So the instructor at EFG is rather happy to send me solo as much as can, and as much as it makes sense. He was keen on letting me do circuits on the other day - when weather enroute wasn't so great to do a nav, but with the circuits cost at Biggin - I had to say no. Nearly £100 just for landing fee and touch and goes is rather steep for few circuits - £21 landing, £8 per t&g.
It's been few days since my last lesson - dual to Lydd, so I was rather looking forward to a solo nav, that would get me nearly as far as Lydd and back. The route is Sevenoaks->Bewl Water->Fairlight Cove (east of Hastings)->Ashford->Maidstone->Sevenoaks.
Since I got in rather late, due to horrible traffic queues on the way - I got quickly into the planning.
Instructor went through the 'before solo' checklist, went through my planning and praised me for rather neat lines on the chart. That's thanks to my new pen - much thinner then the previous one. We went through all the possibilities in case weather goes bad, or donkey quits, etc. The usual brief before flight.
Off I went to the aircraft, that odd feeling when you get to do all of it yourself - like an adult. Yay.
The airfield was rather quiet, some jet doing engine testing in the middle of one of the taxyways - so I was asked to do my power checks at A1 stop (last stop before runway). Off I went again, to Seven oaks. Very nice and clear day so far. This time I decided to plan from the intersection at Sevenoaks, not the town itself. Switched over to helpful as always Farnborough East. Nice female voice greeted me, and since the frequency was rather quiet - I requested Traffic service. Which they were nice enough to give to me. Despite the lack of traffic on frequency controller insisted for some reason to repeat full call sign prefixed by 'student' all the times.
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| Approaching Bewl Water |
As I approached Bewl Water - I would get the only traffic information on the whole nav. Some guy was doing some manoeuvring 7 miles to the right of my track.
After that my service was reduced down to Basic, since that's where the radar coverage ends. I was happily tracking down to the coast. Hastings on my right. I did some nice tight turns over Fairlight and set onto the course to Ashford. It was funny to approach the edge of land and stare into the blue sky and water ahead. Part of me did wonder - what lies ahead. One of these days I'll just carry on :-) Of course once I get licence and prepare for crossing.
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| My turning point on the coast |
This was rather interesting leg, I got blown off the track a bit. And again, the fact that there's very little in a way of standing out features here - it wasn't easy to find myself. But I knew I was going in the correct direction roughly - so trust the planning - was my motto. There's a nice canal that stands out and Ashford was visible clearly from the distance with the white roofs over terminal there. So I corrected my heading nicely by 10 deg to the left - and that turned out to be spot on.
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| Rye and wind turbines in the distance. Visible for miles. |
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| Sun and taste of what's to come when I'll route west |
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| Approaching Ashford, with the white building visible for miles |
Over Ashford it was time to turn towards Maidstone. At this point sun was already lower on the horizon and straight on. So this part of nav was rather shabby - but I kept the heading again and made sure that the motorway is on my right. I could have done better probably - but it's hard to do it when you can't see as much ahead as you would love to.
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| South of motorway - right sort of towns to my Left - check. |
I did check my heading using Biggin VOR (identified) and the distance made sense as well - so I wasn't much worried. But I have to say, there was part of me doubting my position more then on the other legs. Lesson learned - if possible, don't route direct towards sun (west) in the evenings. It's rather harder to do in practice in this part of the world - due to the relatively small gaps that I can use for navigation. Plenty of small and larger airfields below (Headcorn, Rochester) - LTMA above at 2500ft, will need to discuss options there with my instructor. Also, note to self - set the Skills test time for mid-day-ish. To avoid any of these corner cases where my performance might not be at its peak.
Anyway - Maidstone identified, at this stage few people started talking on the radio - this time controller has changed to a guy. It wasn't the usual guy with Scottish/Irish accent, some new fella. He did not upgrade my service to Traffic - and I didn't thought of asking. Perhaps I should have. I was rather hoping it will be upgraded again automagically once I'm back in the range of the radar. I was also surprised that the controller didn't hand me over to any other station earlier on - like London Area, or Manston, etc. Lydd was of course closed by the time I routed west of it - so no point even talking to them.
After Maidstone there's a nice junction to the north visible clearly and I started seeing clearly Sevenoaks (well, as clearly as you can into the sun). Time to let Farnborough known where I am and request frequency change.
The aircraft I flew doesn't have dual radios - so I can't listen to ATIS and monitor frequency at the same time unfortunately. ATIS at Biggin hasn't changed much, I gave them a call - screwing up less then previously. They were rather quiet as well.
Reported 3 miles out, dropped down to the circuit height. The usual. Joined downwind - nobody in the circuit, so took few photos. It was a rather long nav, very quiet - so I took few photos to keep some memories. Also, by now - I'm rather less stressed during solo flights - leaves me plenty of mental capacity to take few photos every so often. And there was tons of opportunities on this nav - which took bit over an hour flight time. Very happy with myself. Ended up higher on finals again, but nothing I couldn't fix - and requested taxy down the end of runway. Someone else was told to line up and wait - so I nicely told the ATC that I have vacated the runway - so they could let the other guy go. Parked and put the plane "to bed". Not much to debrief about, instructor wasn't unhappy about my radio work - said that it has improved, nice. That's the point. I was grinning for whole day next day. Dunno why.. :-D
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| Still plenty bright - but sun decided to hide behind the cloud - I could see terrain for miles now! |
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| And the party is over.. Go west.. |
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| Approaching Biggin |
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| Short finals 21 |
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| GPS breadcrumbs |
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