt was navigating with the compass, this was harder than expected! I understood the concepts from the briefing, however in practice I just couldn't think quickly enough and often turned the wrong direction to reach a heading. This I will need to practice more.

Finally we returned to land, I flew the circuit and lined up fairly well and Antonio took over to actually land.

This mornings lesson was alot of fun and I did not want it to come to an end, I am very much looking forward to my next lesson on Friday.

Lesson 4, More Slow Flight

2005-06-20T18:55:00.000+01:00

Luckily for me there was a cancellation on Antonio's schedule today so he gave me a call and offered me a lunchtime slot, I naturally accepted and headed down to Blackbushe. Today the weather was fantastic, around 30c with clear blue skies and almost unlimited visibility, the wind was fairly calm although a slight crosswind was in effect accross the runway. I found out that sitting in the katana cockpit with the sun beating down feels like slowly being cooked, due to the wide canopy, so we taxied as quickly as possible to get to the runway and I attempted the take-off. Once in the air, the cockpit became alot cooler and it was once again a good place to be.

The take-off was an improvement from my last attempt but still was far from perfect, I need much more take-off practice! Once airborne I climbed through the beautiful skies and soon began the point of todays lesson, more slow flight with flaps and a stall. Today I felt much more confident than my previous lesson and everything seemed to fall into place, I was able to remember the correct sequence of events, such as carb heat to on, reduce power, raise the nose to slow the plane to 70knts, apply 1 stage of flap, maintain 70knts descent, apply 2nd stage of flap, maintain 60knts descent. I made a couple of small errors, mainly with trying to maintain the airspeed and managing to lose the heading by not paying enough attention. We practiced a few go-arounds and some standard ascending, descending which all went very well, on the return to Blackbushe I asked if Antonio would demonstrate a stall, so he did. The stall was, like everyone else mentions, nothing to worry about.

Today I felt as though I had made progress, and Antonio was very pleased with todays lesson. Next lesson is tomorrow morning, we are due to practice steep turns and more slow flight maintaining altitude.

Bad weather

2005-06-16T08:33:00.000+01:00

I looked out the window this morning and the skies where slightly patchy with cloud but predominantly blue, so I figured this mornings flight should be go. An hour later I am waiting for my instructor to arrive and watching as the clouds rolled in. The ceiling soon dropped to 1000ft and the windspeed increased. Antonio arrived on time for the lesson, and after checking weather reports decided we won't be flying this morning. He apologised however it was not his fault, got to love English summer weather! The weather is set to get worse today but should return to blue skies tomorrow, I am hoping to get another chance to fly in the next few days if a slot opens up otherwise my next lesson is on Tuesday.

Lesson Number 3, Slow Flight

2005-06-14T11:24:00.000+01:00

The weather today was quite calm winds (10knts) with scattered cloud between 3,000 and 5,000 feet, again I arrived way too early and my dad came along to watch out of interest.

Todays lesson was practicing slow flight and climbing and descending with flaps. The briefing went well and I understood the concepts of what we going to be doing once in the air. This time it was entirely up to me to carry out the take off, this made me a little apprehensive because I am not yet confident with the rudder. The resultant take-off was pretty bad, I ended up overcorrecting on the rudder continually so we weaved down the runway from side to side, I put it down to the fact that my dad was watching. I also was not keeping an eye on the airspeed because I was correcting so much. I notice that we are now at 65knts (10knts over our rotate speed) so pull back a little further than I intended to be treated to the stall warning sound. I correct and we return to a Vy climb speed of 70knts. Phew! Ok lessons learnt here:

Use gentle rudder pressure and give the aircraft time to adjust to the rudder, rather than expecting instant results.

Watch airspeed.

Gentle stick movements, especially at low speed/altitude.

I noticed that the wind was a little stronger than I was used to and climbing through 1000 to 2000 the air was pretty rough, with gusts buffeting the plane. I had to keep a fair amount of right rudder to stay on course to the practice area.

We used the greenham common airstrip as a visual reference and practiced the lesson. The first circuit I did well, although when it came time to do a go-around it was a little shaky. By the way we were practicing at 3000 feet and pretending that 2000 was ground level, giving plenty of room for error (luckily!). Today I had alot more difficulty in coordinating my brain with my muscles and on each trip round I kept fighting the airspeed and the sequence (carb heat, power, attitude, trim), occasionally leaving carb heat on when trying to go around (aborted landing). Antonio kept telling me to apply the sequence but when it came to do it I was messing up.

After several goes around we returned back to blackbushe and Antonio carried out the landing after I lined up. This was a little different to the previous landings I have experienced, there was by this time a fairly strong and steady crosswind of around 15knts. Antonio expertly brought the katana down, flying into the wind. I taxied and this time found it a little easier, at least I seem to be getting better at that.

Todays lesson was for me a little dissappointing, although Antonio advised me that for my third lesson I was doing exceptionally well (I wonder if he means it!). I just was a little frustrated as I knew what I was doing wrong but couldn't seem to actually do it right the next attempt. Oh well all part of the learning process! I am hoping I can improve on Thursday for my next lesson and am looking forward to trying all this again.

Lesson Number 2, Climbing and Descent

2005-06-14T11:03:00.000+01:00

Little slow in filling out this report so two posts today covering my last two lessons.

Lesson two went ahead as scheduled, albeit my arrival an hour before my instructor, which gave me time to think about the subject of my lesson, climbing and descending. Eventually we got going, After a briefing on the flying mechanics of ascent and descent we visited the katana and Antonio ran through the pre-flight sequence and determined we needed some more avgas so we topped up and then taxied to the runway. I am still finding it very hard to taxi, more practice is needed!

I carry out the rotation at 50knts with Antonio managing the rudder and she climbs into the air with a little back pressure on the stick. We fly out to the training area (above the old Greenham common airbase (now dis-used) and practice climbing and descending to specified altitudes at the correct airspeed (Vy) for the katana of 70knts. I find this not too challenging and am quickly able to remember to apply carb heat when starting the descent and reducing carb heat to cold when recovering, although too often when descending in particular I get too fixated on the intruments and not the visual horizon, this is a bad habit to get into so I will make more concious effort to judge the airspeed from the visual horizon.

We return to Blackbushe (EGLK) and are instructed to join the circuit on downwind and informed we have a cessna in front of us, I can see the Cessna 152 to the right flying some distance ahead so Antonio asks me to turn right to the correct heading to join the downwind leg. As I am about to turn I notice straight ahead something not much bigger than a razorblade coming rapidly towards us at the same altitude just to the right of our position, so I don't turn and point the traffic out to Antonio. The other aircraft (a Mooney) turns inside us and jumps in front of the downwind leg, apparently the flyer is a private owner who always tends to do what the hell he pleases. We join downwind behind the Mooney and I find this is good practice at straight and level flight, maintaining our 800ft altitude. I set us up for the final approach with Antonios instructions and then he takes over and guides us to a very soft straight landing.

All in all, fun, I didn't feel particularly stretched today but I am sure it won't always be as easy!

Weather and cost

2005-06-04T09:42:00.000+01:00

Damn, the weather is nice outside.. sunny with scattered cloud.. I want to be flying! I am hoping that I get a call from my CFI to say a slot has opened up in his schedule for this weekend. One concern I have about my chosen flying school is that they appear to have more students than the instructors can handle, which may not give me the 3 or 4 lessons a week I want. I guess if I am going to change flying schools I had better do it soon!

Another moan point, why is it so expensive to learn in the UK compared with the USA? It costs almost three times the amount! I can expect to spend around £8,500.00 pounds or approximately $15,000.00 dollars learning. If I had the time, I would consider taking an extended holiday to the USA to learn, but the time is something I can afford less than the actual money :-(.

Anyway, if anyone is reading, have a good weekend!

No go

2005-06-03T09:02:00.000+01:00

I have just returned from Blackbushe, sadly this mornings lesson was cancelled because the instructor was unable to make the lesson on time (due to traffic), also the weather is not very good with a low ceiling of 1200 feet. Oh well.. these things happen! I have asked to be informed if another slot opens up in the next few days. There is a small possibility I may be able to fly this afternoon.. will have to wait and see, otherwise the next lesson is on Tuesday 7th June.

Some reading

2005-06-01T13:18:00.000+01:00

Whenever I get some spare time I find myself either looking at aviation websites or readings other Student Pilots accounts of their progress. Therefore I thought I would mention a few of these here and to say I am very appreciative of their efforts articulating their experiences.

Happy reading!

Wow! Introductory lesson number 1.

2005-05-27T11:50:00.000+01:00

Well I have flown! yes actually flown myself with the aid of an aircraft (aircraft I understand help the flying bit enormously).

Ok rewind time a little to yesterday, 26th May..

It is morning and I am sitting at my desk trying to focus my mind on my job, "must write these methods..", "concentrate.. stop staring blankly at the screen" are instructions I shout at myself. Unfortunately it appears I wasn't listening, because my mind was elsewhere, in fact at about three thousand feet banking to the left. After a time I thought, hmm the weather outside is pretty ok, a bit overcast but warm and the occassional appearance of the sun, I wonder if there would be any flying today at Blackbushe.. I could go along during my lunch break and watch some take offs and landings, so I phone Cabair to ask if anything is going on today and told the man my intentions and that I had a lesson coming up. He said sure, although if I wanted to fly today myself I could. STOP.. today!.. did I hear him right? hmm could I? Oh yes! So I replied in a fairly cool and calm way "Yes that would be good" and he offered me a flight with an instructor in a two seater Diamond DA20 Katana at 4pm.

At 4PM I was inside the flight school offices eagerly awaiting my instructors arrival back from his previous lesson. At this point a few concerns entered my mind, "what if I don't enjoy this?", "what have I let myself in for?" and "am I going to die today?". I guess these thoughts are only natural, as up until this point in my life I have only flown commercially on airliners since I was about 15 at air cadets (and that limited experience has faded into the mists of time). At the same time as thinking these doubts, I was more desperate than ever to do this and couldn't wait to get into the air.

After a short wait I was introduced to my new instructor to be, Antonio he is a young Spaniard who looks every bit the pilot, he is softly spoken with a mild accent and instantly I felt that this was a guy I trusted.

We didn't hang around, we went out to meet the aircraft, I had already a good idea of the aircraft and the functions of the controls, from my reading, air cadets and flight sim experiences. Therefore, satisfied that I knew what the flaps, elevators and rudder were we entered the aircraft. For those that might not know, the Diamond DA-20 Katana is sleek looking with an excellent reputation as a training aircraft, it is very small and the cockpit seats the pilot and the co-pilot litterally shoulder to shoulder at a slightly reclined angle. The visibility is superb, being surrounded by a clear dome of plexiglass.

Antonio soon did the appropriate checks and we taxied to the runway after gaining permission from the control tower. This was it!

Take off was smooth and with Antonio at the controls it felt easy, very shortly afterwards he handed me the controls and requested I maintain our climb, explaining all the while how to hold the craft level. This felt truly amazing, the controls felt response and very sensitive, the slightest pressure was needed to keep the plane level. We soon levelled off, sitting at 2000 feet below the puffy white clouds at cruising speed, I had to resist the urge to shout "bandits at 9 O'Clock!". The first things I noticed about flying in a small light aircraft was you feel it a whole lot more than sitting comfortable in a 737, the undulations of the aircraft, the wind and the feeling of actually being one with the sky. The visibility is superb, all around you can see for miles, with the sun breaking through the clouds and striking the Earth in patches.. simply awesome. I knew in that instant I had made the right choice, this felt so good.

Antonio asked me to try a few banks to the left and the right, this is where my recent practice with flight sim came in usefull, it felt very much the same, in fact easier in reality than in the simulation. We flew for the next 40 minutes or so, practicing climbing, descending, banking along with demonstrating how the plane reacts to flaps and rudder. We also practiced straight and level flight, something I find particularly hard in flight sim is maintaining an altitude, in reality it was easier because of the view around the plane, it gives a much better perspective allowing you to line up and hold easily.

After what felt like five minutes (which was in fact the previously mentioned 40 minutes) we made our way into the circuit for Blackbushe and came in to land. At this point Antonio took the controls during the approach leg and brought the aircraft to a perfect soft landing. I had a go at taxing briefly, but discovered that was much harder than I expected and therefore left it to learn another day.

Once down I realised, wow.. I flew virtually the whole time, Antonio helped with the throttle and the prop rpm but I controlled it. It felt great!

After promptly booking my next lessons towards my Private Pilots License, we logged 1 hour duel flight in my newly aquired temporary log book.

I am still riding cloud nine as I write this, I can't wait until the 3rd June for my next lesson!

Typical First Post

2005-05-25T12:30:00.000+01:00

Hello and welcome... hmm too formal.. howabout Hi!.. nope too eager.. ok.. Greetings fellow travellers of life and random blogs.

Before I continue I should introduce myself, my name is Chris Norris, I am 31 years old and live in sunny Farnborough UK (for those that don't know where that is, it's just outside the area known as London city on a small island that has a queen and castles and football and some other things). I work as a software engineer for a small company, a job which I enjoy very much, although I don't get to actually code much these days regrettably. I am fairly recently married to a wonderful and beautiful harlot! manifestation of revenge sent to punish me! girl called Tristine, we have now been married one year (since May 2004).

Now you have a rough idea of who I am, I will go on to explain my intentions for this small piece of cyberspace. I created this blog for a number of reasons, firstly I wanted to document my progress and experiences as a student pilot which I very soon aim to become, both for my own personal reference, my friends (I have some.. honest!) and also any other pilots/would be pilots who my be interested in my account of training.

Flying for me has been a dream since my early formative years, it began with the aquisition of a book called "Wing Leader" by Johnny Johnson, which told the story of his time spent during World War Two. It is an exciting account of flying the Spitfire and his rise from training to Wing Leader and eventually Group Captain. This book inspired me to want to learn how to fly, that inspiration has stayed with me, although perhaps I have been a little slow to act on it. At the age of around 15 I joined the ATC or Air Training Core and whilst not actually learning to fly I learnt a little about aircraft, navigation, map readings etc. Unfortunately I wasn't there long enough to take many flights, (only two as I recall).

Now I find myself at the age of 31, a strange age to be at really.. I have been lucky in my life to have achieved most of the things I have set out to do up to this point, mostly through a combination of good fortune and bloody mindedness, but learning to fly is one itch long overdue for some serious scratch time. So I am going to raid the piggy bank to foot the bill for this pursuit, with my wifes full support and embark on flying lessons.

Luckily for me, I live close to several airports, Farnborough and Blackbushe are the closest and Blackbushe has two training schools. I therefore inquired to Blackbushe Cabair and promptly was able to book my first introductory lesson for June 5th! I am like a child waiting for Christmas!

It is also worth mentioning, that I invested in MS FlightSim 2004 to help on this course, if nothing more than to help learn the instruments and behaviour of the aircraft during flight. As a flight simulator it feels very real, how real I have yet to find out!