Lesson: 27
13/II/2011
- Lesson time: dual - 1.5h,solo - big fat not.
- Total time: 22.8h (0.7h solo)
- Location: EGAD
- Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)
- Instructor: Gary and David H
What a day.
I should probably rename this blog by now to 'Gregg is trying to kill himself and make it look like an accident'. But seriously, it seems that the whole training does have a certain flow pattern to it, like this: "struggle, happy, crap, almost killed myself, I'm the master of the skies, you're an utter shit". And repeat that over and over again.
Jokes aside, my only hope for Today was to actually get some time up in the air. Previous few lessons were canceled due to the weather so I was counting on this one.
I was booked for 11, but they phoned me to change it to 9:30 for some reason. Fair enough I thought, not much of a difference. Except that I had to get up very earlier.
Got to the club few minutes past nine and already one bad news. Some guy is going to fly the C152 for 30 minutes, and got there before me. We all knew how that's going to end...
Whilst waiting it turned out there's another slot free at 13:30, so I booked myself in on that one too. 50 minutes later I was in the air....
Lets say, that I had a certain hope that I will do some solo circuits Today. I did three circuits with Gary, I don't think he liked what he saw. So needless to say, no solo for me. And because I was booked at 13:30 he decided that 3 is enough, and I will get some chance later anyway. "David will sign you off for some solo later on, oh, and relax, don't be so tensed up". The last comment was very important. Fair enough, it sounded like I will do some solo circuits Today indeed. Good stuff. Meanwhile because of the guy who got in front of me Gary was having a bit of a backlog, so he decided that since I have another booking and 30 minutes is enough to get me warmed up.
Left my stuff in the car and decided to have a lunch at the airport's cafe. Rumour has it that the food is excellent there, so it was time for me to verify it first hand. Settled for the Irish Stew, I started to read previous month's (February) Flyer magazine. Needless to say, the food was superb, and at the end I paid for the stew + small bottle of coke £4.75. Bargain if you ask me. Apparently tho the owner is struggling a bit and is lacking customers. It would be a terrible shame if he was to leave for some place else. Gotta make sure that I buy some stuff there once in a while.
Half past one and David H gave me the key. I did a preflight, and waited for him whilst he was having some lunch. Clearly my aim was at this stage to impress him, so he will let me do some solo flying. Simple, aye ?
Well, he just said - treat me like a dumb ballast. You're in control, lets do some flying. Fair enough - I thought. First circuit wasn't too bad. Landing was terrible, but I landed on the first 3rd of the runway so by the student standards it wasn't so terrible (apparently). Second one, he asked me if I can make it a glide approach/landing. So half way through the down-wind I asked if I should pull the power now, and turn now. "you're in control, make the decision yourself". I put down the first stage of flaps whilst turning and almost immediately started to drop like a stone because of that. "Use flaps only when you are sure you will make it, aim for the end of the runway and use flaps to land short of that aiming point". So, second circuit was shambles. Had to go-around.
Third one was suppose to be a retry, but there was someone already on the base leg, so I had to make it a normal one. And here's where all the hell started to break loose. For some unexplainable reason I failed to retract flaps. So power-in and the aircraft bounced. I started to sweat like a pig, David was trying to talk some sense into me but I was clearly very shocked by the experience.
Fourth circuit, I did the same thing. But the landing was good. I touched down slightly before the threshold and asked on the climb-out "I suppose there's no extra points for touching down few feet before the numbers". In return I was told a story of a guy who ended up dead because he landed short on a field and wheels ended up in a ditch that separated fields. 10ft more - he said, and the guy would have made it.
Fifth circuit - I did same thing with flaps (face-palm) . On the take-off I planned to ask David for quick clarification as to what should I do in what order, because it was clear to me that I got something mixed up here. But as I was thinking that, he said "Three strikes, you're out. We're going to fly over the peninsula and I'll show you what would have happened if you have failed to spot it and pitched the nose up". We got up to 3400ft, and David commenced the demonstration. Did a funny impression of me (not funny once you see it someone else doing it). Approach speed set, 30 deg flaps. Full power and pitched up. I saw that coming, so I quickly read the 'spin recovery instructions" over the yoke and made sure my 'gay shades' are going to stay on.
Now, apparently spin recovery is not in the syllabus of PPL so I never had the pleasure. But what happened caused me to grin even more then my second solo. Green field under us, with some tree and a house was just getting bigger and bigger and started to circle around. I thought to myself "there's no way on earth that I would recover from that", when Belfast Approach asked us to change our squawking code :D And then massive G and we were straight and level again. "We lost 700 ft, look. If you did it over the runway, you wouldn't have had 700ft. 50ft if you were lucky maybe. Some years ago someone did that and they ended up wrecking perfectly fine aircraft. They were lucky enough to walk away from this but most aren't so lucky".
Needless to say my sad old man's cocky nature got slammed quite harshly right in my face. And thank (insert your favour story's character here) for that. Just when I thought I am doing well and I thought I only need to do some circuit consolidation. After Today's lesson I highly doubt I will ever repeat the same mistake, even if confused and under stress. I was trying to to impress the instructor enough to be sent solo, and I should have had made it perfect flying experience. Mind you I did already fly solo few circuits in my life. Some even with touch and go's and never ever did the same thing. That should tell you's something.
Our return journey was rather uneventful. Except for some guy in a microlight who was in front of us "Such and such, overhead mount steward at 1800 ft, switching over to the newtownards radio at 128.30". I looked down over at the mount Steward, there was nothing there. And few seconds later I saw an aircraft slightly higher then we were to our right. We were at 2000 ft... I asked David if I should turn right and overtake him, because we were pretty much on constant bearing and we know how that ends. In the end I ended up doing rather large circle to the south west to over take him (we were faster in the C152 anyway then the microlight) and did overhead join (second in my life), rather poorly (I should have done a large D, and the curvy part was a very flat one in my case). But I got us down in one piece. By the time I got back to the club with my wallet rest of the crew already knew what I have done so I guess I will not fly solo for another lesson or two. Well, If that means I am going to be a safer pilot - money well spent.
And here's the GPS track from that lesson (for some reason the bloody Garmin e-trex device decided not to save the altitude information):
- Route: T/O RWY22 circuits, spiral dive around the Peninsula
- Milestones: I'm a big fat pillock is what I am, and I got it proven.
- Exercises covered: circuits, how to detect idiots.
- Weather: not much wind, low clouds in the morning
