First Nav in 172

Quite an odd day weather wise. Showers in vicinity, gusty strong wind changing direction every minute (at least on the ground).

I was also late, slept in. Blamed in my birthday, truth is - haven't had a party or nothing - just stayed up late night before. Folks at the club were suppose to go on a flyout, and I thought - chances are - there won't be any aircraft to fly in anyway, so I won't have to get up.

I was wrong.

Luckily the instructor was nice enough to accommodate me. We spent quite a bit of time talking about what to do - but in the end we settled on a nav. At some stage, radio navigation was also mentioned, and I stupidly said something like "I'ver heard its easy". But in the end we didn't do any of that. I guess the instructor thought I was busy enough as it is, without a position fix being thrown at me.

Comber->Rathfriland->Clough->Comber.

Did my preflight prematurely, before lunch. For some reason I thought instructor said 12:30 not 13:30, doh !

After lunch it rained briefly so we stayed in, and chatted about options even more. But we settled back on a nav that I already planned.

So off we went, take off from 22 - the climbout was interesting - I managed to stay next to the runway's centreline on climb out (could see the runway on the left) - but it was quite a workout. Once over 1000ft, and fair distance away from the Scrabo Hill - the air was far more stable. Still, bumpy as hell. And wind was very strong indeed.

Switched over to Belfast Approach, and gave them the usual call.

Time, turn, and all that done. It was nice to be able to use a DI Bug on 172. Tecnam's one doesn't have it. Bummer - it makes things easier.

First freeda was ok. But looking around on the map and outside - I noticed my altitude keeping wasn't great. Blame it on the weather, but also plenty of bad habits on my side. I really need to concentrate on this bit more.

Once we were away from the D Class Belfast City airspace stub (we were flying undeneeth, below 1500ft) - I climbed up to 2000ft. But that didn't last long, I think I was up and down between 1700 and 2100. Obvious fail on a test, but this was me looking out the window. Had to be prompted few times to keep my heading too. Funny thing, this was all because I looked outside a lot. And on the chart few times. ! doh !

I managed to find Rathfriland fine, altho it didn't pop up Today as much as it did previous times. Perhaps it was to do with me being up at 2000ft not usual 1500. Dunno. Maybe the murky day did that. Need to fly at 2000ft or higher bit more, and get used to the different picture. So far the impression is - everything is so effin green ! Dunno what the environmentalists are all about - they need to get up some more !

Turned towards Clough - and made a position call, even tho controller didn't ask. The instructor then told me, he will throw a diversion at me. Closer to the Clough I was told to divert us to Ballywalter, I asked where is it - and drew a line to it. Instructor helped me with some mental calculations, giving me some options - and it was obvious to me that not having wind arrow on the chart was a mistake.

I was also shown how to keep the aircraft straight using just rudder pedals. For some reason this felt much safer in C172 then it did in Tecnam.

Once over Clough (which is easily identifiable from the air - because there's some weird steel shiny statue in the middle of it's main round about) - I turned towards Ballwalter - and in a minute or so it was obvious my wind calculations were rubbish. So correction 10 deg to left, and off we went.

Funny thing is, I checked 214 before leaving - 260/25, local Metars were saying 260/15, and so was SkyDemon. However the wind turned out to be even stronger then 214 have said. I was under impression that 214 is suppose to be the worse source of wind information, but in the ballpark. Oh well..

Ballywalters appeared very nicely in front of us, so I was given a quick debrief about number of screw ups on the way - such as maintaining altitude and what I did wrong with the diversion. I need to practice doing that mental calculation on the ground first - even more then I did in the past, and perhaps using one of these diversion spreadsheets I was given by one of my instructors.

Switched back to Newtownards, and was told to join overhead for 22.

The OHJ was ok, for once - but it started to be very busy on finals. Thermals over Ards and the Scrabo Hill make it interesting. At some stage instructor just said 'Let me know if its too much and you want me to take over'. I was obviously struggling with the approach.

But I decided to carry on - I knew instructor would take over if I did something stupid. Keeping the speed was very hard, gust and cross wind. I ended up bit lowish, with still a trickle of power when I attempted to flare. Took the power off, but we ballooned a bit, and landed on the left wheel first. Cross wind landing with a balloon - not recommended, but that's what happens when you got too much energy on flare. It was then that I realised that I actually preferred the stick over yoke. Just a thought.

There was another aircraft on finals behind us, so I exited nicely via triangle, and once he landed, checked the finals for anything - and assuring there's nobody there - taxied back to the apron.

The instructor asked me actually during landing, if I wanted to do few more circuits - but I had enough. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to do some challenging circuits and landings, and wasn't even close to exhaustion that I encountered at the end of few flights in the past - but I wanted to stay out of that if possible. He also asked me if I'd be happy to do some solo Today, of course with a tad of sarcasm.

Well, to be fair - if I had to land in conditions like these - I probably would, but the safety margin was very low there. It's one thing to do it by myself, but with instructor sitting by with his hands folded, and another thing to be by myself without any backup to fall onto if something goes wrong.

At least as far as I can remember, I've never done a nav in 172. Done one in 152 once before, and then it was Tecnam.

So this was one of these firsts, where workload is huge - because of new things. Good. Keeps me on my toes !.

Also the landing conditions were interesting.
Good experience overall, and glad I did it.

I keep on booking for dual long cross country every weekend, but the weather doesn't want to play ball.
Booked it for next week again, but they moved the fly out.

So I won't do it either way it seems. If the weather is crap, or if it's good. Oh well, there's always time in December…