Saturday 19 April 2014

Solo nav Biggin->Bewl Water->Maidstone->Biggin

So following the solo rejoin - the instructor was happy to send me on a solo short nav. It was our second lesson I believe - dual nav between Biggin, Bewl Water Maidstone and back to EGKB.

This time I was to do it on my own, so no pressure :-) Day was nice, I booked the lesson for early morning. Planned everything very meticulously, asking tons of questions, etc. I was aware of all the little airfields on the way, including Rochester and Headcorn. Day was nice, so I did expect fair amount of traffic.

Went on with the aircraft checkout, everything looked fine, 3/4 fuel tanks - so plenty of fuel if something goes wrong. That's the way we like it.

That day Biggin were using Tower and Approach frequencies. This is the first time I've seen that happening since I started flying here. No worries, I do note both down in my plog anyway.  Just a matter of putting the approach frequency in the standby instead of the Farnborough West.

I went off, and as soon as I changed frequency to LARS - it was obvious, every man and his dog with wings was out flying. Few airplanes around Sevenoaks, so I decided to drop down to 1800 ft and climb out upon departing to the south. Around the Bewl Water there was a cessna 172 doing exactly same route I just done the other way - at the same level. I did spot it rather early, however it was nice of the Farnborough to tell us that we should alter our courses - unless we want to be united. And personally I like to have a dinner at least first, before close encounters. So again, I dropped down to 1800 ft.

Almost nailed the altitude


Next leg was rather uneventful. I advised Farnborough that I'll be climbing up to 3000ft. This is due to all the traffic underneeth from Microlight sites and Rochester, Headcorn. LTMA boundary here goes up from 3500ft, so plenty of headroom. As expected, there were quite few aircraft routing west underneath me - so I think this was a good call. There was another aircraft on the frequency with the same last two letters, and it took controller few requests to realise that he was indeed not talking to me, but other guy. So when approaching Maidstone I had to start using my full call sign.

Overhead Maidstone, I turned west - and noticed a R22 or R44 hovering over the city, not talking to the controllers - and pretty much in my way. I had the right of way, however I decided to turn right anyway, just in case. Well, he did go the same way, so we had this dance for a while - until I finally had to descend and do a weird turn to keep him in sight. This is a downside to flying high-winged aircraft, but on the plus side - I could clearly see everyone underneath me. This of course screwed up my nav completely - but this is the easiest leg - just follow M20, M26 to Sevenoaks. Besides, I had the biggin VOR tuned in - so I did orientate myself pretty quickly using it and DME. I was still on the good track - so all good. Joined back overhead for 03, and went back to the club. My instructor was flying a trial lesson at the same time - and I caught him joining over Sevenoaks at the same time. So I just did follow his aircraft back to the club. Overall, nice 1h and few minutes solo nav.

I did hang around the club, as I we were suppose to fly to Lydd that evening. However, after refuelling turned out that the engine was running rough on Right magneto - the engine wanted to jump out of the cowling. Instructor tried to clean plugs, etc. - and I think was waiting for me to say something - so I just said to him "If I was solo doing this, I wouldn't leave." I think he was rather pleased that I said that, and told me "We're lucky it didn't happen at Lydd, there's nothing out there - not even McDonnalds".

Didn't take as many photos this time and no GPS track. Sorry.

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