Lesson: 43

01/06/2013

• Lessons time: dual - 0.9h, solo - none


• Total time: 41.4h (2.6h solo)


• Location: EGAD


• Aircraft: G-UFCM (Tecnam 2002JF)

One of instructors suggested earlier that I shouldn't really worry about doing the solo circuits to get full 3h solo, but rather plough ahead and move on to cross country navs. The idea of 3h solo is to get students to learn how to land the thing properly. Suffice to say, I did it a lot already (at least in comparison to an average student :P). 

So I haven't planned any navs from start to finish by myself in ages (the fly out planning was done with help of other students and the instructor). Took few hours to read the chapters on planning again, and reminded myself how to use the 'flight computer'. Confident that I did it right this time - it was time to go to the club and face the music. 

That day was a bit gusty, with winds changing directions few time - as reported to me by a fellow student. Oddly enough, earlier that day - he was flying the opposite direction on the runway. That's how crazy winds were. 

Well, instructor came back from the previous flight - I have flown with this particular person before, but it was quite some time ago. I like this particular instructor - so it was good to be able to fly with him. 

He scanned quickly through my plan - saying, "Well, we'll see if it works". He also had an aviation GPS with him - to verify my route - in case I got lost. Although, I'm sure he did this particular nav many times.

We packed ourselves in, and away we went. Since I was bit overwhelmed with things - I asked instructor handle the radio. Especially since I usually feel bit more under pressure to do things quickly when there's instructor on board. 

Overhead Comber, instructor made call to the Belfast City approach, and I tried to decide which way to turn to the heading. I put my kneepad on the left leg - and that was a big mistake. Also, the plog I had was way too fiddly and complicated. But hey - that's the way you learn. 

But that’s enough of ranting; time to get on with flying. 

First leg made me nervous (what if this doesn't work, etc.). I wasn't sure on which side of the Strangford Lough I should expect my checkpoint to pop up. Instructor took away my chart - asking me to simply fly the heading for the expected time. 

From the memory, the coastline looked much smoother on the chart then in reality - but it was really nice to see different sort of views from the airport area. So we ploughed on, getting a bit lower due to the cloud overhead. And as expected after few minutes, there it was - Bishops Court Track. An old airfield turned into racing circuit. It is really astonishing how much of the old outlines of buildings and runways you can still pick up from the above. 

Previous instructor was asking me to fly through the checkpoint, and loop around and then turn again towards my new heading. This time I was asked to just turn on the heading without any extra complication. This next one is the longest of the legs and also one where we need to request zone transit. Hillsborough is in the approach zone of the Belfast City airport. Again, I set the heading, calculated the times - and off we went. 

Because that leg is long, and because there aren't' that many obvious features to check on (especially if your instructor took your chart :P) - I was trying to make sense of what I see. But again, idea is to fly the heading for the calculated time. Surprisingly - we actually ended up eventually overhead Hillsborough without any major corrections. 

Overhead Hillsborough we were asked to report Finnaghy (to let controller know, that we will be leaving the zone soon), so off we went. This leg was easy - as you can see the Scrabo Tower on the hill, and there are no similar hills in the area - can't mistake this one for something else. 

Once overhead Comber, we switched over to Ards frequency and I setup aircraft for landing.

Trying to do things in my own way and at my own pace, instructor just said 'this will be interesting'.

Apparently I did a pretty nice job and landing was probably best one ever. Smooth as a feather!

This particular instructor prefers to apply flaps in 3 stages. 'T/O', 'landing drag', 'Full'. I usually would set the 'T/O' stage first, let it slow down, and then apply full one on finals. 

So taking that into account, and the fact that we didn't loose speed when the instructor was expecting to - his reaction was 'this will be interesting'. I'm always happy when instructors are letting me to do things my own way anyway. I love that. Of course, I learned that there's better way - it is of course different when you fly a nav, to just circuit flying. In circuits you are doing it over and over again. But here you have to switch to the 'approach/landing' frame of mind, after a long nav. 

On the ground, I was told to plan it for tomorrow - I'm to fly it solo. I seriously thought the guy was kidding, but.. Well. That's another lesson ;)

• Route: EGAD->Comber->Bishops court->Hillsborough->Comber->EGAD


• Milestones: Cross Country Nav in Tecnam


• Exercises covered: Ex.18A

• Weather: Bit gusty, showers in vicinity, few storm clouds at about 2100 ft,  great visibility