Yet Another PPL Blog

xmas, new year, moving the blog (here!)

2011-12-25T03:49:00.001-08:00

So folks,

Belated happy xmas wishes, and may the new year bring all the joy you need.

As for me, I’ve been in a flying-sleep mode for a while now, due to financial constrains, etc.

Advice of the day, if you are learning to fly, have about £500 buffered before you fly. Will make things easier

I’m also moving my blog to http://yetanotherpplblog.blogspot.com/

Why? Because they are less pain in the butt then wordpress. Simple.

Yes they are owned by Google, and I’m not a fan of corporations, but still. Better deals

Hopefully I’ll resume my flying training around March next year So see you then.

See Ya !

Lesson 34

2011-09-18T15:03:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 34

18/IX/2011

Lessons time: dual - 0.8h, solo - none

Total time: 29.1h (1.1h solo)

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Ray Brown

If you thought I'm gone for good - think again.

With holidays over, I decided to give the "new" club a visit. With the new CFI, a lot of positive change took place. For instance: late Thursdays. So, as you can imagine - I decided to stop by one Thursday after work to see how it looks like. Boy I was for a surprise. To skip through the boring stuff, in the end - I decided to book a lesson with a instructor that I've seen since the start of my aviation journey, but never flew with. Ray sticks in your memory. And he is a very nice guy. After Today I can also honestly say that he is one good instructor.

So anyway, got there earlier - just in case no one recognised my face. Went for tea with few instructors beforehand, just to listen to the latest rumours.

After that I went on to check the good old Bonker. Still the same old beast. Someone told me that it looks quite old and scary inside, but I kind of like it. There are some new aircraft coming to the club soon, in the same price range - so I guess I'll have a chance to fly something brand new - and compare the experience. For the time being, bonker is fine. It takes all the hammering studes put it through without a whine.

Anyway, flying. Of course, it was given that no one will send me solo on first day after 4 months, and with the cross wind.

So I did the first circuit. Ray started to ask me some very sensible questions. One - on the down-wind (which I called cross wind by mistake, what a monkey) - do you think - if the donkey quit - you'd be able to glide back to the runway. Of course not, I was miles away. Very good point.

So next circuits were more sort of elliptical in shape.

Ray was very happy about me doing the level off every 500 ft on climb-out (i.e. before the turn into crosswind). I would also start a turn at around 800 ft downwind. Made sense, and it meant that I could indeed at least reach the dry land - should the rubber band break.

The wind started to pick up closer to the ground, and I have failed to compensate using enough rudder. So the next touch and go was kind of scary. But I handled it.

So for the next one, Ray decided to show me what to do with rudder. I guess it was one of those things that goes away after a while. Something to remember, that even tho flying sticks in memory like riding a bicycle, there are some things you wouldn't do as good once you are out of practice.

So for the next challenge, mr Ray decided to cover the ASI and 'the ball' with chart. I was forced to look outside, and only use my attitude and judgement to set the speed. I was scared at first, and amazed later at how well I did. I was off by 5-10 kts, but always over the speed, not under. Which is of course important. Well, at least seems safer - given that we have tarmac runways, that are long enough for small biz jet. If it was grass short strip it would have been a different ball.

So that was a bit of fun and challenge. Ray said, that if the cross wind didn't get so bad - he would have let me have one solo circuit. So I guess, overall - I wasn't so bad.

I was also amazed how easy the radio has become.

At the end, the complementary gps track. No height tho - because go-flying went absent on all of us, and I have no where to convert the GPX tracks so that I would get the height coloured track. Oh well.

Route: T/O RWY 04 right hand circuits, maaasive cross winds, wind-shears, and of course 1 go around .

Milestones: It's been a while.

Exercises covered: circuits.

Weather: quite a gust, cross wind. Typical nice day :)

(short) Lesson 33

2011-05-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 33

02/V/2011

Lessons time: dual - 0.5h, solo - zeeero

Total time: 28.3h (1.1h solo)

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: David Phillips

Lesson booked for 9, but I decided to be earlier this time. And what happens ? I had to search for my instructor, cos he wasn't there. Obviously I would need to be earlier few times more for anyone to notice :) When David finally showed up (was talking to another instructor) - his diagnosis was pretty clear. You want to get solo hours, forget about Today. Crosswind is quite strong, and despite the fact that there's quite a few runways at EGAD, none of them suit the wind. Oh joy. So I just said - give me half an hour, better then nothing.

Once I got to the aircraft, I realised that I didn't pack my checklists. Usually my GF takes care of that, but she was over at mom's house for a while. No bother (with belfast accent !), someone in the club always has one. I managed to speak to some other student pre-flying (flighting?) 172. Social interaction between students, rare thing.

Anyway, off we went. David showed me what to do in case I really forget the checklist, how to cope. Basic idea is to go through every knob and lever. Of course, not really a good idea to fly without the checklist. Some people won't be able to tell us about it.

The wind was quite strong. So strong, that I had to extend downwind a bit, and go through landing configuration quite swiftly. Of course I didn't do it quite well the first time around, so the usual procedure was carried out - go around.

I had quite fun landing in cross wind. Never before in my short life as rookie-wannabe-pilot had I to aim at the runway through the door window. But there's always the first one.

All in all, very enjoyable. I learned massive amount of little things about crosswind handling. Of course not the best set of circuits ever, but nonetheless I think David wasn't disappointed with my performance.

To keep him happy, I asked him to take few pics of myself flying. A, my family never seen me doing this, and B - 28h under belt, and no pic in the cockpit. Shouldn't happen ;)

Please forgive my massive double neck. I should have had my fleece zipper undone. I look more chubbier then usual. Otherwise, enjoy ;)

[gallery link="file" columns="1"]

Route: T/O RWY04 circuits, maaasive cross winds, wind-shears, and of course 1 go around .

Milestones: back in the saddle.

Exercises covered: circuits.

Weather: quite a gust, otherwise beautiful day.

RT practical passed

2011-04-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

RT practical exam passed.

Some of the calls I did actually rather poorly, but still managed to get enough right to pass.
The examiner have said, that he heard me doing much better during earlier sessions.

Now only if I had enough cash to fly this month :/

Lessons 31 and 32. More circuits

2011-04-04T14:21:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 31 and 32

02,03/IV/2011

Lessons time: dual - 1.7h (0.9, 0.8) solo - 0.0.

Total time: 27.9h (1.1h solo)

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Gavin McCusker

(And) Yet another two lessons in circuit.

Booked two lessons for the weekend. Both with Gavin. Its been a bit since I last flew with him.

Basically circuits were in order. He assured me that if I do well and gods of weather are cooperating I will be sent solo. To save you the time, I wasn't sent solo.

On Saturday my flying was terrible, to say the least. We did few circuits, and attempted to do few glide approaches, but there was always someone in the way (ie , in front of us, or one occasion

backtracking the active when I was about to land. Had to go around. ) . As always I blamed the winds, but as always I'm to blame. Devil's in the details, and I seem to notice a lot of those little things. Probably too many to handle.

On Saturday we seemed to have quite a thermal over the city (on finals). Which blew me up. Trying to correct it was a nightmare. Gavin wanted to see me going around once or twice, and also pulled the power on the climb out once to see what would I do. I think in general he was satisfied with my reaction to that.

One thing that set him aside (and makes few other instructors rather unhappy), is the fact that he likes to apply some safety measures that others don't seem to approve of. Namely, on climb out, level out at 500 ft, to check the blind spot - just a push and pull on the yoke really. Reasons being, that the circuit is a climb, and as in any climb you would do 500 ft checks, you need to do them in the circuit as well. Other relatively novel thing, which others don't teach - is to only set the 'drag' flap (30 deg in the G-BNKR) whilst being on very close final. This is due to the fact that you don't want that drag when over the city, in case your engine quits.

Now, I knew he likes that sort of circuit before, but never asked him about the reasons - thus I couldn't argue with other instructors about it. To be honest, I was very angry (mainly due to my poor performance) on Saturday, and started to wonder whether it is due to the instructor. But had a nice debrief with Gavin, where I basically lied down all my frustrations and observations, and he was very good at explaining reasons behind his way of things, and also promised me to talk to other instructors about it.

Sunday flying was much better, but meanwhile I had quite few expenses and instead of flying 4-5 lessons this month the Sunday one is probably going to be my last one (this month at least). We were promised a bonus at work, but it kind of didn't happened (yet). If it will, I'll most certainly spend it on the flying. Ever since I started this, I have no savings, and my finances are shattered. Doesn't help also that my gf is out of work. But anyway, enough ranting - back to flying.

Sunday was way much better. Weather wasn't still good enough for me to go solo ( strong winds, as they do happen at this time of the year ) - but at least my circuits were much better. Unfortunately due to my own stupidity (dead battery in gps) - I have no gps track for Sunday. Basically I did few picture perfect circuits, apart from the approach. This time, there was no thermal over the city, so I was ending up too low. Started too add too much power, ended up too high, then turned it into the speed, etc, etc. But I started to get a feel of that too. Gavin wanted me to go around twice, and also we did this time two glide approaches. First one was dead on, on the second one he started to tell me about setting up the speed first - which blew me too far out, and I would in reality end up somewhere in bushes before the runway. Luckily the engine was running fine.

One nice thing about this weekend, my RT was dead on - apparently. This obviously isn't a miracle. I invested in an RT course. It pays off to do it. There's a guy next door (in the aero-heli) who's doing it, and he is brilliant. Not only very patient with my - frankly annoying - personality. But also very capable. It looks like I'm going to be able to pass my practical RT this month too.

That's indeed a boost for me, especially since its been a while since I've been solo. This is mostly due to the weather not being on my side. I feel like more I fly with instructor on board worse I get. I probably need to do few solo circuits to boost my confidence in flying, and move over to my Nav exercises. I'll most likely take about a month break (or perhaps even two) to repair my finances, in the mean time - doing the RT and perhaps the Nav theory too.

Saturday's GPS track:

Route: T/O RWY22 circuits, cross winds, wind-shears, and of course go arounds .

Milestones: hmm, none.

Exercises covered: circuits.

Weather: quite a gust, bit cloudy but clearing up.

Lesson 30 - never tired of the circuit bashing

2011-03-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 30

25/III/2011

Lesson time: dual - 1.6h (in 0.8h instalments), solo - 0.0.

Total time: 26.2h (1.1h solo)

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Rodger McConner

Yet another circuit bashing lesson.

Not much to write about really (for change this won't be a long elaborate).

I booked two slots on the day. Morning 9:00 one, and 13:30 one in the afternoon.

Circuits, as usual - pretty much. In the morning the wind was rather calm, so circuits were rather uneventful. Rodger very patiently talked me through things I'm still doing wrong (and there's still a lot :/) which is pretty much setting up the aircraft on the base leg to be ready for finals. I tried my best to follow the instructions, but I believe the wind was spoiling my fun a lot.

One thing apparent about the rwy 34 is that you fly around the Scrabo hill and your finals are over the water and sea wall. The wind seems do be doing all sorts of weird things and conspire against the aircraft setup. So it was quite a laborious flying. To my amazement, I managed to retract flaps after applying full power once. Very bad mistake. Rodger obviously noted that, and said that if he is to send me solo, it will be in the afternoon - because of that mistake.

The afternoon lesson was to be much different. The wind was much violent, and we had a crosswind. Which would be fine, but it was alternating between left or right of the runway. This meant that I had to go around few times and it was quite unpleasant to fly in conditions like that on whole extent of the circuit. For instance the final approach leg required quite a bit of power and initially I would end up low because I didn't want to add too much too fast.

Speaking of go arounds. I was very confident in doing them, and Rodger said the same thing. I still have to be more patient about retracting flaps - but I am not trying to do them all at once - which should mean that I'll live a bit longer :) One go around was due to the fact that I ended up too fast, and wasn't still firmly on the ground before runway intersection. On second occasion wind changed direction as I was trying to flare. One wheel touched the ground, whilst the other was still up. And I think third one was due to me being generally too high.

In the beginning of part two I said to Rodger that there's no way that I would want to fly this on my own. His response was that this weren't conditions he would send even the best student (like myself) solo. I couldn't laugh, I was grateful that I didn't had to try in these conditions. Probably felt grateful I don't have to go solo for the first time in my life.

All in all, it was a great experience. I certainly had to sweat much more to keep the thing running. On top of that there was a lot of traffic. At some stage Rodger said that it feels like Heathrow. Seriously, I think I didn't make my downwind and finals calls for 3-4 circuits, because there was that much radio chatter.

As usual, here are the mandatory gps tracks:

[caption id="attachment_253" align="aligncenter" width="700" caption="morning flying"][/caption]

On Monday I'm starting the RT course. There's a guy doing RT courses in the club, and I think its worth spending some time (and money) on that.

Still need to do my Nav exam too.

Next flying next weekend, and then I'll probably take a month break to repair my finances.

Route: T/O RWY34 circuits, cross winds, wind-shears, and of course go arounds .

Milestones: rwy 34 circuits in wind that changes a lot.

Exercises covered: circuits.

Weather: quite a gust, bit cloudy but clearing up.

Lesson 29 - Going around twice, doesn't make you twice as good

2011-03-19T07:08:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 29

19/III/2011

Lesson time: dual - 0.6h,solo - 0.4.

Total time: 24.6h (1.1h solo)

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Rodger McConner P

I hate 9 o'clock flying. I always sleep in. Today's not exception. Got in the car 8:50, phoned the club. Some unexpected voice picked up. I said I'm running late.

About 20 minutes later, and few racers trying to catch me on the dual carriage way (speed limit is 70 mph, so stop blocking me silly people) I got to the club. And I was for the shock.

It's Rodger. Long time no flying togetha !. I said to him 'you do realise its saturday'. He _never_ works weekends, much to my unhappiness because he is one of the best guys there.

Preflight, usual stuff. Engine was a bit cold (it was below zero at night). Everything fine, off we go.

Rodger said - the deal is simple, you fly few circuits with me just being a 90+ kg ballast and then you do few solo ones.

Also, the deal was that the first one is uneventful. And so it was. Actually its two weeks since the last one and I hardly noticed.

On the second one (as expected), to add a bit of a cheer Rodger pull the power and crossed his hands :) Nice. Fortunately I got it nicely trimmed, aimed for the right field.

On the third one Rodger told me to do flap-less, which I did. Unfortunately some virtual cock decided to drive onto our runway and I had to do a go-around. Handled nicely, Rodger was happy.

Fourth one was a glide one, so I got the power pulled on downwind 'oops, what do we do'. It went well. I was a tad short of the numbers, lesson learned.

As we were doing these circuits, I noticed that the wind was starting to get stronger. On the go around there, we were tossed all over the place over the runway.

One more circuit, and Rodger let me out on my own.

Everything was fine until I got to the finals bit. Again, the wind started to toss me about. And I ended up - in my mind too high to continue. So I applied the power nicely. C152 is not very powerful, but I got nearly 1000ft climb rate there, with full flaps, and speed was around 70 knots. I turned the trim towards neutral because the amount of force I had to apply was just enormous.

And off I went. Over the downwind I wasn't quite happy, but took few deep breaths with yoga-like movements of my head and hands to calm myself down. It was quite windy.

Second approach was much better, but somehow I managed to bounce quite high. High enough to decide that it is time to go-around. Again. Now , only this time I knew that as I pushed the power I had to push the yoke quite hard to keep it level. Which I did, and Rodger later confirmed that my second go-around looked very good.

You can imagine my frustration on downwind on this one, but I said to myself - ok, that's it, time to land. I am getting over my comfort zone here, and not enjoying it properly.

I was ready to go around if something happens again, don't get me wrong. But this time I came down just nice.

Before you say that Rodger should not have sent me solo in first place, to be honest conditions were very good when we did the last circuit. I learned quite few lessons Today.

Let me share (and write it down for my own record). First, when you go around. The aircraft is trimmed to descend. You will have to apply quite a bit of force to keep it level. But it is important to do so.

(of course need to take the flaps off in stages goes without saying). Secondly, It is important to aim for the numbers, and refocus to the end of the runway as you round out. I don't think I did it right Today.

Rodger took quite a bit of time to talk me through that stuff Today. And also said he was happy to see that I took the decision to go around. There's nothing worse then pilot trying to salvage a landing.

And I'm glad I did it too. I would have learned nothing good if I did try to salvage landings and everything was okay.

The first approach apparently, from Rodger's perspective was looking good. But it was probably the wind that made me decide to go around. The bounce on the second one was high enough so I had the time to take that decision. I've seen some youtube videos with people bouncing on landing and ending up with bent prop. Don't like to repeat someone else's mistakes myself.

All in all. First time I went around myself, solo. And I'm proud of it :P

First go-around

Second:

Flap-less mini circuit ;) :

Route: T/O RWY22 circuits, flapless, EFATO, go arounds.

Milestones: solo go arounds.

Exercises covered: circuits.

Weather: quite a gust, but apart from that beautiful day.

Lesson 28 - wheel up

2011-03-07T13:57:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 28

06/III/2011

Lesson time: dual - 0.7h,solo - nope.

Total time: 23.6h (0.7h solo)

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: David P

Got in the club to the club early morning. DavidP was on the phone so with the Cesar's thumb up/down gesture I requested the go/no go info. Thumbs up.

Got the key, went for a preflight.

[gallery columns="1"]

David got soon after I sat down inside comfortably. Wind was favouring rwy 16 which I have never flew a circuit on so a bit new experience. There's a police station antennae mast to fly over when you approach the 16 for landing and I knew that (from other blog and also from looking at the vfr plate for EGAD ).

I managed to turn with the wind to do my power checks, clearly a stilly mistake. But David very calmly hinted me about it.

Off I went to backtrack 16, and got ready to roll. The day was murky, clouds were at around 1500 ft so David asked me to turn the landing or taxing light on so we're bit more visible.

Put the power in, and off we went. I managed to under turn first crosswind turn aiming for visual point that I would aim for if I flew rwy 22. I usually use DI and try to think about the wind at the same time, but after my last lesson I was so tensed up that I simply didn't. Nothing that I couldn't fix later on.

Few usual mistakes, like forgetting the downwind call. I was told to slap myself for making the downwind call too early on the next circuit. Clearly something that has to do with multiple instructors. David told me to make the call when I'm abeam the runway threshold. And so I will stick to that method.

I got so very fixated on trying to avoid the mast when turning from base to finals, that I started to fly very wide trying to keep the mast to the port side and only correcting the approach once I was clear of it. Obviously not a good idea. David nicely demonstrated how it can be done, basically trying to turn just before the mast and use it as sort of a pivot point. It worked very well (as you can see from the gps track at the end).

On one of the circuits I was so busy talking about something boring, that I forgot to put the 3rd stage of flaps on finals - monkey. Obviously had to self-slap myself for that.

Oh, one neat trick David taught me and he probably would not mind me sharing here. When turning base, I would pull the carb heat on, reduced the power, and as soon as ASI is over the white arc I would start setting the flaps. Well, there's just one problem with it. You get this bumpy sort of reaction from the aircraft when you do that. So the trick David showed me, was to slow the aircraft down quite a bit before applying flaps. Everything's much more relaxed and no bumps.

For the last one circuit David asked me if we could land it on the grass. On the left hand side of runway 16 there's a patch of grass that can be used for grass landing practice (dunno about t/o) . David thought I tried grass before at the Trim aerodrome (see that 'episode' for more info).

Strange experience landing on the grass. For one, that bit of grass is half the length of the runway 16 and right behind it is another hard surfaced runway. So if you don't stop on time, your wheels are going to stay on the grass :)

But all in all landing on the grass was quite nice. Certainly more gentle and cushioned. Weird thing tho was that I had to keep the yoke pretty much pulled towards me all the time. Felt like one wheel motorcycle stunt.

Obviously following my last lesson stunt, asking for a solo would be really rude, so in all honesty I didn't count on it at all. David's only remark was that I somehow don't feel as confident as I used to. Probably true, last lesson did show me that over confidence is not a really good idea.

As they say "Two steps forward, one step back".

If I had to summarise the whole lesson, it was a very relaxing experience. Pretty much a bliss. David does tolerate my jabbering much better then most instructors and hence why I probably prefer him over so many others. He is also very patient and doesn't rush things too much.

And at the end I was promised a solo next time. Well, I bloody hope I will get some solo time otherwise in that pace it will take another 10 hours to get required 3 hours solo circuit consolidation :)

Route: T/O RWY16 circuits, last landing on the 16 grass.

Milestones: Grass landing, regained a bit more confidence.

Exercises covered: circuits.

Weather: bit windy, lowish cloud base.

Lesson 27 - "Flying is a very humbling experience"

2011-02-13T13:11:00.000-08:00

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

Lesson 26 - First one after the winter

2011-01-10T12:17:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 26

9/I/2011

Lesson time: dual - 0.7h, solo - 0.4h

Total time: 21.3h (0.7h solo)

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: David P

Following Yesterday's fiasco I was just hoping the ice will melt by the time I get the the club. I also hopped it won't rain/snow/whatever.

And oddly enough when I phoned the club the answer was that is fine.

Went for a walk before the lesson and the day was nice. The sun was bit low and that's always worrying. It was tiresome just driving there, and flying in the sun on finals is not a lot of fun. Trust me. Same with climbing away on take off. You can't see anything. Even sunglasses don't help much.

I sat down in the club watching some helis outside. Waiting for David to comeback from his previous lesson. He got back pretty soon.

Anyways, the subject for Today was the circuits. I wouldn't expect anything else to be honest.

Grabbed the key and me shades from the car and off I went to do the preflight. On my way there I was captured on club's webcam (bottom right, the huge bloke):

Everything was grand, half in each tank, oil at 6. All good to go. The yellow heli started its engine whilst I was taxing by. Bit worried, but David said that it didn't had its governor engaged yet so we are safe. Grand. Power-checks, checked the approach, and off we went for a straight take off.

By the time we started to fly the sun was more or less covered behind clouds. Not many but very good protection against getting blinded.

The first circuit was rather uneventful. I forgot my finals call (as I will couple more times), landing was a sack of rubbish (as most will on the day). I blamed it on the fact that I wasn't flying for a bit but truth is I know I could have done better.

Just as I applied the power to take off the aircraft started to weir off to the right hand side. And trust me, David is not to be blamed for the lack of balance.

As soon as he spotted it he said "I got controls" as he stopped the aircraft quickly. The right break for some reason was jammed, or something. Dunno. I swear I didn't pull the parking break leaver during the BUMPFICH checks too much instead of the primer. And even if that was to blame, it happened later on the day on my first touch and go but nowhere as much.

After few retries everything was back to normal so 180 deg turn around 22 threshold and I got the controls back. As we were climbing away, David cut the power and said "what are you going to do now". Dunno how it happened but all of the sudden I got a big hill in front of the aircraft and the future wasn't looking good, if that was a real engine failure we would be doomed. David said to me that for some reason I started to turn to the right. Which I swear I could not remember at that time. But the GPS track does confirm that. Anyhow, note to self don't fly straight into a hill if your engine fails. Not a good idea.

Off I went to do the remaining bit of the circuit. Again failed to do the finals call. Touch and go, no problems with breaks this time. But I did notice, that wind was changing a bit. Blowing me off to the right on final. We talked about the previous 'dont go right' moment, and whilst over water on cross wind leg, David pulled the power again. Great. Now the choice was pretty obvious, turn towards the land, pick a field, extend flaps in stages, and land. And I think I did this one bit more effectively than the previous one. He caught me by surprise, as usually instructors don't do that once we are over water. Land is very close, but still. Following a funny shaped crosswind leg I started to turn towards downwind meanwhile looking closely around for any aircraft that could be above us. In particular for microlight things. They fly lower circuits and usually their radios are just there for a good weight balance.

Next landing was probably the best one of the day. Still not something I wish people would judge me for but good nonetheless.

On climb-out, as you might have guessed, another power cut. Another field to pick, etc.

Next Landing and David asked me to taxi back to the apron to let him go. I haven't seen that but he probably kissed the ground once I turned around ;)

On my own, yuppie.

Waited for a land-rover to get off the runway, 'shhteeudent kilo romeo, ermmm entering active for immediate take off' and off I went. (yes I need to learn how to pronounce 'student' properly).

The sky has cleared at this stage, so on my climb-out I could not see my attitude, nor my speedo. Just looked to the side to see the attitude. Once I could see again, speedo was on 65 knots. Not too bad. Cleared right, and turn to the left. The circuit was rather uneventful. I think I pretty fast there, still about 150 ft below the circuit height so decided to trade some speed for height. By the time I did my checks (this time tapping on breaks twice to make sure they are off), it was time to turn base. And than finals. The landing was rather terrible, I ended up far beyond numbers. As soon as I touched (in a bit of a cross wind, so my left wheel touched first) it started to weir to the right. Not too much, so I pushed the power in and it automagically started to go straight again. Good, otherwise I would have to stop and call it a day. The plan was to do at least 3 circuits so off I went. By the time I took off there was not much runway left. Note to self, try touching down on the numbers next time please.

My next circuit was quite ok. Again, blinded by the sun. The wind picked up again as I started to descend. I can clearly see on the GPS track, that I was flying at nearly 45 deg to the downwind on the base leg. Landing was nothing to be proud off, but I have to yet do some proper training with the cross wind landings in mind. Best of course with some ballast on the right hand seat in case I do something wrong ;) I know the theory, but I have to apply it in practice.

Got blown off on the base leg, ... again. I tried correcting, but probably not enough.

The last landing was probably worse of them all, third circuit - so the last one. I left through triangle, did all the right call (me thinks) 'shhtudeent kilo romeo runway vacated'. "which one, monkey!"

There was some guy in tail-dragger landing behind me. And instead of going all the way around he started to turn in front of me as I was waiting for the runway to clear. I thought he is just trying to ram me, so I moved a bit to the left. Feeling bit guilty as I had to go past the point that in theory makes me enter the active runway but still faaaaaaar away from the edge of it.

He just turned around behind me, facing back the approach. Stopped. Good. Obviously at this stage I was turned towards the base/finals to see any incoming traffic. And there was a microlight on finals. So I waited. Just before the guy was over the threshold, the taildragger guy decided to put the power on a bit, and move forward. Dunno if he was trying to make me move, or something. Obviously he couldn't see the approach, as he was facing it back. I decided to keep my hand on the power leaver in case he makes a move or something. And obviously I didn't forget about my carb-heat whilst waiting. It wouldn't be nice if the carb clogged whilst I was trying to backtrack on the active runway :)

Just before the turn to the apron, David asked me to note down the meter. To which I just replied 'wilco', rather proud of myself that I know such sophisticated lingo ;)

There was a bit of space between two 172s and a RAF moto-glider, so I neatly turned around there watching the spacing. Previous two times after solo I did pretty much abandon the aircraft somewhere on the apron, so parking it this time was a milestone in it self. Probably the only thing I did fully right on the day.

Obviously it turned out that I did note the wrong thing, so had to go back and get the right numbers. On my way back some student next to fly the Kilo Romeo started to ask me about the aircraft key, and fuel on board. I didn't remember what was it to be honest, even tho I looked at the fuel gauge on my last down-wind check.

This time I didn't note the number down, but just tried to remember it in my head. Obviously as soon as the guy started to ask me about fuel and the key I was afraid I might just need to make another trip down to the aircraft. But luckily I did remember it :)

During the flight I noticed that I do sometimes need more rudder when turning finals. I asked David if it is due to the wind perhaps. The simple explanation is that it is just a visual illusion. And adding too much rudder close to the ground, slow speed, etc, is not a good idea. So it was good that I did have a glance at the slip-ball to make sure I am not overdoing it.

All in all, my longest solo so far. Next lesson booked for next week. Hopefully ice/snow won't be a threat by that time.

Also, I think I should get some award for the longest entry that just describes flying 7 circuits ... Seriously. I wish I was writing code that fast.

Route: T/O RWY22 circuits

Milestones: none, if so, regression

Exercises covered: circuits

Weather: Mostly clear, gusty, quite sunny. Sometimes dazzling on t/o.

Lesson 25 - first xc nav

2010-12-15T04:32:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 25

14/XII/2010

Lesson time: dual - 1.1h

Total time: 20.2h (0.3h solo)

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: David H

I only had 0.5 day left of annual leave and it was pretty obvious that I am going to use it to fly. Following lesson 23 and the advice from Gavin that I should get ready on Navs, I took it seriously. Bought myself a new chart, a kneepad, and any the other little gadgets you need for this part of training.

I read a lot about nav before I started my PPLs but it gets more obvious after you actually flew few times. Week and a bit ago DavidP went through all the details with me. Since than I started to read the nav book, not all of it. Just some chapters to fill out the blanks. I also re-watched some of the King's videos I have on the subject.

I had 2 slots booked but it was pretty obvious the second one will not happen as it gets dark pretty early.

Arrived at the club, David was a bit busy (he's the CFI). I just told him that I want to get up for a nav, and I will start planning it. Asked about for the wind information (which DavidP provided) and also asked someone to spare me few p-log sheets. (have to remember to prepare some for the next one).

With all that in hand I started to get cracking. It was the very first time I would do it for real. I did some random calculations before using wiz-wheel but nothing I would have to follow and fly for real before. I think it must have take me a while (don't remember the actual time). After some time David came about with my student record in his hand and told me that they really don't do nav exercises until you have about 4h solo in the circuit. I just told him that I was pretty much flying the bloody circuit for sometime now. (my own fault that I didn't went up solo earlier) And that I wanted to break away from the 'pattern'. Fair enough, he said, and started to check how was I doing.

Of all calculations, I think I had one or two things wrong. Plus - he said, distances such as 2.5 Nm from the airport you usually don't calculate, just fly visually.

I got wind calculation wrong in one place, but all the others were okay. Pretty odd since I used same wind for the whole track.

Anyway, I got everything prepared and off I went to do the pre-flights. It all went fine except for the rudder. Somehow I couldn't move it to the right. Got a bit worried and went back to the club-house. David said that it is normal and it is due to the nose wheel not being straight. Made sense, the wheel was not straightened indeed. Good, because for a second I thought I am not going to fly Today - and that the aircraft is buggered.

We both got ourselves comfortable and here's the first 'ohoh'. I have my kneepad on and I can't really move the steering column. Bit of knee movement about and all is possible. Comment from David 'if you need to move it, it is really amazing how quickly that kneepad gets out of the way'.

Did all the preparations, stared the engine, etc. Taxying was uneventful. I was watching very hard not to exceed any comfortable speeds when taxying, as CFI is very particular about that.

Sun was pretty low and intensive and there was also a bit of condensation on the windscreen that was preventing us from seeing if anything was landing or not. But somehow we managed to check it out (that's what the side windows are for sometimes).

Lined-up. I always like to ask the passenger-instructor if they are ready. David just said 'wind up the rubber band' (what a nice expression btw). And off we went.

I tried to crab a bit on the climb away, because the wind was more from the left than straight in. Somehow I managed to crab the other direction but quickly corrected my mistake.

We departed straight from the downwind towards Comber. Once above Comber David switched to Belfast Approach and dealt with all the RT.

I made a turn to the left onto my new heading and off I went. Noted down the time, etc. Started to read the chart. We were suppose to follow a road and my oh my there was a road to my left ( sometimes disappearing under the aircraft ).

Right on time, and I could see disused airfield far ahead (now made into a race-track) - that was our first turning point.

That was easy - I said very well knowing that it could only go worse from this point on :)

Did my FREDA check and again, turned to the left onto a new heading - this time towards Hillsborough. I forgot that I could do more than 15 deg of bank so it took a while initially before I got us into 30 deg of bank.

There was some guy trying to leave belfast freq but the belfast approach controller couldn't hear him. David relayed the message when asked about it by the controller. Pretty nice. Just thought to myself - what if it was me solo and he asked me that. I would probably have to exchange quite few sentences before I would give him same sort of information. Nothing beats the experience.

About half way through the track I took out the chart to make sure we are on the right track. And - here's a surprise, we weren't. I did a bit of dead reckoning, and turned to the left back towards the town that was suppose to be below us.It was time to do the next FREDA check and it all became clear. DI was 5-10 deg off. Note to self, check the DI after each turn even if 10 minutes didn't elapse since the previous one.

We started to enjoy the views. There was just a ton of lake, and some places were pretty gray-ish - not only covered in snow/frost, but the sun was going down. It was that time of the day.

David was showing me different landmarks which I would not be able to distinguish myself otherwise. Too much information, so to say. We could see the Stormount and couple of other places. Things were making sense on the chart too. Altho roads were not as clearly visible as I thought they would be.

We soon started to see Lisburn and the shopping centre between Lisburn and Belfast it was clear that we got close to the end of that leg. And the time was also on the spot. On that leg I would loose 200 ft tops and weir a bit of the heading couple times. But it wasn't so bad. I tried to remember all the advice I was given about not fixating on tasks for too long or letting the aircraft settle before trimming.

Pretty soon we crossed the A1 and could see the Hillsborough to our left, with all its features. It was time to do another turn - this time towards Comber.

David asked for the clearance (we had to penetrate the belfast city zone I think) and I started to turn to the left. Once on the course I re trimmed and checked the DI . Pretty soon afterwards I started to check for landmarks to make sure that we didn't end up somewhere else. And everything was in the right spot. Oddly enough :P . Here's also a note to self, don't pick landmarks that are under the track directly. Pick something 1-2 miles to either side (left is obviously the best choice). Otherwise you can't see them, and I didn't fancy burning holes in the sky just to see things.

After a bit, I did another FREDA check and it was time again to check the landmarks. By now I could see the Strangford lough and the Scrabo tower. So fixing the position was pretty easy. Once overhead Comber we switched back to EGAD freq. I made an ass of myself on the radio (again) when I tried to announce our intentions.

Here was another thing I never did before - overhead join. Pretty easy in theory and it wasn't so difficult in practice either. We descended on the dead side of 04 (right hand) and I turned right cross wind, downwind. I must have let wind blow me off on the downwind, because we ended up at the other end of the universe. But I managed to turn base and do all the usual checks. This time sun wasn't blinding me so it was all good. About 400 ft away from the threshold aircraft slowed down and I had to add a bit of power. And also point the nose down a bit. I was close enough to know that one action would need to follow the other anyone.

The landing was not too bad. Pretty smooth actually but I flared a bit high. So the undercarriage got a bit of beating as a result. I was pretty happy, but David wasn't as much. I think he didn't like the high flare. Also he didn't like the fact that I still had a bit of power over the threshold. Well, I wanted to pickup a bit of speed, so we don't end up doing 45 knots over the threshold.

Taxied back to the apron. And David had few comments (which I pretty much listed above) and also said that he thinks it was pretty good flying overall.

Altho I probably won't be doing anything like that until May - June time next year. I hope next there will be a succession of solo circuits. In order to get 4h solo I need to be doing them by myself from start to finish. So far I've been let loose only for a last one of 5-6 per lesson.

Overall, quite happy. Grinning more than after first or second solo actually. Obviously I learned a lot from it. It was much more relaxed than the circuit flying and the view was spectacular :D Reminds me why I started to get myself into that business.

Here's the GPS track of my flight:

Route: T/O RWY04, Comber, Bishop's court, Hillsborough, Comber, EGAD joined overhead for RWY 04

Milestones: First nav, and first time with my kneepad in C152

Exercises covered: nav

Weather: Clear day, bit cold.

Lesson 24 - Steep turns and general handling

2010-12-11T09:56:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 24

11/XII/2010

Lesson time: dual - 0.7h

Total time: 19.1h (0.3h solo)

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Gavin McCusker

I had lesson booked last Sunday, but due to ice on RWYs I didn't fly. Than after the ice have melted, the bonker was not available. David P was so great to take a bit of time and explain to me all basics of navigation. Bit disappointed that I didn't had a chance to fly, I asked nice ladies at the reception desk to call me if there was any available slots on weekends. At least 45 minutes in advance, so that I could get ready and arrive bit beforehand.

Well, needless to say I didn't expect anything like that this weekend. So I decided to just go for a bit of a bimble in my car Today. We went to Bangor. I love to watch the sea, just sit and listen to its sounds and smell it. Than I remembered that one of students at the club promised to leave a book for me so we went for a walk to the scrabo tower (which has a nice view of the area including the club runways) and the plan was to go down to the club afterwards to pickup the book.

Got to the club, opened the door and lady at the reception was very surprised to see me. As it turned out she was trying to call me about 10 minutes before to let me know that there's a free slot :D Well, iphone's ring volume is quite rubbish so I never heard it. Didn't had the gear with me (note to self, cary it around on weekends, just in case!) and had my gf with me as well. And she wasn't quite pleased but wasn't resisting it either. I finally had a chance to eat something at the local Sky Cafe. And than went off to catch up with my instructor. I flew with him last time so no bother (as they say here).
Did the preflight of the unusually parked Kilo-Romeo. It was hidden behind the last hangar in the line of hangars that are facing the apron area. And it looks like someone had actually washed it. It was white again :D
When asked what do I want to do Today, I said that I wouldn't mind to do something else than circuits. After all, it has been a while since I did anything else than flying the rectangle shapes in the sky - so to say :). There were two choices , either PFLs, or steep turns. I chose the latter. Its been a while, and its fun.
So I did all the usual stuff, pretty much uneventful. I was a bit rusty, so it wasn't perfect, but I wasn't dangerous either.

We departed from the cross-wind to the south-(south)-east for some turns. Gavin gave me a chance to man the radio, but I have never spoken to anyone on the radio outside of EGAD's ATZ. Just when I was ready to talk to the Belfast Approach the frequency got very busy. So I had to wait. And it took quite a while. Usually we request the basic service as soon as we pass abeam the Mount Steward but this time we did it few miles down. I don't know what's the standard procedure in this case, ie, should you burn holes in the sky or just proceed and wait for the controller to call you names on the radio ? In any case, he didn't mind. After all, we were below 2k ft which is suppose to be fine.
As soon as I got a chance to say anything, I had to get it wrong. 'Belfast Approach, Scrabo 66' 'Scrabo 66 Belfast Approach, pass your message'. 'Belfast Approach, Scrabo 66 is C152 overhead mount steward, two POB, requesting basic service'. I don't remember what the reply was, or what did I forget (I think 'not above 2k ft' and what are we going to do and where'), but that was a face-palm moment for me. First chance to talk to a real controller and I blew it. Oh well, there will be more chances to make a foul out of myself in the future, I'm sure.
I've been trying to maintain a general heading and height, but I never managed to do both at the same time. I blame the wind, but we all know it was my fault :D
Once we got to the location the haze started to build. Vis was still good, but not perfect. I had to do quite few turns to make sure that there was no one in the vicinity. Once that was done, I got a short briefing on what are we going to do, and off I went.
I had to blew the first chance obviously. I thought that 45 deg turn will be marked on the attitude indicator, but it isn't. 60 deg is, and I was aiming for it rather than for the 45 deg which is in between 30 and 60. Monkey. Only after my second attempt did Gavin told me what I was doing it wrong. Afterwards it wasn't so bad. I only lost about ~100ft. Still not good but it was suppose to be a refresher for me. I can honestly say that flying only circuits for a long time can be quite a skill degrading thing. Or, I am again seeing things in a new light. I don't know.

Apart from just burning holes in the sky, I had a chance to reposition the aircraft between each turn on the right height, etc. It wasn't so bad.

After couple of turns I was told to head back. My slot was suppose to be about an hour. It seemed short, but considering the fact that we went quite a distance from the airfield (bottom of the peninsula, near Portaferry). I managed this time to make the call to the Belfast Approach controller without incident. I also had a chance to do some heading/speed/height adjustments just to see how I get on, and it wasn't so bad. As soon as frequency change was approved tho, I managed to make an ass out of myself on the radio again. Saying basically that I am joining on base, whilst I was still about 5 miles away from the airfield. Gavin saved the day again.

Getting closer, I did a proper lookout, and was told to do the prelanding checks. I was tempted to take out the checklist, but what Gavin mean was to do the old good BUMPFICH checks. Lets just say, it wasn't as smooth as it should be.

As soon as I turned finals, sun was blinding me. Add a haze to the equation and you can imagine what I mean.

Needless to say, I managed to cock-up that landing too. Bit too high, not too fast but I balooned once. I was tempted to go around but speed was correct, there was plenty of runway in front of us and speed was quickly bleeding off.

All in all, I was rubbish. I'm a bit of perfectionist, and very hard on myself when something goes wrong and is clearly my fault. Quite few lessons learned, and I will hope to remember all that in the future.

I got two slots booked for this Tuesday (of course, weather permitting). I want to do a short nav, the route I have to prepare will be comber-bishopscourt-hillsborough. I surely will have to wait with all the wind calculations, etc, till the day. But will attempt to calculate it Tomorrow using some current weather report . Other thing is I'll need to request Belfast City zone transit which is going to be fun. I've heard that controllers are never happy to give it when they hear that your RT is rubbish. I will also fly with the CFI who has some specific qualities which I have too (like analysing everything in detail and being anal about details). It shall be fun.

Route: T/O RWY22, South east for few turns, and back, re-joined on base, LND RWY22

Milestones: got out of the aerodrome traffic zone for the first time in a while. Spoke to Belfast approach by myself for the first time.

Exercises covered: ex 6-7, 12

Weather: some clouds, bit hazy, QNH 1026, moderate winds

Lesson 23 - more circuits, and circuits

2010-11-07T11:10:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 23

7/XI/2010

Lesson time: dual - 0.7h, Solo - 0.2h

Total time: 18.4h (0.3h solo)

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Gavin McCusker

Got in earlier Today. Watched some young girl doing solo circuits bashing all morning in the Bonker. Her father is around always, watching every landing. He doesn't care about the approach, he always looks out on landing.

She only finished at 10:15, the time when I was suppose to go up. Gavin wasn't back yet, and when they landed (again, waiting in the queue at the triangle, because of all the traffic), they had a rather extensive debrief with his student.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands, and asked for the key. Took my time with preflights, because somehow I knew that I have time. The only thing that was bothering me, was a bit of oil inside one of the wheels. Apart from that , everything was super cool. I had time to make myself comfortable in the aircraft, strap myself in , etc. Meanwhile Daniel was struggling to 172 started next to the 152, I think it took like 4 times. I raised my flaps, to see it better, and thought even about possible action should there be a fire or something (you never know). But it was okay. However it doesn't hurt to be prepared for the worse.

Anyway. Gavin joined me, we talked about the plan for Today. Circuits circuits, and more circuits. On top of that, glide approach (should engine fail, but I could reach the runway), surprise efato (when instructor pulls the power on you, whist you are on the take off climb), and some solo work if time and the instructor permits. Never flew with Gavin before, so obviously he had no idea what a piece of work I am ;)

Anyway. Off we went, Gavin's call sign is 'scrabo 66'. For some reason, on the take off roll, I said 'scrabo 66 6 rolling active'. Don't ask.

Gavin told me to level off, before turning in the circuit, which should give me much better lookout. Another good piece of advice. This is the bright side to having multiple instructors.

Due to some traffic, and the fact that I started to level off before each turn, my circuits were looking a bit funny. Instead of flying parallel to the runway, I started to turn in a bit. So my base legs were rather short, and I had to S turn pretty much half of my finals. But I managed good (I think).

On my second circuit, Gavin pulled power and asked me what am I going to do now. Pushed the nose forward for 70 knots, and started to look for a field. I noticed a lot of wires in the air around pretty much all streets in the area. Very scary. I would turn 45 deg to either side, to avoid the wires, but was too low already. So I pushed the power back, and off we went. I think Gavin was ok with my implementation of the efato procedure.

On 4th circuits, I was asked to do glide approach. The basic idea is, that you have an engine failure on downwind, and you want to land on the real piece of runway. So about abeam numbers on the downwind, Gavin pulled the power again, and walked me through it. Basically, same deal as with efato, but you want to land on the rwy. Flaps 10 or 20, if required, speed at 70, trim, and start level one turn towards runway. I did that rather well, but there was the fire truck on the runway, so it was a go around. (again, cos 3rd one ended up in go around too. Daniel and student were still on the runway when I was about to land).

No GPS record from Today, cos the iphone app decided to stop recording it when I put it in my pocked :/ Oh well.

Don't remember how many circuits exactly I did. One before the last, Gavin asked me if I'm okay doing one on my own. Of course I was !.

I dropped him off at the apron, and turned around, checked for traffic twice actually (but turned in the other direction than the circuits ...). This time I was told to use 'student kilo romeo' as my call sign. There was one guy on base, so I just jumped in, announced my intentions and went up. I remember adjusting my seatbelt to be very tight, just in case. It is something that I always tell my passengers when I have one in the car. Problem with harness not done tightly is that it will actually break your bones and do more damage than good should anything go wrong. I have to say, I am pretty anal about it. But anyway.

So off I went, on cross wind some guy announced that he is going to do an overhead join, and once I turned base, I could actually see him flying over. I'm sure he wasn't doing the overhead join at 2k ft, it was more likely 1500 or so. But still safe enough.

Despite my attempts to make the circuit wide, especially on downwind, I ended up not so much parallel to the rwy, and again doing an S turn on my finals.

Apart from that, my landings were rather good I gotta say. We had to go around twice, which was a shame. But that was due to external factors.

On the last dual landing, we ended up bit high. So I was asked if I can do a slip. I know about crossing controls, etc, but never actually tried it on finals before. So I had a chance. I gotta say, it feels much better when you are the guy that actually controls the manoeuvre.

Solo circuit landing was pretty good too. I turned left to the triangle (see the EGAD layout to get the idea), and saw the aircadets guy just backtracking the active. Now I would have to wait for another guy to land (was on downwind), and aircadet moto-glider to take off before I would get to the apron. So I asked him, if he wouldn't mind letting me past. The reply was 'if you can catch up on the rwy, sure'. So I pushed the power, turned towards the apron, and passed him to his left, over a bit dodgy tarmac on the sides of the run-up bit of the runway. But managed to get by on my own. Couldn't be prouder of my achievement :)

I know it sounds corky, but these little things can be quite fulfilling.

I am still not confident enough about the size of the aircraft, to turn it around on the apron, so I kind of abandoned it between two other aircraft, but not close to the edge, but rather some distance before it:

Oooops, sorry. Wrong flick.

Here, this one should be the right one:

I was told to shut it down myself, and note the meters. And so I did.

Got a bit of a debrief, where Gavin explained why I shouldn't really do more than two notches turn on climb out. It all made sense. And after reading also Stick and Rudder, I got the idea even better.

Gavin complemented my flying, and said that I should really start thinking about doing Navs. I dunno what to say about that really (maybe you have suggestions ? ). I do the circuits for some time now, but I would also love to do some solo ones. On the other hand, seeing a bit of a different type of flying, might be quite nice. I always like new things, and get bored doing same thing after a while, so maybe he is right.

Dunno. That actually makes me wonder on the book I should start reading next. Met or Nav. The latter has to be bought, cos I don't have it.

Afterwards I ended up buying the club's t-shirt for my youngest brother. It's his birthday in bit over a week. I am going home for a week, mainly because of that event. For some reason, that has more value to me , than spending christmas at home. But than, I am not really normal anyway. Am I.

All in all, I gotta say, that I probably had even bigger smile on my face after Today's solo.

I was told, how people have this great feeling for weeks after the first solo. I don't know, I was proud of myself, eager to do more, but the feeling was more like 'finally !', rather than 'I am so great, look at me!'. But than, maybe I am just old. I remember tho, my first drive after getting my driver's license. But that's obviously not on the subject here. Suffice to say, I couldn't get enough. And I still do love to drive. I know that same thing will be true about flying.

And on that bombshell....

Route: circuits, RWY22

Milestones: glide approach, another solo, first side-slip on my own.

Exercises covered: ex 12, 13 and 14

Weather: some clouds, QNH 1013, virtually no wind or cloud on the sky.

Lesson 22 - round and round and round and .. a solo round.

2010-10-31T10:37:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 22

31/X/2010

Lesson time: 1.1h

Solo time 0.1h

Total time: 17.5h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: David Phillips

:) :) :) ...

What can I say.

Air-law passed, medical done. I was looking forward to be in the air Today. But weather forecast was indeed shit. Heavy rains, yadda yadda yadda. Typical for this region.

But, typically, people in England have no clue about irish weather, and that was indeed the case this time. Forcast was just waaay off. Its 1600 when I'm writing this, and there's still no sign of rain. Plenty of clouds, but no heavy rain forecasted for this late morning !

Following my bit rough ride through the farm land yesterday, I got out earlier Today with intention to clean my car from all that mud. It is a religious experience for me. I like it. Drive to jetwash, grab the hose and just do it. 15 minutes or so, and car is sparkling.

Off I went to the club, lesson was booked for 13:30, I got there around 13:00. As soon as I jumped in to the instructor's room, I greeted everybody (rather quietly, but David spotted me). Could see they were busy chatting, as soon as I turned around David said 'Kilo Romeo ? grab the keys, I'll do the papers and meet you in the plane'. So I went out or a preflight. David jumped back in not so soon after I've finished:

Last time I flew with David, I was still trying to nail approaches and landings. He was kind enough to do pretty tight circuits, and let me just try landing. All I can say is that I sucked at it back than.

As soon as he got in, question was - did you ever practiced forced landings after take-off. I knew where this is going, altho I equally thought - darn, there's no way I am going to go solo Today. I have probably to try few other things, like after take-off practice landings.

David quickly walked me through it. The basic idea is, that there is no time to think about what's wrong. You need to keep the speed alive, choose a place and land it. Seems pretty easy to me, but of course a lot depends on the luck. Ie, where you are , and where can you actually land it.

Today 04 was active, which means right hand circuit, and need to backtrack the whole way to the threshold. Of course, on a weekend day there's no chance to actually do it without need to use one of the taxi ways at the end of the runway. There's just too much traffic.

Anyway, we got there, 'ready?' 'ready!'. And off we went. As soon as I turned cross wind David took over to demonstrate the engine failure procedure on takeoff. Taking off 04 there's only city ahead of you, so not really possible to practice landings there, so you need to wait for the mid-cross wind leg.

We did couple circuits, some tight, some pretty good ones. No two approaches were alike. I got a chance to try the practice approach (not the landing ;) ) after engine failure. The idea is pretty simple, so not much to talk about. Also, from that height there's not much you have time to do.

I had to go around at one stage, because I ended up way too high.

I ended up retracting flaps a bit too fast on the go around, so David decided to walk me through it. I only did it once before, with Anthony. Basically, I was too quick to retract the flaps, in stages, but too quick. Basic idea is to get rid of the drag flap (retract to 20), but leave it there, until speed is good and we're off the ground. In my case, I only waited for the VSI to show positive rate, and did another stage, etc.

Another thing that I got wrong was retracting flaps too quickly on touch and go. I ended up pushing the yoke a bit, when leaning forward to retract flaps. Obviously not a good idea. Thank goodness, that the C152s nose wheel are designed to take a bit of beating.

We did about 8 altogether, and when David said that this one is for the full stop - I knew that the judgement hour is upon me ;)

Needless to say, he told me to turn left (which is nowhere in direction of the apron). We stopped and he asked me if I would be able to do one on my own. Little expecting what's really to come, I nodded saying - there always has to be the first time, and thinking "of course I am, I've been hoping to do this solo for a long time now". He just organised a lift back to the apron, and told me to turn around and get back on the runway.

I taxied back. The view was really nice. Finally I could see to the right, no obstacles blocking my view ;)

Checked the approach, no one on finals or base. Good.

Lined up, waited for some guy to vacate the rather longish 04/22 rwy.

As soon as he said that he's off, I pushed it, and was airborne in no time.

My first two calls I made as 'kilo romeo', but than got back to 'scrabo 62' - David's call sign. I got told later that I shouldn't use it.

Everything seemed to be easy-peasy. But than once I turned base, the thought got me - "shit, you're on your own buddy. No one to back you up now".

pulled the power. I noticed that it was gliding much better. So had to pull some more, but I only did notice that before turn finals.

That was probably one of my best approaches, if I might say so. Probably because I got bollocked for previous eight approaches about what I did wrong.

Landed it nicely, altho, probably a bit before numbers (David said that at this stage if I land on the first 1/3 of the rwy it will be good enough for him).

I was a bit to the side, so there was a bit of rubber burning when I touched down. But it wasn't so bad. Stall warner sounded before the touchdown.

Whenever someone requested info, David would tell them that there's student on his first solo in the circuit. Makes you feel a bit special.

Backtracked to the apron, someone congratulated me on the radio. To which I replied "I feel a bit scared", "That's the way you're suppose to feel" , "tada". :D

I sort of abandoned the aircraft on the apron, I couldn't really see any good way to turn it around.

I'm the guy on the right. You can see that the whole traffic unfroze as soon as I left the taxiway behind me ;) There was some guy waiting there in microlight, but he was kind enough to move a bit to make some space.

The feeling afterwards reminded me of my first ride in the car after I got my license. I was on high alert, shaking a bit, or you could say - excited. But wanted more and more and more. Only difference is, that here I wouldn't probably dare to do more, because I was a bit knackered.

Checking out and paying for the lesson, Daniel - instructor I flew with couple lessons back, said that he was ready to send me off back then, if I only had my airlaw.

(I only noticed when I got home, it should say 152 instead of 172).

So here's the tip, for those who only started (and you have to be one, or be pretty patient to get here through my greggish writing, or be David P :P ). Sort out your medical and airlaw as soon as possible. You don't really wantto hear that you could have been sent solo earlier if it wasn't for these things.

I'll probably start to grin Tomorrow. Today I just can't believe that I did it :)

I have the GPS tracks for Today's lesson, but they are really irrelevant.

Big thanks to David for all tips and the trust. I hope I got all the facts right.

... :) :) :)

Route: circuits, RWY04

Milestones: first solo.

Exercises covered: ex 12, 13 and 14

Weather: some clouds, QNH 1004, bit of a cross wind.

Air-law passed !

2010-10-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

Decided on Monday this week, that I shall pass air law this week. I did 2 shifts on Monday pretty much, one overnight, so I didn't study too much on Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday I catched some bloody infection of the throat, and remained at home till end of the week. Whenever I'm ill, and at home, I would sleep very irregularly, so I had time to read and do airquiz tests. My pass mark was around 80-90 in airquiz.com and the iphone app from the great circle in england (very good app, but I would change couple things there, but as the iphone developer, I am a bit spoiled ;) ).

Woke up on Friday mid day, feeling much better, read a book some more, did more tests, with scores ranging from 60-95%.

Saturday, again, woke up midday, did three airquiz tests, and two on the iphone. All passes, altho marks were below 90 (not much off tho). Decided to phone the club, and since I haven't spoke much for the past two days, there was some babbling on the phone initially. But I was told I can just stop by, and take it Today. Jumped in the car, took route much different from the usual, so my car looks like I drove on farm roads (which I did), especially after Yesterday floods in the area.

I got the pen, papers, and was sat in the room where I usually get my briefs before lesson.

What can I say, some answers were not as clear to me as I would hope. Even tho I knew subjects. For instance, question about filing flight plan from an aerodrome where there's no designated facility for it (no atc, etc). Pretty much all answers were right (as even acknowledged by the instructor), but only one was the best one according to the CAA.

A lot of subjects on the Chicago Convention and the ICAO stuff. Far more than I expected.

Didn't have any questions on quadrantal rules, or QNH/QFE altitude/height calculations, rather disappointingly. But that doesn't mean they are not there on other tests.

All in all, my feeling after I've done it, was that I probably have failed it. But to my surprise, I got 82.5% mark. Not so bad, CFI said, that there is quite few cases of people failing it first time apparently, so - he said - not to feel too bad about it, if I fail the first one.

Passed it. Yay.

I feel like another , rather important chapter of this training is finally in front of me.

To all novice folks reading this, make yourself a favour, and pass it in earlier. If your school does ground classes, kiss the ground on which they walk. It would really be useful if I had one. (altho ulster uni does one now apparently, so not all is lost)

If weather permits, I'm flying tomorrow. And yes, I have that rather naive hope. And yes, my instructor laugh when I said it already :)

Lesson 21 - landings landings \m/

2010-10-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 21

17/X/2010

Lesson time: 1.0h

Total time: 16.4h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Gary Ferguson

Another new instructor I have never fly with before. Gary is from NZ, and as all kiwi's he is extremely friendly guy. You can tell the guy works out, so he is quite wide so to say. And that's probably was my only thought since yesterday (no pun intended). 'how are we going to fit in 152' :) But we made it.

Like all kiwis he was straight to the point. Just wanted to get up, so he went through the checks whilst I prepared my stuff.

Initially he wanted to fly very tight circuits himself, and leave me on approach and landing, but it turned out otherwise.

There was very little traffic Today in the air, and in the club for Sunday with fairly good weather.

The checks were so quick, I barely fixed my headphones before we lined up for 22. Than just a quick push of the power, and off we went.

Circuits as circuits. Every instructor has its own ways and Gary is no exception. He wanted landing/taxi lights when necessary, etc. Also when it came to good old bump-fich, he said to dump it, and instead go through knobs and gauges in the cockpit, maintaining lookout every few. That makes much more sense that remembering some abbreviations.

Than there was approaches. I usually pull power to about 1500 RPM once I turned on base, than hold the nose, let speed bleed, and put two stages of flaps. Gary noticed that this gets me into trouble, and instead suggested about 1700 RPM which indeed helped to keep me up high enough for the approach.

So because of the speed problem, I ended up too high on the second one, and Gary showed me side slip approach. It was pretty scary I gotta say, but got us down pretty quick.

I think I nailed it by the time we did like 4th, and Gary even asked what's my medical status ("Do you have our medical sorted?"), to which I affirmed, but said that I still need to do my airlaw. He later said, that he was considering sending me solo. Nice.

Second to last circuit was just prefect, in his own words. And I nailed landing spot on. So he decided to do another one. And so the last one was just the total opposite. I think because he reminded me when turning base, that I need to put my landing light on. That sort of threw me off the track. But still it wasn't too shabby.

During the debrief, he also mentioned that I still gotta do the flares much nicer. I keep flying nearly level above the runway, instead of getting it up notch more. Apparently that would cause even greater ground effect, and will slow us down even better and cushion the landing itself. Cos one thing I noticed so far, is that I don't get the stall warner on flare. And that's probably why.

All in all very nice day. Its been a while since I flew for an hour, but I am very happy with my progress now.

I have fortnight before the next one, so need to sit down on my air-law. For various reasons I doubt that the next instructor will be keen on sending me solo, even if I will get my air-law. But I keep my fingers crossed for that.

(think this is the shortest entry ever).

Route: circuits, RWY22

Milestones: even better landings.

Exercises covered: ex12 and 13

Weather: FEW017 SCT045, QNH 1024, wind all over the place.

Lesson 20 - nailing the landings

2010-10-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 20

16/X/2010

Lesson time: 0.8h

Total time: 15.4h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: David Hodgkinson

My plan to fly more often is going well so far, the weather was approaching CAVOK Today. Pretty much the best you can get around here.

Started my Saturday as usual, with bit of physical, 20 miles on bicycle, including couple of steep hills to go onto. Afterwards, I was so buzzed with energy that I could not sit at home. Decided to jump in the car, and drive to the club, and learn a bit more of the airlaw in the car.

30 min before the flight, I asked for the key. I never had a chance to actually fly with David before. One of my first lessons, before I even flew for the first time that I booked with him ended up with quite extensive preflight. He was an engineer himself, so I have some common language with him. And share the love for details and technicalities.

Did my preflight. Noticing that trim tab only 'works' on one of the stabilisers. As it turned out, it is only on one of them ! it makes perfect sense, but I have no clue why haven't I noticed it before. Also port wheel was rather in poor condition in comparison with the starboard one. But it was ok according to CFI. Apparently you don't need to replace them in pairs like on an automobile, so the starboard one was brand new, and hence the contrast. Nose wheel looked a bit deflated too, but that is also on purpose. It makes the nose-wheel shim a little less. If you ever flown in C15X you know what I'm talking about.

Today was also the day I was using my Pooley's checklist, rather than the club one. It is much smaller, but I never used it in the aircraft. It does some checks in different order, and is worded differently from the one I used to use. But it is also much easier to handle in rather cramped space that C152 provides. I was quite taken over by the fact that I flew with the CFI. So I must have forgot couple things. But he is very patient, and he always gives reasons to his remarks. Which I very like. I like to know why that way, not only that I did something wrong.

Radio work went rather smooth. No probs with that anymore. I also felt much more engaged in the whole experience. Probably because again, no one was trying to grab the controls from me. Or perhaps I am getting grasp of the whole thing more and more. Dunno. I also had my 8 quid 'pilot' sunglasses on my nose, which helped to keep cool and I was able to fly into the sun for a change. I still aim to get proper ones, but can't cough up 80 quid for specs just yet. (that's nearly 40 minutes in the c152, why waste it for some top end glasses).

Took off nicely, turns were ok, but made monkey off myself during bumpfich again. David said, just to check all vitals, like instruments, fuel, breaks, carb heat, and not worry about other things.

First approach was complete rubbish. I turned on too early, mixed up things. I was very nervous, flying with David for the first time, trying to give good impression probably. Dunno.

Second one, David asked me to fly away a bit further from the runway, bumpfich suddenly decided to let me get it right. Approach was still rubbish, we had to go around, because of some guy closing in behind us.

Third one, we had aircaddet in moto-glider flying before us. Even in 152 we catch up rather quickly. I had to fly parallel to it, and had to slow down to about 65 knots, extend my downwind. This approach was much better. I got reminded again that carb heat goes out first before I pull the power. Otherwise it is pointless to do it with less hot air that goes out when you pull the power.

I was spot on on that approach, and was announced to have landed (and than took off) completely by myself, with David sitting relaxed and with hands crossed.

On fourth one I forgot about flaps, which David kindly retracted for me.

And others were just fine :) Maybe too high on the last one. But,boy other traffic can distract you.

(that blue line is when my GPS thought I took off vertically into the air)

One note, microlights. What's the point in having a radio, if from 200 ft I cannot hear you clear on mine ? Seriously. I don't know how these people are still alive.

All in all. Couple lessons learned. Carb heat goes out before power is pulled. Comes back around 200ft before landing. Lookout is very important, and so is speed on approach. It turned out that I was extremely high on approaches before, because I always felt that I am too low. So note to self, this is a landing you are getting lower, that's the point of it!

What else ? I got CFI to tell me (and my instructor for the next day), that my landings are finally coming together. That was a very high complement.

I have to say, for an ex engineer, he has a very typical sense of humour. Kind of like all of us. Good to see that some things don't change over the years. I tried to even complement him, saying that these days one would say that he has a nerd type of sense of humour. He was surprised, but I hope he didn't took that wrong.

And initially I told him, that I would do rather something else Today than circuits. But he insisted on doing one or two before doing overhead joins. I'm glad I did stay in circuit Today (sounds funny, I know).

There was also a lot of traffic Today, so I learned a good deal about listening. And also that when there's two guys in the thing, four eyes and four ears hear and see things better and quicker. Altho I believe that David heard and saw everything just fine, but elected to see if I could :)

One things makes me sad. If I had my airlaw done now, I would go solo Tomorrow most probably. Oh well, I will have again two weeks to sort that out.

:=]

Route: circuits, RWY04

Milestones: landed without much help 3 times ! yay.

Exercises covered: ex12 and 13

Weather: very clear, little bit of wind.

Medical passed

2010-10-12T11:33:00.000-07:00

2nd class medical for 5 years passed with flying colours.

Costs nearly £200, and takes about an hour. I am not going to write too much about it here. But needless to say, I was scared like s*^t beforehand, and it turned out to be quite ok. Just got single remark from the doctor (not on the cert itself), that I need to loose weight, otherwise it might be rather hard for me to do so after I hit 35.

So, on the 'ready for solo' checklist, I still got two positions to check: (you've guessed it)air law, and learn to land properly, so that instructor will be confident I won't crash the spam can.

Next two lessons booked for this coming weekend. Subject to weather obviously.

Lesson 19 - yes, still in the circuit.

2010-10-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 19

03/X/2010

Lesson time: 0.6h

Total time: 14.6h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Daniel Meanley

At the end of August, most instructors I flew with left the club. After quite painful September (finically), I decided to book 4 lessons in the October. There was a bit of motivation to push things forward with flying, if I want ever to get it done. I am approaching the stage, where if I won't solo soon I will loose motivation. Still quite ahead for that to happen, with my angel's patience. But on the second side of the curve (down-hill that is).

The weather wasn't looking good Yesterday, but somehow it cleared up Today. It was actually very lovely. I went cycling a bit, washed my car, and than drove to the club.

Every time I enter the club after a bit of break, I get very excited. My heart beats up very loud and high, and I nearly get into the panic state 'what would I do'.

Waited a bit for the instructor, talked to folks in the instructor room a bit. One of the students was on her solo, and she got microlight in front of her on finals, quite close. So her instructor had to tell her to go around. Dunno if it was her's first solo or not, but she was doing very good on landings. I went outside to look how everybody else is doing.

I never flew with Daniel before, he just joined the club recently, so I had no idea how he looks, or what sort of instructor he is. Won't name them here, but some instructors wouldn't let me do much if I did something wrong, the would take immediately. And in a situation where there was no danger, or anything (say taxing, etc). So I had my reservation as to who this guy will be , etc.

Anyway, the time came, and he came back from his previous lesson. After he did paperwork for the previous student, he asked me what was I doing currently, and if I am flying solo now (lol). Btw, I phoned the local CAA doc, to get an appointment. Left a message on his phone, probably will get a response on Monday. Brushing up my airlaw knowledge. Still rubbish at it. But I do realise, that I need these two things done asap, to get ahead in flying.

Anyway, told him that I am in circuits stage, and went off to checkout the aircraft.

He arrived pretty soon, and I had just to tell him, that I would like - if possible, to remain at controls whenever possible. And was happy to hear back, that this is precisely what he always does. Such a relief.

Went flying through the checks, a bit of hesitation on the initial radio call, but all others went very smooth indeed. But I got response back from David H, with QNH 991, and active RWY 22. Read it back, nearly correct, but forgot to check the dial on the instrument. Monkey..

Lined up , did my checks, did 360 to check the circuit, and left aircraft pointing towards rwy22 entrance. Daniel was very nice to remind me, that I cannot see anyone on finals that way properly, and I should turn a bit to the right. Breaks were funny, so I did almost 360 again, this time, I could see some microlight on finals. The microlights have rubbish radios. The guys were calling from 500 ft, and I could barely hear it in the aircraft.

Taxied onto the rwy, lined up. Asked Daniel, if he is ready. He confirmed. And off I went. That beautiful feeling of taking off into the sky. And , ghaaa, sun shining into my eyes. Spoiled the fun. I started to sweat like hell. Hate it (sweating that is). Continued on, trying to remember how it is to keep the aircraft in balance. It was grand. Around 500 ft, did my lookout, and turned. Again, around 950 ft, another lookout, turn.

I did level off on the first circuit, waited a bit for the speed to build up. And now, a bit of hesitation. Was it 2300 rpm, 2200 ? Shit. I went with 2300 first, but the aircraft was still speeding up. So lowered it a bit. I attempted (C)BUMPFICH, but it was rubbish. Even tho, I was talking to myself these checks earlier on Today whilst cycling. I also forgot radio call. Monkey.

Turned base, pulled power, waited for the speed, flaps, 10, 20. Watched for 65 knots, turned finals.. And Daniel spoke. For the first time. "you forgot your radio call". Lol. The man is an angel. He did patiently let me do all these things, and was very very patient and understanding. As usual, I made a mess out of the flare. I asked Daniel to follow me through on the next one. But he said 'well done landing'. I suppose, we walked from it (or rather pressed on for another take off - touch and go), so it wasn't so bad.

Next circuit was much better. Sun in the eyes, sweat on the take off. Than turn away from the sun for crosswind. On downwind, this time I made the call, went through the bumfich very smoothly.

On the flare I was a bit too low, this time Daniel walked me through it, even backed up the power leaver too, to show me how smoothly, yet quickly I have to release it. I did baloon on this one, but we pressed on. 22 is very long, so you can give it a try.

Pressed in the power, and off we went. i got reminded that i should really push the leaver much quicker. This is one of my fears, that I push it very hard, and the engine will quit or something. So i always do it gently, counting 1,2,3 very slowly. But looks like I have to stop that habit of mine.

Last circuit was bit tighter, cos we wanted to get away from some student soloing in 172 (I so envy these guys now) trying to cut our tail off (just kidding obviously, but in 172, the guy had no issues in catching up, and he probably doesn't realise that he is suppose to slow down when there's a slower aircraft in the circuit).

This time I was too low on the approach, and only about 45 knots. Daniel pushed in the power, so it was a balloon , but in the air, if that makes sense. And than I tried to land us, which went rather well.

Slowed us down, and quick turn to the left, as the tail cutter was right behind for touch and go.

And than we spent another 5 minutes probably, waiting for everyone to land. All of the sudden there was a queue of aircraft to land, so we had to wait. RWY22 is the longest, and widest, but also you have to back track it to get back to the apron. Aircraft on approach has the right of way, so you cannot enter an active runway when there is anyone on the approach. I did another monkey thing there, which is, I didn't turn the aircraft so that I could see the approach well enough. Well, one more thing to learn.

We got back, I do understand what I did wrong rather well, so there was not much to discuss. Got my paperwork done, and went off to pay.

Since I was feeling so well after this lesson, I thanked Daniel for the lesson, and said that I enjoyed it very much. Not to offend any other instructor, most of whom I flew with were great, but this guy is in the same league with Rodger when it comes to patience. And somehow, it helps me great deal to absorb more that way.

Next lesson booked in two weeks. I booked for Saturday and Sunday. I think, in the future it will make sense to book for two slots in the same day, with an hour break in between.

All in all, greatly enjoyed that one.

Now, that I got two weeks, it is time to sit down and lear the bloody air-law for 100%, and also sort out my medical.

:)

Route: circuits, RWY22

Milestones: none ?

Exercises covered: ex12 and 13

Weather: very clear, little bit of wind.

Lesson 18 - Back to the basics. Basic handling, at the Trim aerodrome

2010-08-29T04:15:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 18

28/VIII/2010

Lesson time: 0.5h

Total time: 14.0h

Location: EITM ( Trim aerodrome http://www.trimflyingclub.ie/ for more info )

Aircraft: EI-DCC (C172)

Instructor: William Treacy

I got a newsleter from Flyer Magazine on the other day, and finally - it says, that there's a flyin nearby (ie, on the patch of land I live on currently). Decided to go, and have a look.

So, got my breakfast, and jumped in the car. 97 miles later, we got to a very nice rural area of the rep of Ireland, co Meath. I saw one aircraft on its finals, but couldn't really find an entrance to the aerodrome. Of course, my trusty iPhone came to the rescue, as always in that sort of situation :)

We parked in, and went to have a look around. In general, it is a farm strip, with a two little buildings one used as instructor's hq, and the other one as general clubhouse. From the start, you could tell, that they are not used to visitors. I didn't felt out of place, or unwelcome, but you could see, that everyone knew each other, and you didn't knew anyone :)

[caption id="attachment_148" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="View at the apron, all the visiting aircraft"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_147" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="View at the apron, all the visiting aircraft cont"][/caption]

Nonetheless, I decided to ask someone if it is possible to have a ride with instructor. I was pointed at a very nice chap name William, as it turns out he is the CFI. We got there around 15:30, and he said it might be a while later before I could actually go and have a go. Well. It would be a wasted day otherwise.

We spent a bit of time with Kate, looking around the aircraft on the apron. She was quickly bored with all that, as since we knew no one, and I only had breakfast, we decided to have something to eat at the nearby town of Trim. Plus, the club doesn't take cards ,so cash and fly is the name of the game. I needed some paper.

Trim is a small town, with a very nice castle. And quite few places to eat. We went there to have something to eat, got some cash out (as it turned out, the diner was taking cash only too, what a place..), and went off to see the castle. The entrance was 3 euro, just to see a patch of 3 acres, so imo wasn't worth it. We just went around the castle to see the place. It is a very nice place indeed. Very quiet for Saturday, and all in all very nice.

[caption id="attachment_149" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="myself in front of the Trim Castle "][/caption]

Went back to the aerodrome, I got ahold of William, and told him that I am still very keen on getting up. I guess the guy was either staggered, or couldn't believe that I am still willing to stick around. :) There was some chap having his PPL exams taken, and he was waiting for an instructor. There was an aircraft waiting and prepared for him, so William didn't wanted to use it. Meanwhile, the aircraft I wanted to go in, EI-DDC, has been away with another student. So had to wait for them to comeback.

At around 18:00, I saw the aircraft coming back, for touch and go. And than after a circuit, they landed for full stop.

Few minutes later William said, that it is the time :D I couldn't be happier. Altho, after them few hours of waiting, it probably didn't show. Mind you it was windy, and we were waiting outside all the time.

Went to the aircraft, for a preflight. As with every CFI , William was very through in his preflight checks. And I also learned few new things.

For instance, they use wooden spoons (serious) instead of dip sticks, to check fuel levels. This is because, they don't want them to drop into the tank. Very wise. But seemed to me very odd indeed. We then went on to take some fuel samples, and they were all great.

Went around the aircraft as well, and William pointed me at few things that I've never checked. For instance, he checked stall warner with his lips. Serious, you just have to put your mouth around it, and suck in a bit of air. Never seen anyone doing it to be honest. I shared couple things that I would do. Every single guy would do checks more or less differently (and I am talking about extra things outside of the checklist). So you learn every single time, you talk to some other pilot. I like it about that profession. People are not shy in sharing things. They know, every single thing you share, could save someone else's life one day.

[caption id="attachment_146" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="The aircraft for the lesson"][/caption]

It was also understandable, that William - never seeing me before in his life - was going through things with me, as if I never flew an aircraft before. Quite strange feeling, as so far I've been flying with people who at least had access to my records. So could see that I've been doing things.

I jumped in, and very first thing I noticed, was that instruments were in different spots from what I normally would see in Ards on 172.

One of the first things on the checklist, even before you start an engine, is to extend flaps. And there's the first foobar that I encountered. Where the hell is the flaps thingie. Needless to say, there was nothing like it on the panel. I was slightly puzzled. It turned out, that on the older 172s you get 3 way switch, and a gauge. So you need to operate the flaps, and check the gauge to see where they are at.

Another new thing I learned, was to check the ailerons, first to the left, and count one-two, moving yoke to sides. And than same thing for right. They obviously need to move in different direction.

Started the engine, and there's another gotcha. Where the heck did all engine monitoring stuff go. It turned out to be on the other side, Again William had to point me to it.

We went off. Never ever before did I had a chance to taxi on a grass. So first word of advice was, sloooow. Much slower than would I would do in Ards. Another thing, he showed me, was to test some of the instruments whilst taxing. Just do few turns on the runway backtrack, to see how things are moving. Nice. I did a bit of mess when turning for the power checks. So my instructor took over again.

I lined up, started to push the power slowly in. As always, was told to do it quicker. Rotated, and it turned out again, that I pulled too much. As it turned out, the ASI is in mph not knots.

William than asked me to level off at 2000 ft, probably due to the dublin airport zone above us. Obviously, I did a mess of that. Pulled the power too early.

Than was a procession of failures. But that's my point in getting a go with someone else, somewhere else. Originally I wanted to do this back at home, but my cash buckets were running out.

He than proceed to ask me to get slightly higher up, make few turns. Than a bit of approach configuration training, trimming, etc. I did a bit of mess of everything, but was much better than last time I was doing all that to be honest.

We went a bit to the north, than turned west. All I could see were collection points on , what I thought was M1, but it was M3. It was time to head back. To be honest, nothing on the ground looked familiar. I of course, never been up in the air in the area before. And there's another thing, if you look down, and search for a farm strips, there's a surprise. There's farms wherever you look, with exception of some small towns.

I was guided as to how to set it for an approach. So far, my past quite few lessons were in 152, so I had to be told what to set to what. And as always, I was too low on the approach. (btw, I tend to do same errors in X-Plane, when I tried my skills on approach there).

William took over the landing, as again, we flew together for the first time, and of course he couldn't trust me that I would do it right.

I did a bit of taxing back to the apron in front of the club, but William parked the aircraft on a nice little concrete patch where it will be parked.

During the debrief, William explained to me why and what we did, which only agreed with my suspicions. That he was trying to see what can I do. He was very aware, that most things I did wrong were due to differences in the aircraft. One biggest criticism he had, was that I wasn't able to keep headings too well. It is something that have happened to me many times in 172s before. The more powerful engine, makes the yaw much more noticeable than in 152. In 152 I pretty much don't have to use much of the rudder to correct it, whilst 172 is very demanding in this regard. Of course, bank being secondary effect of the yaw, uncorrected, caused us to deviate of the course. And obviously, since I did a lot of power changes in the air, required rudder would be different depending on the power set at a particular moment.

I paid my fee, got back to my car. We headed back, but I needed a bit of rest on the way, I was so knackered. We stopped at a random petrol station, to fill it up. Since I had some euros left, I wanted to spend them. Plus I always like to fill it up, when it is under half full (or over half empty). Of course had to encounter some of my compatriots, showing off not so good attitude. No wonder locals than look down on me, because of my origins. Well...

On my way home, literally 2 streets away from the house, I got stopped by nice folks from PSNI. The PC that stopped me, told me that he can smell alcohol from me :D . Funny, cos I wasn't drinking since the beginning of July. I think he smelled my windscreen wash, as it was raining, and I just sprayed my windscreen massively before turning into that particular street. So 5 minutes later I was free to go home, and finally crash on my bed after a very exhausting day indeed. (it is a 2h drive each way, to/from dublin area from where I live).

Route: Departed to the north, for general handling, than went to the west, and back to the aerodrome.

Milestones: First flight outside of EGAD, and first one on a grass strip.

Exercises covered: General Handling

Weather: scattered low clouds, quite windy, and some rain.

Lesson 17, it's been a while.

2010-08-17T04:05:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 17

16/VIII/2010

Lesson time: 0.7h

Total time: 13.5h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Rodger McConnell

It has been a while. Constrained by finances, after holidays I decided to get up in the air. Took Monday and Tuesday off, due to my birthday.

Haven't flown for 2 months as it turned out, and having these two days off. I phoned the club on Friday, to book Monday with Roger. He is a great instructor, very patient one. And it is a shame that I don't get a chance to fly with him more often. But unfortunately he is in the club only on Mondays and Fridays, which doesn't suit me a bit.

I got in earlier, was booked for 16:30, but got there around 15:30. I decided to end up being precisely on time, or even late sometimes. With embarrassment and bad name, comes many lost occasions to get up in the air earlier when you are just on time, or slightly late. So decided to rectify my name a bit in this regard.

The club felt slightly different, certainly more quiet - but that's because it is not weekend day. I re-read anything that I could forget (checklists, etc). Around 16:15 went over to check the aircraft.

Even the pre-flight felt strange. Like I said, it has been a while, and I have lost the groove. Had to remind myself what to do. Obviously, I know the theory, but after that time I wasn't doing it as smooth.

The bonker has new engine. And apparently went through extensive checkup. I gotta say, it was felt during the preflight. Ailerons were working smoothly as never before. Obviously engine inside looked silvery and shine. New cap and dip stick. New gears.

It wasn't as clean as I remember it from the last time tho, plenty of bugs stuck to it all over the place. yack.

Jumped inside, creamed up to my seat. It is funny also, how you forget where some instruments are. I noticed some new electronics inside as well. Nice.

Spend a bit there, with rain getting heavier. Obviously, aircrafts not having windscreen wipers, you can't see anything. The propeller is a wiper, in a way. Roger have joined me after a bit. We had only 1/4 of fuel in each tank, and he was concerned but decided that we can go and fly anyway. Very well!.

Taxying was unexpectedly easy(er). Even Roger noticed, that I no longer taxi in a serpent trail style. Did bit of a mess before the hold, I decided to turn with the wind to do my power checks, rather than into the wind, so I quickly just did 360 deg turn instead, did my power checks and off we went.

Of course, forgot to pull the yoke on the roll, so typical. And off I went, rotate at 60.

This time, having just studied the checklist, I decided to do all of them by the book. So ELF checks at 300 ft, (C)BUMPFISCH + radio call on downwind, call before turning finals, CRAP on 300 ft on finals. Radio work was never so easy to me. Of course, first approach configuration ended up to be a complete mess.

Roger previously was telling me, that approach configuration is his thing. He is very particular about it, and I know very well why. I do fully agree with him.

Part of being 'rusty', is that some things just don't come around first time. So when I was trying to fix the picture (attitude) by pushing control column, rather than using power on the approach, and doing opposite when I got 30 deg flaps on finals. I should have being using stick for it, and retrim it. Trimming wasn't so bad, but not as smooth as it used to be.

Overall, this was a lesson in reminding myself all these little things that I have forgotten. Or perhaps that's a wrong word. I do know all that. But when it comes to do it, I don't do it right.

After each circuit I got better and better, but than it was time to finish the fun. The weather wasn't getting any better.

The touch down before last, we had quite few dozen of seagulls all over the runway, and I got quite worried, but Roger said to press on. They all just few away as soon as we got close. Engine caught in an odd fashion, only once. We went off for the last circuit.

Last landing ended up in probably with 3 bumps. But Roger was very patient, and let me fix it.

We got back to the apron, I had a chance to taxi it back nearly to its hangar. Very odd to taxi so close to hangars.

All in all , lesson was very good. I certainly enjoyed it. It was a very good thing that I chose Roger to be the instructor for the day. He has this patience, that probably no one else in the club has. Even if I screw up, he will let me fix it, rather than take over straight away. It certainly makes for better progress.

Whilst waiting for Roger to comeback from his previous lesson, before preflight. I learned from Anthony that him, and few other instructors are leaving the club. For most of them, work in the club is just a way to get some experience and hours in the log book. That's a shame, because some of those instructors (including Anthony), I will miss. Hopefully new people will be as good as them.

I really enjoy this flying thing ... :D During my lunch break, I would walk around a park, over hills. And look at aircraft landing at Belfast Airport. I always think than, that this could be my job, if I choose to...

Route: RWY 22

Milestones: I'm back!

Exercises covered: 12&13

Weather: scattered clouds, quite windy, and rain. Slowly deteriorating weather.

Lesson 16, Gregg demonstrates how to land .. not

2010-06-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 16

20/VI/2010

Lesson time: 0.8h

Total time: 12.8h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Anthony Smyth

Today was perfect day for flight. For some reason, there was not that many aircraft in the circuit when I drove close to the airport. Got bit worried by that, but they were flying alright.

Went out to checkout G-BNKR, it wasn't much flown Today for some reason, and my lesson was to be either last or one before last of the day.Odd. Plenty of fuel, everything in order otherwise.

Here's how it looked as I walked towards:

Now, here's a thingie that I noticed inside, the dark bit facing front. I wonder if this is so that you can put a camera there. If you know, let me know:

I did much better job taxing us to the 04 hold. Turned around nicely (Anthony asked me if I could do it) - well, in my own world that is.

And off we went. 6 circuits in whole. And everything was fine, more or less, except for the approach and landing...

I don't know what it is, but I approach more or less good. And than before the flare, madness starts. I tend to do opposite things to what needs done.

For instance, you are suppose to gently pull power and pull yoke, and let aircraft slowly and gently sink to the ground. Instead, when I see it dropping to fast, I add power, or push the stick. So out of 6 landings, probably one or two were not rubbish. Seriously. I do have to work on approach and landing some more, if I ever want to show anyone that it won't be a suicide mission to send me for a solo.

Anthony probably thinks, I am ignoring all he says. But truth of the matter is, I am trying to get a feel for all that stuff , so that I could do it myself, and react to things as they happen. Probably not the cheapest way to learn to fly (and land), but me thinks, most beneficial in terms of capabilities and knowledge. Let's just hope G-BNKR will survive that ;)

I won't bore you with details here, but out of 6 landings, we had to go around 2 times.

Side note, Kate bought me Red Ferrari ... perfumes yesterday. So Today I decided to put some on, prrrrobably too much. Anthony had to open window on one of the approaches to get some air (either that, or it was because I was running in sweat - it was damn hot). They are pretty intensive, so note to self, use less of it :)

Picture of zzz bonker's dashboard:

And circuits. One good thing, if I can think of one - is that I am taking off in much straighter line now. :)

That's it folks. Shortest post ever, I guess :)

Route: RWY 04

Milestones: Flap-less landing (twice). (70knts instead of 65)

Exercises covered: 12&13

Weather: scattered clouds, bit of wind, but otherwise perfect day for flying.

Lesson 15, approach, flare, more circuits

2010-06-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 15

13/VI/2010

Lesson time: 0.7h

Total time: 12.2h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: David Phillips

The weather wasn't very stable Today. Phoned in, and was told to show up anyway. Metars were showing possible storm, but you never know.

So I got in, a bit early. Interrupted David in his lunch (sorry David). But he insisted on sitting down, and going through what we are going to do Today. So I did. This was quite a bit of preflight. With some math, etc. I like that :) . Anthony joined in as well, whilst he had his quick lunch.

Without getting too deep into details, David walked me through approach configuration, when to flare, and landing bit. And that was to be my focus for the day.

I than did preflights, and jumped into the aircraft. I got worried about weather, it started to be more gusty. You could see some rain clouds to north, and clear skies to the south.

David joined me in few minutes, and said that we should be okay, and if not, we will just go back and wait. So I went on with the usual business. I got a chance to pretty much do the whole taxing this time, with virtually no interventions from instructor (or maybe just got lucky, or better after a bit of practice Yesterday). As it turns out, for the RWY 04 you can't just backtrack it. It is rather long, and someone might fancy a landing while you are crawling back. So about half way through we went to the right, and tracked back just before start of the RWY.

On my initial climb out, I this time around was consciously trying to keep my heading alright. And it kind of worked. As usual wind was blowing me all over the place, but I tried to keep me on the same heading. David took over for a second, and let me see through rear of the aircraft. It looked not too bad. (to be honest, anything is better than what I did Yesterday anyway :P ).

The circuit was right hand. First time I ever flown one. Not much of a difference, except that there's some bloke obstructing your view when you try to pick reference point (for turn), and do look out ;) But he also tends to spot things for you, so it works out well ;)

Whilst first part of the circuit was clear, the second bit of downwind, and base were covered in rain. So it was hard to choose any reference points, and David said to make the circuit low. Don't remember heights (you can look it up on the gps track), but it was lower than usual 1000 ft.

As usual, my checks were rubbish, and I didn't managed to do any radio calls whilst in the air. Oddly enough, whilst flying with Roger, second circuit and later were spot on, and I did all the checks. Probably just the learners experience effect. As I progress, I see more and more things.

Since my focus was on landings and approach, David walked me through that, and pointed at whatever I was doing wrong.

In essence (so that I won't bore you with too many details) I did my approaches too low, and have a 'ground shy' tendency. That means, that I am afraid to lower nose, even tho I am flying too slow. That in turn causes (obviously), the glide path to be wrong. And if I start to pull the stick, to get away from ground (instinct tells you that you are going to crash if you put nose down, but in reality, you'll gain some speed, and your glide path will be more gentle) - things will only go wrong. I just have to practice that bit of landing more and more. On top of that, decision as to when to flare, and what to do in landing. But I guess, I got that better after this lesson.

So here's my first circuit:

Second one was just pretty much a repeat of the first one. With me trying to get my checks in better order:

For some reason, my GPS (iphone 3GS, and app's called MotionX GPS - very good app) lost signal few times, hence the straight line on downwind, and rather funny looking base.

After the two circuits, David said - 'look , your circuits are fine, it is the approach and landing you need to practice, so I'll make this one a quickie and leave you just to do the approach'. Idea was great. I get to do more, in less time. Always good :)

So basically he flew rather accelerated circuit, very tightly, and left me to do the final bits. Here's how it looked:

This was very quick one indeed. Upon doing that one, I discovered that it is probably the people, houses and stuff that makes me even more susceptible to the 'ground shy' effect. Basically, I can see all the movement on the ground, and I should be concentrating on the RWY and aim for the numbers.

Next one was full size, and I don't remember whether David was showing me the approach on this one, or I did another one myself. It looked like this:

For the very next one, David decided to go and fly RWY 34 (with the chance to fly over Scrabo , the bit that I like about it most :) ). There's no distractions on finals. You just fly over water. There is always someone on the sea wall, just passing underneath the aircraft as you try to land - but that doesn't make me worried too much. And I think this one was much better. Altho, I still feel like I am flaring too high.

Last one was to be a quick one, so again David did expedite us and set me up for approach:

He said this one was spot on, except for the approach, which was too low. I still seem to have to work on it. Well, that's the whole purpose of training, isn't :)

Once landed, he just said 'now take me home'. Wasn't sure if he was proposing another trip , or just wanted to go back to the clubhouse ;)

Overall, new instructor, new experiences, new perspective. This way it will probably take me longer to get the license, but I will also get more out of it (hopefully).

I know David will probably read it, so if I left anything interesting out, or got something wrong, let me know.

Finally, here's the full track (check out options->tour feature ;).

And btw, let me know,if you think I am putting in too many tracking images.

All screenshots above are from Google Earth.

Route: RWY 04 and 34

Milestones: hopefully got better understanding of approach, and flare, flew in rain

Exercises covered: 12&13

Weather: quite a windy day, some showers

Lesson 14, steep turns ... G-fun :D !

2010-06-13T02:42:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 14

12/VI/2010

Lesson time: 0.8h

Total time: 11.5h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Anthony Smyth

I had a bit of break away from flying. My last flight was bit over month ago. So bit nervous, will I remember the drill ?

Got to the club just before 9, Anthony was already there. Got out of the 'instructors room'. I could see CFI was a bit puzzled as to which runway to choose, as wind was changing a lot.

I sat down, and Anthony told me that circuits are not going to be possible Today - I thought, great, so no flying. But no, turned out, we could do a bit of flying, but we have to go high up - air is much more "smooth" there. I am to do some steep turns. Well, always welcome new things.

Went out to do preflight, and soon Anthony joined me to ask me, if I wanted to fly C152 or C172. Apparently I was booked for C172. But C152 was free, and I do remember that I booked for C152 anyway (had it written down on my iphone when I booked). He went away, just to join me moments later.

Here's pic from apron cam, of me doing preflight:

You can even see some sun shining of my bald spot on top of my head :P

I was amazed how quickly I got back to reading the checklist, everything went very smooth.

As usual, taxing to the hold, and than across the runway was done in a serpent's style, but you wouldn't believe how uneasy it is to control an aircraft on the ground. After all, it wasn't designed to be driven, but was designed to fly.

Rolled to 26-34 hold ( see EGAD chart here in PDF ). Due to me being rather slow (other do the power check list very quickly from memory usually), we let guys past us, and than I did power checks. Much quicker than usual, because I already know what's coming next. And where's what.

Entered active, and backtracked it. It is funny how they always insist that I turn on the very last patch of asphalt. It is understandable, but with my still sloppy taxing skill, makes me slightly nervous.

I turned the aircraft around, and asked Anthony with grin on my face "you're ready for this?". It has been a while, so I could expect everything. Plus, I knew that the air is quite turbulent Today (gusts to 20kts I believe). I pushed the throttle, counting 1-2-3 whilst doing it. And off we went.

It doesn't bother me anymore as much as it used to, when wind tries to push you down, despite the fact that you are trying to climb up. But it is some interesting feeling. As usual, my climb out was crap. I still have to learn how to take off in straight line, rather than be blown away. Sometimes I think, it would be nice to have a rear view mirror on an aircraft (and horn, so you could scare off people wondering around the apron ). So here's my climb out, and first circuit bit profile. Cringe if you must. Advice is welcomed :P

(btw, here's the whole gps track )

As you can see, I got blown to the east quite a bit. For some reason it always happens. Perhaps because it is hard for me to follow reference point, whilst nose is up (since you see just a blue sky). My other suspicion is that I just turn to the right instinctively. Dunno. I guess it is just a matter of practice.

For the record Anthony tried to tell me about it, but he gave up I guess. We did quite an overpass, over scrabo tower. and than left circuit to south south east for some G-pressing steep turns :D

Usual trip is up to mount Steward, than switch radios over to Belfast approach, request basic service. Usually they say, not to go above certain height. This time, we climbed to 2600. I was doing quite well, oddly enough. Maybe apart from the fact that I started to level us out too quickly, and ended up loosing some height due to lack of airspeed (APT acronym, lookup my first lessons on that).

Anthony demonstrated the exercise. Basically, due to way wings work, lower wing is quite a dragger. Also, the lift component is really working under quite an angle. So for these reasons, you need to pull back, in order to stay on the same height, and add just a tad bit of power. I did it two times to the left. Anthony said he is really pleased with result. For the next one, he covered my 6 pack, thus forced me to look outside. To my amazement, this one was the best one so far. Even tho, I glanced at the instruments, I would mostly look at the attitude indicator. Just to make sure I am in 45 deg turn. Cos I have the tendency to go back to 30 or less. Basically, the idea is that you enter the turn, as you go past 30 deg, try to pull back so that you are on the same height and if you see that the nose tries to drop add just a bit of power to counteract. After that, pick a point on dashboard (or between screws on the cowling), and keep it there. Pretty simple.

Than we tried few right hand turns. These were trickier. When you do left turn, you are below horizon. On the right turn, you feel like you are on the top.

Anthony than demonstrated 60 deg turns, and also quite quick descending. Quite frankly, a this point my G-O-Meter told me I was nearing my physical limits plus we had to start to head back to the airport so I passed on offer to try it myself.

On my way back, Anthony wanted me to try to talk with belfast approach. But he passed on second thought. Also, asked me if I did any exams yet. I haven't. I don't even have medical yet. And I know time is pressing, and I should have at least airlaw and medical if I ever want to go solo around circuit. He also mentioned that there is going to be radio course pretty soon, and if I was interested. Of course I would! As for the airlaw, I would love to see course with airlaw as subject too. So far I've been scoring 60% on airquiz at most. Which is pretty poor result if you ask me.

Nearing the airport, I setup the approach configuration. Anthony helped a bit, and I did my best to land. But for some reason he took over about 300ft from the runway. I am still convinced that I was able to do it, but due to the winds probability of us going around was over 40%, and I guess he didn't wanted to chance it. Oh well, plenty more chances to do it ahead of me.

Once landed, I again was given a chance to get us back to the apron. On our way back, on RWY22 we passed C172 running on diesel (JET-A). Apparently, some photographers flying around. Diesel engines are making more and more market share in GA these days. Probably JET-A will no longer be so cheap once they get a major chunk. After all, some people live very well of our taxes, and there's tons of tax in fuel (even avgas)....

Got back to reception, to renew my UFC membership, and pay for the lesson. As it turned out, there's two "foreigners" training at the club, and they have our names sticked on top of the monitor - to make sure our names are spelled correctly. Embarrassing to be honest, slightly. I do promise, that if I ever get local citizenship I'll think about changing my name to Johnston or something simpler for everyone here to spell ;)

To summarise, it was nice to get up and fly. I did enjoy it. Never had such a grin on my face when paying 90 quid for 45 minutes in the air :) Serious fun.

Route: RWY 34

Milestones: pressing some Gs, 45 and 60 turns :D

Exercises covered: 15

Weather: clear skies, very windy tho - especially below 1500 ft.

Lesson 13, importance of landing configuration

2010-04-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 13

23/IV/2010

Lesson time: 0.8h

Total time: 10.7h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Roger McConnell

Another change in instructors. I was booked with David H Today, but someone amended it and I was to fly with Roger. Well, no complaints here. Roger's virtually perfect instructor. And I am not sure about the need to use the word virtually here either. :)

I got in, a bit late, Roger was sitting rather relaxed in front of a laptop. Weather wasn't perfect, so I kind of thought that we won't fly, but he said that everything is absolutely fine.

Great! He wanted me to jump ahead and do external checks, but I had to ask him for a brief. Because I know they all have their own styles of flying and teaching, I knew I could gain something from his. He has always been a great source of knowledge in the field for me, and I was not to be disappointed this time either :)

I sat down in our little room, and he went on to describe how he thinks things should be done. Now, his description wasn't any different from Anthony's, up until the point where we turn on base, and we gotta start configuring aircraft for landing.

He was very detailed there, and couldn't really make it any clearer that this is his thing. He always underlines importance of this. Now, probably because I already flew few circuits , and most of them were rubbish, and landings especially. And because Anthony explained whole thing to me already, I mean everything - pretty much on the same level. And because I know I am rubbish when it comes to approaches ! I was very interested in knowing how to do it precisely.

And I mean, Roger was very very serious when he said - that this is the most important thing when flying circuits. So here is what I do remember (probably not everything in such a detail, and I hope Roger is not reading this :P) , this is for C152 and your millage might vary:

pull power to about 1700

as soon as you pull the power, aircraft will try to maintain the speed, and nose will drop (if trimmed that is, but I assume I am trimmed most of the time

that means, pull the nose, not to loose any height (and he marked it with 2 exclamations here)

as soon as speed is on the white arch, first stage of flaps - maintain the height (3 exclamations)

second stage (20 deg), maintain that height (3 exclamations again)

setup for 65 knots (C152), and trim (3 exclamations)

turn finals (you shouldn't be below 600 ft at that stage, ideally)

3rd stage of flaps, aircraft if trimmed should pretty much fly itself 60 knots at that stage

do the CRAP checklist (Roger didn't mention all points here, but that's the power of having more than one instructor - you get to learn more :D )

use power to maintain the approach , if trimmed well - around 300 ft above ground you shouldn't really need to use any back pressure at all unless obviously you are in a bit of wind

30 ft above ground, flare. pull the power gently, pull the yoke towards yourself, and look ahead - at the end of the runway

if it wants to drop pull, hard at first, and than gently so you don't balloon

providing that you did all great, the aircraft should kiss the ground itself, basically sink as the speed bleeds off.

you haven't landed really until you're in full stop, or 'go' configuration - ready for another one.

I also asked about taking off, and setting for cross wind effectively, and what about the bounce on flare. The first one - is just a matter of practice. The bounce - Roger was very very clear here - that if you bounce off the runway - always go around. Don't fuss around.

And that's about it. Sounds simple. And to be honest, with 10 exclamations from myself, setting up is the shit maaan! I mean really, focusing on that was what I was missing on previous lessons. To be fair, Anthony introduced me to the whole concept. And now I'll just have to practice any bits of it that will not be as good as expected.

So, that was a brief, it took about 40 minutes, but again - Friday, everything was so relaxed, no traffic in circuit. Peace on earth ... :D

I did my preflight, setup some iPhone app to track my flight - but it turned out to be rubbish, it only recorded 10 minutes, and stopped. I'll find better one next time.

I went to my car to grab some water, as I was thirsty as hell (just had a chicken - loads of proteins make you want to drink a lot). Meanwhile Roger was adjusting the 'square', to reflect runway in use change (to 16).

I got back, did all check from the lists. And pretty nicely taxied us to 16/34 hold, where I did my power checks. Meanwhile Ian was just coming back from cross country, and passed me by whilst I was doing my checks. Nice backtrack on 16, snake trail of course ;) but I am getting better at it. Basic hint from Roger was - add bit more power, and the prop wash will make rudder more effective. It works that way. He obviously made it very very clear, to only turn around at the very end of the rwy. Pretty much kissing the grass.

I turned around, and because of the sea wall at the end of it, I knew that this is just very short. When you line up on 22, you have miles ahead of you. Here. you can tell, that every feet of that runway matters. Hence why turning so tight at the end of the runway was very important.

Very quick 1-2-3, power in, 55 kts, rotate, Vy (best rate of climb) - 65knts, and off we went for the first one.

I asked Roger to prompt me along the way. He virtually did nothing, but just sat there, obviously helped with controls, but would tell me what to do next when I hesitated. In essence, I did checks, radio calls, and flying more or less myself. That really felt nice :)

First circuit was obviously just a warm up, and wasn't that good. But wasn't that bad either. Roger was covering up speedo (ASI), to see whether I could feel the 65 knots instead of looking at it. And to my surprise, after trimming - I pretty much made it fly at 68 knots. I was seriously shocked.

Again, prompted very much along the way, we managed to do touch and go. Again, I did the radio, and flying. It is really doable, as long as things are done promptly, and Roger was helping me out here, by reminding me rather quick what's next. It is also funny how everything really slows down once you are flying the approach speeds. All of the sudden you have a lot of time.

That was the first one, second time around, I pretty much did everything up to down-wind leg without any prompting from Roger. Again, really pleased with myself. Configured for the approach, and fscked up flare... Seriously, I tried to be gentle with controls, and failed to pull it promptly. It sinked, bounced off ... Aaaargh.

I had so much in my trousers, the runway is short, we already wasted a bit by bouncing off. But Roger set us up for go-around. He was describing what was happening as we went along. But it was scary. Pretty much, you jam in the power, loose carb heat, and get it to fly above runway. When that happens, raise flaps to 20 deg, make sure you have speed, a bit of positive climb rate (very important), and only than another stage of flaps up, etc. it is very important to not loose it, and fly steady just above runway initially, otherwise bad shit may happen.

I didn't intended it to be that way, but that way I was shown how to rescue myself in case I'll get that bounce. Also, another mental note, if anyone ever will be brave enough to fly with me - tell them to sit far away from control column. Not that they will start playing with it, but if I ever will have need to pull it, I need enough space.

Anyway, went on for another two rounds, pretty uneventful - smooth and relaxed. On my final finals, with full stop, I could see some guy lining up on the grass runway (parallel to 16). He probably only noticed me, when I made the finals radio call. I remember asking Roger about what should I do, there's an aircraft there. He just said, 'let him know where you are'. It was just nice, to notice radio calls in the works. I know it seems trivial, and you probably think I am mad for mentioning it here, but that really felt good, just to hear the other guy telling you that he will wait for you to land first. Even tho it was obvious.

This is one of the things with Roger, he always tells you if you improved, and patiently prompts you what to do if you failed. But you don't feel any anger there. Just patience, buckets of it. That really helps. After all, you need to be relaxed when flying. And also that makes you learn quicker. I noticed I make a lot of progress with him. Probably would resolve to only fly with Roger, if it wasn't for the fact that I do like to get input from different angles, and even if it costs more money (and time), I hope that pays off in the future. After all, if you want to save money, you really shouldn't be learning to fly in the first place. Seriously.

And that was my Friday pretty much. Thought went through my head, to ask him if I could come back later on Today and do some more :) If it wasn't for the fact that I have work, and they really don't like it when I take too much half-days off, I would only fly during week. It is much more relaxed, and enjoyable.

Route: RWY 16, round and round

Milestones: landing configuration recognised

Exercises covered: 12/13

Weather: bit misty, strange gust blows in certain areas (thermals?) over the city of ards

Lesson 12, how (not to) fly circuits

2010-04-18T15:40:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 12

17/IV/2010

Lesson time: 0.7h (confirmed)

Total time: 9.9h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Anthony Smyth

Decided to drop in earlier Today. Never again. I was told, that Anthony has someone before me, so I'll probably have to wait one hour before my time.

And so I waited.

Anyway, just as I got there, CFI landed in C152, after annual check. So it is flying, and probably I'll be able to fly in it. He was leaving it with two rather large suitcases, which made me think, that there's probably all Bonker's documentation. He was passing by me in lobby, but I wasn't sure if he would react well to that joke.

One hour has passed, Anthony got back from flight with 3 very happy ladies in PA28. And it was his time, to join the fatso I am and do some circuits in C152. Life's tough ;)

I got over to check the G-BNKR, and first thing I noticed was how clean it is. Someone probably spend a bit of time cleaning it, cos I couldn't recognise some marks that I got used to. Oh well. Even sitting inside, I kind of felt like I've never sat in this aircraft before, it was so different.

I went through my checklist, and everything was in order. Sometime has passed, and Anthony joined me inside too.

Going through the engine startup checklist, I noticed how smooth the engine was going. It started first time, and it was all-so-smooth. As I was about to taxi, CFI came over, and asked Anthony to shut down, because he thinks pressure in nose wheel is slightly too high. UFC's CFI is a really great man. He always thinks about everything around him, and not in a very bad way. There's not so many people like him. And every time, I have a chance to talk to him, or see him doing something - it always inspires me greatly. I wish I was a man like that sometimes.

Anyways, Anthony did a rather fast start-up (he remembers that checklist by heart). And off we went towards RWY 22 hold (exit point from UFCs apron).

This time around, he let me do most radio work on the ground, which was nice. I shared my fear of radio with him, and he said that it is quite normal. It was nice to hear, that he went through same thing, and even got few radio-gobble moments in his life. The button on yoke is seriously mind bogger, and lip tightener.

I did some more taxi work Today as well, which was nice, but I still am rubbish at it. Got us towards 34 in one piece, but Anthony took over last part of backtracking, and turning as there was somebody on finals, and he wanted to expedite our departure.

"your controls". I pressed the accelerator leaver in counting 1-2-3 in my head, not to do it too fast, but also to do it rather fast. "Faster, this is short runway".

As soon as I rotated, I could feel the bloody cross wind. Balance ball went all the way to the left, and I intuitively crossed controls. Very bad. Anthony took over, and told me to look behind. We were about 25-30 degrees off to left from runway line. This is very bad. I heard opinions about that runway, but now I can see how difficult it can be, especially when the wind is changing as it was on that day.

My first circuit was just rubbish . I turned as in wrong direction couple of times. Than again, the speeds were different. Again, another change from C172, in C152 - speed on climb out is just 65 knts. And that's it, no complications.

Made the first base/finals too tight, so far too high, Anthony asked me to pull the power, to pretty much idle, drop the nose, to regain speed. I could see people on the sea-wall stopping, afraid to cross the approach path. Very wise, cos I might as well come in too low..

That touch and go was seriously bad, but those that will follow were not much better.

On that initial climb I probably lost 1 litre of sweat. Seriously. Probably after C172, I have tendency to pull to much, and we nearly stall.

The next one was much better, Anthony went on to demonstrate how little we actually have to turn to crosswind, due to ... crosswind. Since we were at 30-40 deg angle already, not much was require to turn. Same for downwind leg. I started to get interest in doing some checks myself, but I think that was a mistake. Anthony corrected me even, and said to just fly, and he'll do the rest.

Again, I turned base too early, and we were way too high on finals. Anthony demonstrated crossing controls, to loose height pretty fast.

I have to say, this is the phase that I shit myself on mostly. Finals, and the approach. You basically aim for numbers on the runway. Literally. So that if you don't flare, you would mash yourself over these numbers. So when I hear Anthony asking me to pull the power, I just think he is nuts, and do it very slowly. But he usually means all the way to idle!. Nuts! But I know he must be right, after all, he wants to live too.

This one we did as go around. And I got reprimanded again - for pulling flaps too quick. Anthony is very particular, unlike others - about pulling flaps in stages, and waiting for positive rate of climb before doing next stage. It maybe is possible, but in my case we would crash into nearby hill before I went through all 3 stages of flaps, and waited for positive rate of climb between each. But I will aim to do it that way!.

Anyways, this circuit was much better, except for that wind has changed (again), and RWY22 became active. So we had to extend our circuit, basically our base became downwind (see picture from previous lesson). This time RWY22 for full stop.

A shame, lesson was rather short, but Anthony saw that I was literally struggling, and was utterly rubbish.

Last time we spoke, he actually suggested to me, that I should start doing lessons in pairs. One hour in morning, and one in afternoon. And never combined (there's some other Pole training here, that does it, and I was told that it is really not to his favour, well, stubborn nature I suppose).

Well, maybe next month, if I even have enough cash to actually fly.

Anthony gave me good debrief, describing what I did wrong, and how he had to actually save the day few times, by helping me with controls. I am not very happy with my progress, but maybe it is just that the things I am doing are very hard. Dunno.

I asked him also, what he thinks about getting computer yoke+rudder pedals, and practicing on X-Plane. He just said, that it is very good for practicing procedures, but in my case it is much better to spend the money on 2h of actual flight in the real machine. I have to say it makes sense.

Route: initially RWY 34, last one rwy 22

Milestones: circuits...

Exercises covered: 12/13

Weather: little clouds, huge crosswind, changing directions , runways altered between 34 and 22 every half an hour or so.

Lesson 11, finally the circuit bashing begins

2010-04-12T15:54:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 11

10/IV/2010

Lesson time: 0.7h

Total time: 9.2h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-UFCE (C172)

Instructor: Anthony Smyth

Another lesson that starts at 9:00. It is always a bad time, because of the morning weather changes. I have to remember about not booking anything that early (or late, for that matter too).

In the morning, I had a look at club's apron camera. Virtually no visibility. Foggy as hell. At home, clear skies. Typical. That airport is in such a funny spot. When it rains, is foggy, etc, it is always around that area, and that's it.. Well, quite often is. I called the club, but no one answered. Being myself, I thought - what the hell, I'll drive there anyway.

Showed up couple minutes past 9, Anthony was in instructor's room. He said that it is very unlikely that we will go up, but we might as well go through briefing, and if it clears up in next 20 minutes, we would fly. Circuit briefing is long, because there's lot to process, so it would be useful to go through it anyhow.

Sat in the little briefing room, next to lounge. Anthony handed me a piece of paper, and a pen, and said there's going to be few things to note. Now, I don't usually take notes. It is puts a little more demand on your brains to remember things. However, just as a respect to my instructor time, and just in case he is really serious that my brain won't take it - I decided to make take notes. I have to say, Anthony is one of those guys that can really explain things the way you understand them. And he drops in one or more interesting side things, that are interesting to me, and really make me you feel that he is truly passionate about flying.

Any how, he went on to describe circuit, bit by bit, stage by stage. Which I dully noted down. The pattern flying is described millions of times , so I won't go around it. But few things that he mentioned on top, are probably worth noting here, for you, and for me to remember.

As you climb out after take off, around 300ft, speed of climb should be increased to 75 knots (that's in 172), and ELF 'check' should be performed. It stands for Engine (T's && P's), L - landing gear (up), Flaps (up, if short field take off, or plane requires it). He noted that I should learn and always repeat all checks, even if the plan I am flying doesn't have landing gear, etc. It is just good airmanship, and practice.

So, around 500ft, we should turn to cross-wind, and continue the climb. The turn with climb should be no more than 15 deg of bank. As soon as we reach 1000ft, good lookout (again, forgot to mention it, always remember about good lookout!), and turn downwind.

My question here, was always - how do I know when to stop turning. After all, DI might not be helpful, since you can fly cross wind, plus in VFR you should have your head on the lookout for most of the time. So the answer is very simple. Before you make the turn, whilst looking out for traffic, note the patter 90 deg to left (or right in right hand pattern). And than turn on that spot. Seems simple, doesn't it. I suppose time to use DI and depend on it will come later, but for now I'll stick to that advice.

Anyhow. As soon as we level out downwind, when abeam the runway end, call 'xyz downwind'. If you're late, than 'late downwind'.

Next, following checks have to be done. BUMPFICH. B - breaks, some planes have funny breaks, and it is time now to check if they are set, and release them. U - undercarriage. Again, it is good airmanship to always call that out. In case of 172 - just say 'secure and welded'. M - for mixture. Set to rich. P - prop pitch, again in 172 - not applicable, but just say 'prop fixed, still there'. F - check fuel quantity, set tanks to both, fuel pump, etc. I - instruments, T's P's, etc. C - carb heat off. H - harness and hatches, etc.

Now one thing that Anthony added here, is to actually set carb heat on before calling BUMPFICH. The idea is, that by the time you get to letter C, you are well cleared of any possible ice.

When you got rwy threshold at your 8'clock (in left hand pattern), it is time to turn base. Reduce power to 1500 rpm, under less than 110 kts, first stage of flaps. Under 85 knots (white arc on ASI), second stage of flaps. Maintain 70 knots, add power if necessary, and trim. This all will also initiate a descend.

When rwy is around 10 oclock to your left (in left hand pattern again), initiate turn to finals. Do the radio call again (xyz on finals), 3rd stage of flaps. Around 200 ft agl, do the CRAP checklist - C, carb heat off, R - runway clear, A - approach, if on approach profile - all god, if not - this is the time go - around, no excuses. P - permission from ATC, if aplicable. ATC will give you permission to set on finals, but clearance to land must be obtained separately. Again, if not received, go - around.

Simple isn't it ? Now it all takes only few minutes. So you can imagine the workload. I couldn't believe it until I actually flew it.

The first one, Anthony tried to give me fair chance to do it myself, but I even drifted on take off. 172 requires so much rudder on climb, that you wouldn't believe. He pretty much let me do finals, and (attempt) to land. Obviously in the exercise, you just touch and go. Meaning, that as soon as you land, you don't stop, but count to 1-2-3 as you push in throttle (remember about that rudder, seriously!) - and off you go. Rotate at 55, and climb 65 till 300 ft, etc.

Second one , I did much much better, but in all honesty I started to turn too late. On the approach, and than on flare, the aircraft was all over the place, even tho there was no wind whatsoever. Now that's an achievement ;) I even asked Anthony about the wind "or is it myself". He just replied, laughing, "it is just yourself". Now that's the level of honesty I like. No bull's crap.

Third one was much much better, even Anthony said so. But again, all my turns were rubbish. Still gotta learn that. Anthony performed all the checks, and radio work. I was just suppose to fly. And even that I couldn't do well.

He admired my trimming, to which I foolishly replied 'well, it is easy'. He probably now thinks that I am just show off. But in all honesty, I do find trimming easy.

Anyway, time for the last turn, as it turned out. On base Anthony told me to land to full stop. Meaning that's all we are going to do Today. A shame, cos I stared to feel like I am finally being able to do it better and better.

On the ground, there was just chaos. Two air cadet's moto-gliders, backtracking, than taking off. It is all nice, but I pay for the engine running, so not really a good idea to just sit there and wait for someone. Moments later, CFI landed behind us. He obviously wasn't happy either, and asked RAF folks to move, so we can taxi back to apron. So nice. We had a bit of chaos when taxing to the rwy hold before taking off, but I didn't wanted to write too much about it. lets just say, that all of the sudden everyone wanted to fly. Fair enough, the weather was just perfect for flying. Probably by the afternoon, the circuit would be full of aircraft.

But it was time for me to drive home. I had to prepare my car for its first MOT on that day. And I also had a chance to catchup with so many texts I received. I even wondered, why all of the sudden people write to me that much. As it turned out, it was about the news of aircraft crash in Russia....

Route: RWY 22, round and round the airport baby

Milestones: circuits...

Exercises covered: 12/13

Weather: initial fog, than clear and nice, virtually no wind. Perfect for flying.

Lesson 10, stalls bashing...

2010-04-05T03:53:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 10

04/IV/2010

Lesson time: 0.8h

Total time: 8.5h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Ian McFall

My last lesson was a failure. I have to admit it. So this time around, I did prepare myself much better.

The 'blue book' doesn't talk much about exact technique of stall recovery with flaps, so I researched a bit on the web, and found few places that talked about it from instructor's point of view. Which is even better, cos it has more details :)

I drove to the club bit earlier Today, and was there about 20 minutes before. I was hoping for a quick start, but it turned out to be the same as usual :P .

As it turned out, even tho I was booked for Anthony, there was a slight reorg , and I was to fly with Ian. Now, I only flew with Ian once, and he seemed slightly strange to me. He probably hates to fly in C152 due to his height. Oh well.

He quickly gave me review of what I should know, what is his point of view, etc. He is not as much as detailed in procedures description as Anthony for instance, but he gives all required info, and rest is up to you. Like I even told him, they all have different styles of teaching, and it is fine. Some will just tell me enough to make me do it, some others will on top of that already provide all info that I would ask about anyway, etc. He was surprised that I am mad enough to do some stall training in C172, and some in C152, or so it seemed. But he was fine with it, but I knew that he is probably not psyched about having to fly in the small can, the C152 is. To be honest, I thought G-BNKR will be off for annual check, but it was to be its last day before.

So I went over to check the little tin can. Everything was grand, until I started to check ailerons. They were fine for the right bank, but left bank movement seemed a bit more resistant. That worried me, I spotted Anthony passing by, and asked him for opinion. He trained on the aircraft, and knew its little 'personalities' inside out. He said this wasn't right, but is not show stopper. "Just mention it to Ian", he said, "and make sure someone writes it down before the annual". Fair enough, I thought, the aircraft is close to its annual check, so things like that will be addressed. Other thing, I noticed week ago, was rudder pedals cable being slightly too loose, and hitting fuselage. Nothing big again, but just shows that the annual service is required.

Ian was fine with it, altho it seemed that he have never seen anything like it. I suspect, even tho he is not very chatty, that he doesn't fly the C152 too often.

So I went on with the business. I can see that now instructors expect me to do stuff, without asking too many questions. Same was true with Ian Today. He seemed to just want me to get us up in the air asap, since I should know all the stuff now. Well. I tried my best, would be my answer. And I wasn't so bad, overall. I even handled radio without a hitch. The initial call, to obtain airfield information was okay. I repeated it fine, but I forgot what the QNH was.. so embarrassed. Again, Ian's stone face didn't show anything else than 'just get on with it'. The man is hard to decipher.

Rolling on 22, I started to push the power throttle in. Ian just told me to do it much quicker. It is funny, just as I started to think that I am good at taking off, I get told more and more things that show me otherwise. This time, I was reminded to pull control column so that the front wheel doesn't take the bashing. I have to say, sweat was running down my face as I lifted off. Not because I was nervous or anything, but just the sheer embarrassment.

This is my general 'problem'. I am trying to be gentle with stuff, and not break anything. But that seem to be against me. I have to make my movements slightly more quick.

Around 500 ft, I was told to climb us up, but in turn, just as if I was doing circuit. And than all the way ahead, first to 2000 ft, and as soon as we passed Mount Steward, where we can go above 3000ft. However Ian got instruction not to climb higher than 3k ft for time being, but quickly told afterwards to go over. Probably there was some airliner approaching Belfast City Airport, flying from Isle of Man, and they wanted to keep the separation up. Fair enough.

As soon as we hit 3500ft, Ian asked me to do HASELL checks. Being myself, I got lost somewhere in the middle, but he quickly reminded me what I was left to do.

I was asked to do clean , full stall. Which I fscked up.. Honestly. Again, I didn't pulled all the way up, and started to recover around half way through. Previously I would do it in C172 (when Kate was flying with us), and it felt slightly different in it. Ian wasn't happy, and he proceed to show me how it should be done. I repeated it probably 3 times, each time, I managed to do it with less height drop. I think my best result was around 70 ft ,which is not too bad. Not for someone with that little experience. The limit is 100ft, so I was well within it .

One of the stalls, I did something unforgivable. But Ian was there to help out. Basically, unlike C172, the C152 will drop right wing in the stall. I instinctively started to not only push it, but also to level out at the same time. This ended up with another stall, and left wing drop. Ian didn't said a thing about it, but I knew I did screw up that one. He just told me to try another one.

Than time came to do stall recovery with flaps. Unlike Anthony, Ian wasn't very detailed about positive rate of climb, and the whole procedure. He just underlined the fact, that the whole stall should not lead to any drop of height. This configuration is simulation of what would happen when you stall the aircraft just as you are on the finals. Meaning, last 'stretch' before you land. Usually this means, that you fly slow, and rather low. So no room for errors. I seemed to get it now, especially that I went through series of 'mental exercises' after last week..

Next on the plate was stall in descend turn. This was easy. Again, one thing to remember, is not to level up the wings prior to gaining some speed. I did it few times, and Ian seemed happy. He than went on to demonstrate same thing but in climb turn. Very unlikely that this will be something I have to demonstrate on practical test, but knowing my luck, this will be the thing :)

Having the stalls behind me, Ian said that he is happy with my performance, (the man seems more happy and chatty once we are in the air) and if I want to try something else out, we have a bit of time. I honestly couldn't come up with anything I would want to try out. At this stage, I want to go on and do the circuit bashing, even tho I know I will regret that.

We headed back to EGAD, but I had to first descent to 2k before Mountain Steward again, as bottom of the D control airspace drops there from 3500 to 2000 feet. Once under, I went straight on long base for the rwy 22.

Another landing done, this time around winds were even worse. So Ian had to correct me couple of times, as I seemed to get swing sideways more and more as we were close to the rwy. It is funny how you initially aim for the numbers, even tho, you want to actually not crash into em. But I did it. This time around with a lot of help, but can't really blame myself with that sort of wind.

Afterwards Ian said he was happy with my performance, and reminded me that probably for the circuit bashing stage I will have to book two slots, cos there's a lot of briefing that needs to be done, and than it has to be demonstrated by instructor, probably time and time again.. I bet ya, this will be the time when some instructors will just loose their nerves with me....

I went on to pay, and here's the nice thing about C152. The tacho (or hobbs meter) counts engine hours. But it will count a real hour only if the engine was on full power whole time. In essence, since I was doing a lot of flying around idle, or 1500 rpm, I only had to pay 89 quid for 0.8h of flying. Instead of the usual 100ish. Shame the aircraft is going away for 2 weeks.

This month is pretty bad for me anyway. In all fairness, even tho I am booked for 3 lessons this month, I don't think I will be able to afford more than one more, and that's providing that my other employer pays me. I seriously started to think about placing a paypal 'donations' button here on the blog, or doing some other strange things to raise some more cash. But in all honesty, I write so much here, that probably no one is interested in reading that, not to mention sparing 10 quid a month or so. Plus, probably next month will be much better in financial terms anyway. After all, my initial goal was to do one-two lessons a month. So anything on top of that is just pure blessing...

Route: Departed rwy 22, over Strangford Lough and back up . Landed rwy 22.

Milestones: I did all stalling exercises , yeah baby.

Exercises covered: 10b pt2, including turns

Weather: hazy sunshine, some rainfalls in vicinity, quite windy. qnh 1012.

Lesson 9, short guide to how not to do stalling exercises ..

2010-03-28T13:54:00.000-07:00

Lesson: 9

28/III/2010

Lesson time: 0.8h

Total time: 7.7h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Anthony Smyth

Funny, I thought my booking on 21th was the last one this month. Only yesterday did Kate reminded me about Today's booking. Week ago I wasn't able to fly, cos I was away down South (in the county Cork area).

I woke up around 7:00, only to find out, that actually it is 8:00, and I gotta make it fast, since I was suppose to be at the club before 9:00. Obviously, I was late (9:10-ish). There was no need for any long briefing, Anthony just told me that we are going to try the stalling with 20 and 30 degrees of flaps.

The difference there, is that when recovering from stall with flaps, you need to raise them in stages. With 20 deg, drop the nose first, to recover airspeed, than full power and carb heat off (in C152, C172 don't suffer from this problem, no carb heat required/available). As soon as you get 65 knts, and positive rate of climb, lower flaps to 10 deg, and repeat the procedure until no flaps are set.

With 30 deg, procedure is the same, except that you raise flaps from 30 to 20 deg right after applying power, before positive rate of climb is established. Probably , because the 30 deg of flaps introduce hell of a drag, and you would not ever get higher with it on.

Sounded pretty simple, so I went over to check the aircraft. Noticed strange rudder cable rattling, basically it just hits the big can the aircraft is from inside. Probably the cable is going to snap off sometime in the near future. Good that this C152 is having its annual in few days. Anyways, Anthony who was trained on the aircraft, seems to know it inside out, and said not to worry about it.

Before we hopped in, Anthony decided to turn the aircraft slightly. It was so close to some utilities. It was funny to see, how easily this is done with C152. Basically a single fella can drag it around and turn it. He basically pushed down the elevator, and turned aircraft around. Like a toy.. :)

Anyway, I got in, did my checklist. Pretty surprised, after flying in C172 on how short it is. I wasn't too shy on my radio calls Today, and did much better taxing it to rwy 22 hold, and than along the runway it self. As soon as I left the corner after rwy 22 hold, Anthony told me to go for it, and take off.

Pushed the power all the way, and I noticed that aircraft started to shake. Anthony just said 'lift the front wheel', and that helped. As soon as I rotated, and we went up, we got blown away to the right. So I still have to learn how to do proper cross wind take off. On top of that, when it is really gusty around EGAD, due to the near by hills (scrabo), winds can actually push you down sometimes. It happen to me on the climb out, I actually managed to nearly stall the aircraft for few seconds.

It has been a while, and I couldn't help but notice that things in C152 happen slowly. Well, slower than in C172, for sure.

My climb to 1000 ft, than 2500, and than 3400 wasn't the best one I ever did. Probably the worse one, but I thought this is just because I haven't flown C152 for past two lessons.

During climb, Anthony reminded me to level off, and do proper lookout every 500ft. Damn, when will I ever learn!.

Off I went to 3400, Anthony demonstrated me stall recovery with 20 deg flaps. Twice. And I failed to do it properly, seriously, I was rubbish. I think of all my 5-6 attempts, maybe one was close to good. But was obviously way to slow. Anthony was very patient with me, and let me retry it number and number of times.

But obviously the time was running out. So he decided to show me 30 deg one, and let me try it too. Rubbish again. Slightly better, but still miles away.

Afterwards, we started to head back. Anthony did a very rapid descent, and speed building. Seriously, outside of any of my skills :) Around 1400, he said to descend to 1000, and maintain the high speed, cos we want to land before lunch. Kidding, but seriously, I felt he was probably late for something already, and wanted to get there quicker.

He went through landing configuration with me, and allowed me to do extended base (joining traffic patter), and finals, and than land!.

I have to say, as soon as we got below 1500 ft, it was quite gusty. It started to be even worse on the finals. Not only I was doing my second landing in my life. But I also was doing it in the cross wind, and quite a shear. Oh dear, I thought. He must be nuts, not only he wants to land on time, but probably in one piece, and yet he decided to let me have a go. All in all, I did everything quite good, including keeping us aligned ,.. well, more or less. Before the flare (final stage, when you let power go, and touch down), I managed to not let the wind get me off the centre of the runway. Good, I thought, what now.. Anthony just said, pull the power. all the way. I thought, he is mad. So I did it, not very rapidly, rather gently. Slam, that was probably the worse flare ever. I honestly thought, we just did fell from the skies 10-20ft, and slammed onto the ground. Only afterwards, he reminded me, that whilst pulling the power, I should have been raising the nose slightly (by easing on the control column). Oh well. It wasn't too bad anyway, I got as down. God knows, how many magic tricks did Anthony do with his feet, and how many prayers he was quickly saying, but we were on the ground.

Quick turn around, and we went off towards apron. I am doing much better job at taxying, still it is the 'snake' style pattern, but much more rapid snake, and the amplitude of waves is much smaller.

During the debrief, I did apologise for my rather pathetic performance, and kindly asked Anthony to be very honest with me, and spare me any politeness. He said that I honestly did very well, and that all this is not very easy, and getting it memorised, and well practiced is a necessity before circuit bashing, which I do know, and honestly understand.

Funny, when I asked how bad I was, he went on to give me example on some 60 year old chap, that took 170ish hours to do his PPL training.

I don't know if Anthony was trying to be just nice, and tell me I wasn't so bad, or was this the only example he could come up with someone that did worse than me. I do believe that his intention was to just show me that there is lot worse, and I am average, if not good.

Well, to be honest, I do know why I was rubbish. Recently, I stopped reading up prior to lesson. I also do have to start some mental training. Ie, close my eyes, and after reading theory, go in memory with all procedures, trying to imaging how to do things. Obviously, that way it is much cheaper, less time wasting, and should guarantee much better results.

At the end, he told me that we haven't done in turn stall recovery, and that I certainly have to repeat the exercise , which I honestly do believe I have to. He went on, to write that note down in my records - like he said - so that on my next lesson, whoever the instructor might be, will know.

If only, he knew, that as I went on to book lessons for April, pretty much out of 5 bookings, 4 are with him.. :) He will dearly hate to fly with me :P Why so many bookings ? You know what the weather is like in this area. I will probably be lucky if I can get 2-3 out of 5.

And it is going to be in C172. This time, I had no choice. C152 is going off for its annual. And since it is quite an old aircraft, it might be a bit long one.

Well, will see.

Route: Departed rwy 22, over Strangford Lough and back up . Landed rwy 22.

Milestones: I think I would rather call it regression. Number one remark, prepare myself for future lessons, and go to bed earlier night before..!

Exercises covered: 10b pt2

Weather: sunshine!, CAVOK !, bit of a wind shear closer to the ground.

Lesson 8, more stalls...

2010-03-13T04:24:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 8

12/III/2010

Lesson time: 0.8h (almost 50 min)

Total time: 6.9h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-UFCE (C172)

Instructor: Roger McConnell

Around 1100 on Friday, staring outside - and getting worried about each cloud.

1130, I called Roger at the UFC. He said weather is fine, I also asked what are we going to fly in Today - C172, he said. I remember, my Kate told me last time, that it is a shame that she couldn't go up and fly with me - so I ask Roger what he says about an extra passenger, and he said - by all means, bring her along. Great, I thought. She will be delighted.

1200 - tested, and committed my code changes - and left.

At home, Kate was already waiting with lunch, and after few minutes we were on our way on my blue steel horse.

Roger gave me briefing in the main lounge (usually we go to the small room, with blackboard, and maps, etc). I was surprised to hear that what I did last time was just a pre-stall condition recovery, and Today we will do proper stalls (incipient stall), but with no flaps. He also made sure that Kate will be fine with it, and she seemed fine (not knowing what awaits her).

Off I went to do the preflight. Wind was cold, so Kate decided to check back couch inside the aircraft, and I went on to do the preflight. By now, I know where are various switches and knobs that I couldn't found last time - so it was okay.

Kate took some pics from that (and later journey), although I have to say that the camera (nikon D100) is not doing well in fully automatic mode. Well, I only bought it last week, so still have to learn to use it. After all, it is a semi-pro camera. In fact all pictures here were taken with it!.

Roger joined me quite quickly, and made sure that Kate is strapped in properly. The seatbelts in the rear on C172 are funny, as you have to pull it out till end, hold it, buckle it in, and than release. Otherwise, once pulled and stopped, it will not allow you to pull anymore, and you have to release it all the way up, and try again. Luckily pilot's seatbelt works fine..

I went through my pre-engine start checklist, turned on the engine. Kate giggle when she heard me scream 'clear prop'. Well, it must sound funny.

As soon as I did my post-engine startup checklist, she was utterly scared. Seriously. I didn't felt well with that, but I had to tell her to just sit in, and not worry. I can honestly say, that remembering my feelings from the very first lesson, I was scared too. And that was in C152, much older, and much smaller inside.

We went on, rolling to 34 for our engine checks. By the time we stopped, I could smell burning break pads. And only than Roger told me politely to not sit on breaks. I mean, I love that guy, he is one of the best instructors in the Club, honestly. Even when I screw up, he is polite, and I feel like being trusted and just reminded about things I should do, but not pressured. There was some Rv7 (very nice aircraft, shame that it is the 'experimental' class, and you have many restrictions that come with that) that wanted to get by, so we moved to the side of runway. Off it went, and I did the engine checks. By now, I'll do everything myself, even in C172 (on previous lesson Bryan would help me with few things, as I couldn't find em). Still had problem locating few gauges, but eventually got it.

Backtracked on the runway, and was reminded by Roger that the runway is short, and I should gently, but not so slow push the power forward. I nearly stalled us on climb out - as I set the attitude too high up, but was quickly corrected, and nothing has happen.

I was amazed again, how quickly we left EGAD area, and switched over to the Belfast control. Once over peninsula, he went on to demonstrate proper stall, and while the previous lesson I could barely feel it - this one felt like we were in 0g for split second. Honestly.

Now it was my turn, and that was a disaster. I had no idea that you have to pull it all the way. And even tho, the aircraft doesn't really want to stall. The nose drops by itself, and you just have no room nor power to actually pull anymore.

I retried few times, and after that asked Kate how she is doing. To which she replied 'fine', but I could see she was sitting there with her eyes closed. Poor soul, she was scared much more than I could imagine she will. And I know that she is scared of highs. I told that to Roger, to which he replied, that he is as well. I was stunned. And he is a pilot, the instructor here. (only two days a week, I don't know what else he is doing, maybe he flies with airlines too).

It was time to fly back, it felt very early. Roger probably wanted to save Kate the experience. I set ourselves on the heading roughly towards EGAD, and on descend. Still feels awkward to fly C172, and Roger has to remind me to watch the picture outside. I honestly feel like I am getting worse at this every time I fly...

Roger wanted to give me a chance to land, but I failed at keeping us on the same slope, 34 is a funny runway, as the nearby mountain reflects airflow, and so you have to watch out for changing winds. He took over, and told me again and again, to use power to control angle, and don't use yoke for nothing more than slight adjustments. That's why trimming for the approach is sooooo important.

Once on the ground, I was hoping Kate will be relieved. And I also hopped she took some pictures. She was sited behind me, so obviously I couldn't count on any photos of me behind the controls, but I was hoping for some general photos. As it turned out, she was sitting there with her eyes closed most of the time... I am planning to take my brother (atm 13 years old) up one day too, and I just hope that he will not be as scarred. But first, I have to do the bloody course, and pass exam. It is going to be a while :)

Roger gave me good debrief, telling me exactly what I did screw up. I told him that I feel like flying worse and worse every time. And he said, that is just learner's experience. He told me, that if I was to do my first lessons now, those would be trivial, and as I go, I feel and see more and more things. True. But also, I know that the fact that I am flying C172 second time - pretty much - doesn't help. But I will get around that eventually, I know it :) Plus harder it is, the more determination I have to do it, in my all hopeless stupidity.

Another thing he told me, next week I am doomed to do more stalls.. Oh dear, and you would think this is some easy subject.

And Kate (pic taken by Roger):

Route: Departed rwy 34, over Strangford Lough and back up . Landed rwy 34.

Milestones: stared on stalls, 10a, and demonstration of 10b, etc

Exercises covered: 10

Weather: sunshine!, CAVOK !

photos!

Lesson 7, introduction to stalls

2010-03-13T02:23:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 7

07/III/2010

Lesson time: 1.0h

Total time: 6.1h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-UFCE (C172)

Instructor: Bryan Davis

I walked into the instructor's room Today, only to find a new face there. That was my instructor for the day. Oddly enough, I've never seen him before. More even oddly enough, when I asked other instructors about him - no one knew him either ! What can I say. Very well mannered man, I don't know where is he from, but I can honestly say, that he is English. The distinctive accent, and they are pretty much like Kiwi's - very well self-possesed.

I had no time to prepare for this lesson, due to some other activity on Saturday - so in all honesty, I had no idea what I am suppose to do Today. But I knew very well, that I will be told what to do - so no bother. We had a rather short briefing (but stalls don't require much). Anyways, I pretty much know what the stall is, and what causes it, so I didn't needed much.

What was different however, was that I only flew in 172 once before. And that was during my introductory stage. But anyways, Bryan trusted me that I could do preflight, so on I went with it. For starters, things were in different locations, there were new things that I couldn't spot, and the list was slightly longer. I have to say, for C152 I already started to remember the checklist. So imagine, you feel comfortable with something, and all of the sudden you are given something completely else. I had to actually read it word by word - again :D. Funny as it seems, I was just afraid it will take me slightly longer. I had no idea where are few switches, but I just decided to skip it, and ask later. One other thing, I had no idea where the dipstick is, so I skipped the visual fuel check too. I knew that the reason it has to be done with dipstick in C152, was due to clumsy sensors in the tanks, but had no idea if C172 still has the same properties. Later on, I was told that pilot has to check visually fuel levels in all small aircraft, whenever possible during preflight.

As I approached it - it seemed much bigger than C152, and in all honesty it is slightly bigger. It also has much more power.

Bryan joined me, and explained to me few bits that I didn't know. Like white switches hidden behind control column, that I had no idea were there! These switches turn radios etc (avionics switch). Or Fuel shutoff valve. These things simply don't exists on C152.

One thing that I love about C172 is the room available, and also how easy it is to connect my headphones :) I am thinking about sticking to C172, even tho it costs roughly 30 quid more per hour. We shall see...

One other thing about C172, it has the dash slightly higher up, so the "picture" is different. So far I was alright in C152, and thought that I got it all. But speeds, 'picture', and few other things are slightly different in this aircraft, as it has substantially more power.

But as stupid (not to mistake with brave) as I am, I decided to go with it. Bryan gave me a chance to do the first radio call. And here to my surprise, the ' missile launch' button wasn't responsible for radios. There were 3 of them!. Gosh.. Things get complicated, can't even make the bloody radio call anymore. took me few seconds to find it. I think I made like 3-4 attempts to just call EGAD radio, and get airfield info and radio check. But finally got it. Also rudder pedals seem slightly bigger in C172 , but somehow I managed to get us through. My taxing still sux.

Off we went, again, slowly, and I could feel more power on the climb. Speeds are again different, and I got to memorise the new ones.

Climbed initially to 3000, Bryan talked to Belfast over radio, and I got us up to 3500.

First thing I noticed, is that the rudder pedals require muuuch more pressure to fly straight and level. Seriously, I think I'll have to try next few lessons just to get it, as I started to chase yawing with rudder to the point where it started to bank. Secondary effect of controls is much more visible here than it was in C152. C152 is like riding a bicycle, C172 is a motorcycle. Seriously...

Once we went up to 3500, Bryan took over. He demonstrated stall approach, and recovery. Not a big deal to be honest. I was hoping for more drama (and Gs). I repeated the same procedure. Basically as you approach stall, the buzz starts to make lot of noise (stall warner), and you feel like sitting in a car that goes up on a steep hill. I cannot honestly imagine how a pilot could get even to a position like that, but obviously it happens - hence the training.

After few tries, Bryan told me to just fly slow, and feel difference on the controls. And again, this feels odd. Imagine a dream, where things are happening 10x as slow. Say for instance, you press a button, and it feels like all of the sudden things are made of jelly, and it takes them a while to pass on the wave of input you made. This is how it feels to fly at low speeds. Rudder is fine, but aerilons- gosh - took me ages to bank, and you kind of expect fast(er) response, due to the aircraft's power. And it has tons of power, in comparison with C152. I don't even wanna know how it is to learn to fly in Ciruss SR22, and yes, there are people training on it as their first aircraft ! Obviously those are wealthy americans, so for me - I have to stick with slow (in comparison) C172. But if I had a chance to own SR22 (I wouldn't, for various reason anyway, but if I did) - I would rather train first on something slower, like C172, or PA28, and than made a transition.

As last demonstration, Bryan showed me how it is to fly slow with flaps in that thing, and recover from stall. It feels even worse. It feels like you are watching the sky, buzz is making loads of noise, airframe swings (still long before the buffet), and you sit in funny position. How on earth pilots don't see stall coming with all that happening, is a mystery to me. Probably I will have a chance to experience why in the future...

Bryan, obviously seeing that I am failing to fly straight in level in times (due to funny rudder inputs I have to make, and very 'big' trim tabs) - asked me to do few turns. Oddly enough, and in very English way - he only asked me to do things, but never said how I did. Only if I did something odd, he would repeat and just slightly underline part where I went wrong. I kind of felt like I am being examined, but no one tells me how I did. Very English way of doing things (and I have absolutely nothing against them, quite contrary - I lived there for a while, and probably will move back to England if things go para-shaped at work, and I will fail to find something to do in NI). That kind of reminds me of a joke:

My brother was up in court last week. The judge said, 'What is this man charged with?' The policeman said, 'He opened a shop sir.' The judge said, 'And what is wrong with opening a shop?' The policeman said, 'Well it wasn't his shop sir.'

(I was thinking about brining up few other jokes, but I don't want my English friends here to be offended).

I felt like I did okay on the banking, turning with banks, etc. Obviously that was a test, to see if I am going to be ready for circuit bashing - which is going to be hell... But oddly enough, I cannot wait. After all, this is going to be the time where I'll learn most.

For the landing, we had to extend our circuit, as all of the sudden there was a lot of traffic. I still fail to fully visualise the traffic pattern - especially the overhead join bit. But hopefully it will all come to me. I know how it works, but I just cannot see it when instructor does it. Oh well.

Bryan gave me short debrief, again, rather cryptic "learn by repetition" answer - which is true. I suppose, he wanted me to reflect on my own mistakes, or maybe he thought I did well enough. Oh well. Maybe the fact that it was my second time in C172, and the first time with me actually doing things myself - that also made me feel rather peculiar.

All in all , great lesson, and in much more powerful aircraft (and 30 quid dearer).

Route: Departed rwy 16, over Strangford Lough and back up . Landed rwy 16.

Milestones: stared on stalls, 10a, and demonstration of 10b, etc

Exercises covered: 10

Weather: sunshine!, CAVOK !

Lesson 6, recap

2010-03-11T14:52:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 6

("Greggish" language warning, unedited, fresh post).

05/III/2010

Lesson time: 1.0h

Total time: 5.1h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: Simon McNeill

It has been a while, I have to say. Probably all lost faith in my willingness to fly again. I certainly had no time, and money for that matter to fly in February. Bought a car, went to Scotland for a weekend, went to Cracow for a week. Well, all that costed me a fortune.

I wasn't going to give up on flying, no way, I can sell my flat, car, dump girlfriend, change jobs, but flying remains my first priority as far as doing something with my life is concerned. If I had more cash, I would probably fully focus on it, rather than spening countless hours on stashing gold for someone else, only receiving small chips of it for the effort. Which reminds me about one of the greatest songs of all times, very true lyrics indeed (for rock&roll). "Heaven and hell", by Black Sabbath:

"And they'll tell you black is really white
The moon is just the sun at night
And when you walk in golden halls
You get to keep the gold that falls
Its heaven and hell, oh no!"

Anyways, I digressed.

So I was suppose to fly with Ian Today. But either he wasn't keen on flying with me, needed a break, or whatever else, I was to fly with someone new (to me). I already booked lesson with Simon for the Sunday 21st of March, and heard only great things about him. So it was a mixture of 'wonder if he will stand up to the opinion', and 'will he like my "special" personality. As usual, things were running slightly late, and I was just sitting there, wondering if people just forgot about me, or whether I became invisible. Serious problems with my head, I know :P

Finally my instructor found me, handed me the keys and asked if I can do the checks. I got out, left some stuff in the car, picked some other (such as my pooley's pilots jacket), went over to the bonker (C152). It has been a while. But it is the good old aircraft. Still the same, kind of looks like it is going to fall apart pretty soon, yet feels very solid in the air. Did my walk around, checked fuel, and the oil. The oil level was slightly below 6, which was of a bit concern to me.

My instructor joined me pretty soon, I reported that the externals are done, and that the oil level is starting to fall below. He acknowledged, and double checked. The check list says that oil level 4+ is fine for short distances, and should be above 6 for longer journeys. So we should be fine.

He started to repack his bag, and I noticed which airline he works for as a pilot, cos some stuff had their logo on. It was pretty nice, he started to ask me about my reasons to fly, etc. I pretty soon found out, that he is very friendly. Indeed, it seemed like the instructor is genuine interested in knowing the student, not just cutting a chitchat.

Before we got in, he asked me about the key, to which I replied that it is in the aircraft. "Put it on the dashboard, so whoever walks near by can see it .That way, if I approach the aircraft, I will be sure that propeller won't start and I can walk about safe". Very good advice, I thought. Previously I would leave the key in the starter, so I don't loose it during externals. But that advice actually makes more sense!.

I jumped in, and immediately I noticed that things aren't happening unless I do it. I gently touched on it, and the reply was "don't worry, if you do something wrong, I'll tell you. You won't learn anything unless you do it". We even didn't started the engine, and I already knew that it is going to be a great lesson.

As I went through the check list, one of the items on the list says to turn on radios and avionics. All instructors I flew with so far, would only care about radios, and squawk. But this one, actually turned on all the navigation bits too. "Just in case", he said. I like that.. You can tell he is very professional as a pilot. Everything has its place, and reason. Just what I love about aviation, and there's a guy here that actually puts that into practice. Not that I don't enjoy flying with others, but there is something about that sort of approach that I like. Bah, I even approach things in life that way myself.

I had notes scribbled by Roger, and that helped me to get through the radio calls. It was nearly a disaster, I couldn't understand what the guy said, too fast. The one month break wasn't acting in my favour either.

For the first time, I had a chance to actually taxi all the way to 22-hold, than backtrack to 16, do the power checks, etc. That's the way these things should be done!. After all, I am the one who is suppose to learn here, not the one who is suppose to watch (and pay for it). I liked that.

It has been a while since I took off in C152, and it seemed like the time slowed down as we accelerated, and I pushed the throttle very slowly in. We got up, as usual went for down the peninsula. The day was just beautiful. Pretty much clear skies, warm, nearly no wind. Joy to be in the air.

I pretty much quickly got back into feeling things, trimming went smooth. I couldn't remember what was the procedure for climb and descent, but it slowly got back to me. The week at work has been depressing, I slept only 4h previous day, so I had no time to check the books, and get back on theory. Kind of hoping that it will all come back to me, and it did. I was also introduced to two new procedures. As usually, there's a 'name' to remember. The two new friends are: DABLE, and FREDA. The latter I knew from countless blogs I read on the subject. Again, the man was very professional and explained everything to me in very good detail. DABLE stands for : Direction, Attitude, Balance ball, Lookout, Engine checks. As you might imagine it applies to turns. FREDA is a cruise check, that you are suppose to carry out every 10 or so minutes. It stands for: Fuel, Radio, Engine checks, Direction indicator, Altimeters.

I basically did ex 7 and 8 time and time again, to remind myself how all that was done. I have to say, it all comes back very quickly.

We also did the ex 9 (all sorts of turns, with climb, descend, etc).

This time, I was reminded about my attempt to "chase the speedo". I was previously proud that I had no such tendencies,but I suppose the fact that it has been a while made me feel slightly unsure about speeds and aircraft's attitude. But I got rid of that pretty quickly. After all, it would be a shame to do it, since I know consequences of that.

The hour went past so quickly, we were on our way to the airport again. Since we were suppose to land on 34. I was told that it isn't so easy runway, due to the nearby hill air flow causes aircraft to sink as you approach the runway. So I was told to just follow on the controls. We landed smoothly, and it felt indeed like the airflow wasn't as predictable as it was on likes of 22, or 04. Also 34 is much shorter, so no room for mistake.

Of course it was my job to taxi us back to apron. I still have a tendency to sit on breaks, which I was reminded of. I still have to learn to taxi, this isn't easy.

It was a shame, when we got back, and Simon asked me if I have any questions. And I had none. He explained all so well, and I knew what I did wrong.

He only wrote down FREDA, and DABLE on back of my logsheet, so that I will remember it (and I will!), and that was it.

All in all, great time, great weather, great lesson. I flew again! I am past the naive excitement, but it felt awesome. As usual, huge grin on my face.

Next to the club, there's a car wash. And I noticed in the middle of it, heli from the school next door. In the middle of that car wash, being washed by folks who work there. Since the day was very nice, and my car has been through hell of winter weather, I decided to clean it there as well. Just the basic service this time, but will come back for full treatment one day :) That heli was really looking great in the middle of the court. I wonder how many people got attracted by it too, and decided to wash their cars there.

Route: Departed rwy 16, over Strangford Lough and back up . Landed rwy 34.

Milestones: fully done ex 9, recap of things I learned so far.

Exercises covered: 7, 8, 9

Weather: sunshine!, CAVOK !

Lesson 5, ups and downs

2010-01-23T14:22:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 5

22/I/2010

Lesson time: 1.0h

Total time: 4.1h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: R. McConnell

Did I ever mentioned how lucky I feel at times. Booked the lesson with Roger for 1330, took 2nd half of the day off. Phoned the club, Roger just said: "we are not flying now, but the fog seems to be clearing off, so come over". Well, 1200 sharp with huge grin on my face, I ran down to my car (yeah, new purchase - another reason to feel lucky). Drove home for quick lunch, couldn't even munch half of it. Picked my usual stuff + new headset, and off I went.

I arrived at the club around 1300, and was told that Roger is in the air with other student. Sat down in the club, started to read on ex 7 and 8 but pretty soon someone opened the back door, and I couldn't just sit there, went over to enjoy the sun and watch with others as someone was training in helicopter. In about 20 minutes Roger appeared, as it turned out he was busy lunching in the new cafe next door.

He was bit worried, because no C172 was available. Yes, I booked it but someone else was flying in it. Probably some student from previous booking slot was trying to catch a bit of sky after a fair bit of wait. I mentioned to Roger that Zzzeee Bonker (G-BNKR, club's only C152) is free, and I have nothing against flying in it.

As before, Roger would thoroughly describe the purpose of Today's lesson. Basically he described in very good detail what happens with the aircraft's attitude when you enter, execute and leave climb or descent, what is the Vx, etc. As always, with a help of a little aircraft model - which I have to say, sometimes makes me wanna laugh like a teenage blondie. I listened to him in silence, just acknowledging what he was saying, as that sort of level of detail would be new to me.

I have to say, by now I can actually see exactly what I like and don't like in each instructor. Maybe saying "don't like" is going too far. Each and every one of them will have his own way of teaching. It really feels great, that I can grab the bookings book - lookup instructor's name, and decide with whom I want to have next lesson, knowing already who is who, and most of all - what to expect.

Roger gave me the key, and asked if I ever did the pre flight inspection. Asked me also if I have my checklist for 152. I always carry both with me, but since I expected to fly in 172, it was sitting in my car. So off I went, to grab the C152 checklist, leave my book in the car, etc.

This would be my second preflight done by myself. This time I knew exactly what to do (or so I think). Opened the door (yeah, remembered from the last time), checked electrics, put the flaps down - in stages, whilst observing the movement on both sides. Checked fuel, oil, etc. I was done by probably 3-4 minutes. So I did another walk about to re-check the things, whilst waiting for Roger to come over. Funny, he came over, asking me about 'fuel quality' (I swear - that is what I heard, accents here are a funny thing, and I did not had a chance to fly with just the two instructors that are English in the club, speaking with proper accent ;p). I honestly thought, that since the plane wasn't in the air on the day, he wanted me to check if there's any water in fuel etc. But as my luck would have it, he actually meant quantity. And yes, I did the dip-stick check. This is the bit that for some reason I enjoy. Climbing on the wings, and peeking in the tank. Dunno why. Probably because I get a chance to jump off it, which just makes me feel good :D

As previously, I had a chance to make few initial calls, taxi a bit, and had to follow my checklist with everything. I was no longer catch by surprise with the checklist, so everything went smoother and more relaxed.

There was still bit of water here and there on taxi ways, so Roger took over most of the taxying. Whilst on backtracking 04/22, I had this thought that I no longer feel out of place in the aircraft. Even the C152, if you recall my first lesson and experiences there - I already feel like at home, even in the bloody tight tin can the C152 is.

Went through my engine check list, taxied to the 04 and had a chance again to take off. We had a bit of crosswind on our initial climb out, and Roger quickly demonstrated how to not get blown off by it. You just turn slightly into the wind with aerilons. Banal. Yet, I felt like someone gave me just another tip on how to turn stone into gold. Seriously.

I did most of the exercise with Paul last time, but not with that much of the briefing. So Today's lesson was mostly on how to climb and descend most efficiently. I think I did pretty well on that, as Roger was really pleased with my flying. I was a bit on the slow side, but I try to mentally remember what to do next.

The climb and descend requires you to change the airspeed to whatever would be the best (most effective) speed for the manoeuvre. It also requires change to the aircraft's attitude, as depending on the speed you would need to keep your nose higher or lower. So speed affects the attitude, and the attitude affects speed. The most common problem students have (according to Roger), is that they will try to correct the speed or attitude too quickly, thus entering what's known as 'loopback effect'. Basically you start to correct speed with attitude or attitude with speed too quickly. According to Roger, I only once showed - almost - an attempt to do this (yeah, I know - genius ;) ). So I probably got some really good note for this on my student record :) Most things in the aircraft take a bit of time to settle. So I naturally felt that I'll have to wait a bit after applying or pulling the power, or changing the attitude.

On our way back, I got blinded by the sun couple of times, and got to remember to get some non-polarised sunglasses. Polarised ones don't work well with aircraft's instruments. As we approached the airfield, Roger described to me the overhead join procedure, and gave me chance to fly for a bit of the circuit. At some stage he had to take over, as we flew into some low cloud. But once out of it, I had a chance to line up with runway, and commence the last descend of my lesson. Roger asked me briefly if I want to land, and since there was no response from me for too long (and things are happening fast on approach), he took over. I had a chance to operate yoke at the end of the approach/landing. Than quick taxi, again I did some of it. I am starting to get some idea on how to do it. And it is funny that you have the urge to use yoke as steering wheel. Doesn't work like that, and can actually cause some problems, if there's a wind gust.

So taxied back, did all shutdown procedures. At this stage, Roger told me that despite the fact that I had 0.8h to pay for, we were flying for an hour. It is basically the way tachos and all that works in C152. It doesn't count time per se, so when you are sitting there on apron with the engine idle 'the time will slow down'. This is actually quite fair, if you count the fuel price. So I've changed previous entry in my logbook to be 1.0, and Today's is 1.0 too. Totalling just little over 4h after 5 lessons :) Not too bad :)

During the debrief Roger mentioned that I should start reading on the same exercise but with flaps, so this is going to be probably subject of the next lesson (booked for next Friday, lets hope the weather will keep up). After that, turns in climb and descent, and than circuit bashing. Can't wait :P

Yet again, despite my attempt to keep entries short and brief, this is probably the longest entry on the blog. Heh. What can I say, if you're still with me, I do really appreciate it.

Route: Departed rwy 04, over Strangford Lough and back up . Landed rwy 04.

Milestones: finally able to set and release parking break on C152 (if you ever tried, you will know why I mention it here),

Exercises covered: climb and descend (6b), best rate of climb and glide.

Weather: Hazy sunshine; low cloud in places. Slight fog in morning, loads of water about, some taxi ways were unusable

This time the apron webcam catched Roger with me running away from the aircraft:

Lesson 4, lets kick your buttocks, and see if you can fly ;)

2010-01-17T12:42:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 4

17/I/2010

Lesson time: 1.0h

Total time: 3.1h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: P. Garnham

So. Maybe the blog isn't very popular, but those who read it told me in person that perhaps it was slightly on the longer side. So, I'm sorry if you haven't even tried to read it before, because it was too long. I'll try to make it briefer in the future (yes, I failed again Today).

On Saturday after the last test drive (gonna get my car soon, no more problems with getting to EGAD!, yuppie) I decided to drive through UFC on my way home and see if I could book few lessons. How big was my amazement when it turned out that there's a free slot on the very next day!. Wow. So I booked it for 17th, and some other day upcoming week, that I don't remember ...

Woke up Today, weather was great. Jumped in the car (got a rental for few days, to get a car, you need a car in this country..), choose UFC on gps, and off I went.

Turned up just 10 past 9, place was already starting to get slightly busy. Met my new instructor, I always get worried what the new guy is going to be like. Could see that he was either on fresh morning mood, or very reserved. My worries were to be soon extinguished. The guy turned out to be probably just as worried about new guys as I was :)

I learned quickly that Paul's approach is to keep a student on the leash, and if he does something stupid pull it to remind him, and if that doesn't help - intervene. Good, I like it, sounds like I'll get to do few things myself finally :) Peeked in the student's sheet, and saw that Roger gave me very good notes indeed. I've seen words like 'excellent', etc. Very nice, I thought.

Paul told me that we are going to try climbs and descends with and without flaps Today. Introduced me to PAT and APT (the latter 'fella' I knew already ;) ). Pat stands for Power, Attitude, Trim, and Apt for Attitude, Power, Trim. First one is for climbs, second one for descends. Things like lookout, and instruments are something we can omit. Also on this aircraft _before_ retracting power carburettor heat has to be _always_ applied (even when temp outside is +20).

The briefing was short, but the subject is also not very broad and I got briefed on all other concepts used in this lesson previously so there was no need to waste time.

Once done, I started to feel what Paul meant when he said that he likes to let student do as much as possible. I was asked to go on, and do external checks myself . So I left my book in the car, took my new Pooley's vest (first item of clothing that I ever purchased, that is both - for aviators, and made in England).

Opened my checklist for C152, on 'external' checks. Now, I assumed that since I got no key the aircraft will be closed, so I won't be able to check flaps. It is impossible to move them by hand. The external check basically means that you have to walk around the aircraft, and check anything that requires check, or is important to the safety.

It starts when you approach the aircraft. You need to get some good look at it, and see if there's anything that stands out. Notice any covers, locks, and anything else that could make it the worse day of your life. Move the aerilon up, and hold it. Check the strut for any movements, and remember to keep the aerilon up, otherwise it will act like a very nice and sharp guillotine. If you get a chance to put the flaps down, do it in stages and see if both move to the same angle. Move it all the way down and see outside if it moves or if it stays where it suppose to be. Any free movement spells trouble. The basic role of the flaps is to add more lift, that's sometimes required during take off and landing. In slightly more detail, the flap is extending wing's chord which affects the lift. It is very important in slow flight as it decreases stall speed, thus allows you to fly slow and safe. But it also increases the drag which counteracts thrust. Thus this puts more stress on the wing and you don't want the flaps to 'flap' freely at those slow speeds.

I checked the fuel, and the oil level also. Once done, I could see Paul heading my way. When he saw me in my new 'aviators' vest, I could see little 'I feel sorry for this guy' smile on his face :) Well, I am far from wearing anything with wings or epaulettes but the vest was a good purchase and is indeed quite warm.

To my amazement Paul just opened the door, and did indeed put the flaps down. He also did a quick check as probably he couldn't believed that I could have remember about fuel and oil. Or just maybe he wanted to survive Today's flight too :)

We jumped in happily, when it turned out that I forgot to grab headset from the club :/ Paul went on quicker than I could think, and brought one for me. We were all set. This would be the first time headset fully worked on C152 for me, yeah!

Now, in the world of aviation there's a checklist for everything. And previously all instructors would have brought their own checklist with them, so I could just happily put mine under my right leg. To my amazement, Paul kept his promise and asked me to open it on all the checks that were to follow. So every single time I had tendency to just close it, I had to bring it out again, and open on the right page. From the very start, Paul told me what and how to do, and helped me only with parking break, as it is quite tricky on the C152.

I always kept print out of the airport's chart - just in case it happens to be useful. Today Paul wanted me not only to follow all items on anything you need to do before take off. He also wanted me to handle the radio. And the chart page was very useful for that. He just wrote down few things that I was suppose to read out initially. It might seem funny, but when he first asked me to repeat the very first call you need to make I just couldn't remember it. Too stressed out, thinking that I could forget something I asked him to repeat couple of times, and finally he gave up and scribbled down: "Newtownards radio Scrabo 6 0 request airfield information and radio check". The first time I pressed the button I just managed to produce some odd sounds. So I backed off quickly, asked Paul to repeat to me again. Said it back to him, and when he confirmed that I am indeed okay, I pressed the button again, and did my very first radio call. How proud I was, when the guy on the other end actually understood my call, and replied with QNH, and all that stuff. I got reply , to set QNH to 1011 (rwy elevation is 9, so no need for QFE). I read that back, and soon we got correction. Literally within 30s it has changed to 1012. So I acknowledged that too. I got 'nice job' from Paul, which only increased my grin.

We did all the power checks, again with help of a check list. Rumour has it, that there's even a checklist for scratching your b***s and a**e. Dunno, never seen it :) And Paul asked me, if I did ever took off myself. I could feel that my pressure just got quite high, and my heart beat went up to 1000 bpm - cos I knew what will follow.

After my very lousy attempt at taxying the aircraft, I made the call again "Scrabo 6 0 taing to the rwy 22 hold". After a bit my pulse dropped to the 'normal living human being' level, Paul explained that we will now make another call, line up, and take off. He told me to relax, and just follow his instructions.

"scrabo 6 0 ready for departure". "Add the full power, release breaks, keep us on the line, and rotate at 60 knts" said Paul, so off I went. I swear, time started to run at half the peace for me from that point on. 60 knts is a bit of speed and I was just afraid that I'll get us off the rwy and we end up on grass. C152 does not have sport 16" wheels on good suspension. So that sort of incident always ends up not quite nice. Anyways, I had a little tendency to go to the right but somehow I managed to not hit lights or get on the grass before we were rolling at 60 knts. I pulled yoke gently, and little more and off I went to the sky. I was so concentrated on it, that I couldn't see if and how Paul was helping out, but I swear it felt like I did all the work, including rudder pedals !

So off we went climbing to 500 ft, than I was instructed to do the turn in climb which I somehow managed (even tho it wasn't part of the lesson). The day was indeed beautiful, and I really felt lucky that I am training there. Paul also asked me if I like the view, and would remind me to enjoy the views during the lesson. Off we went to the south of the lake (people here use word lough). I got a chance to do quite a lot myself, and Paul was very nice to gently remind me on anything that I forgot, or did wrong. I got even few 'very good job's . Indeed, I felt really proud of myself. Seriously, it is very rewarding when somebody finally notices that what you did was great. Perhaps it is because I wasn't often complimented as a child and teenager. Who knows.

After about 20 minutes, I did few climbs and descends, with and without flaps. Paul told me that he will take the control, and started to tell me about the very nice harbour on my left (Donaghadee) and asked me if I ever was on the Copeland island. I never went there, and silly asked Paul "do you need a boat to get there?". Well, obviously unless your car is an amphibia :D

He than told me to my surprise, that since I did so well he will let me do emergency descend to landing in case of power failure. I was to pick a field, but Paul spotted some grass runway and told me to head that way. Around 300 ft above ground he told me he is in control (this is the official cockpit language used on dual crew flights: "I got control", "you got control"). And he carried a very scary "go around". The runway was on slight slope up hill, and that probably made me feel like we are just going to hit it :) He than told me to take the controls back, and get us up to 1000 ft. I did so, managed to level us off, etc. He than all of the sudden started to show me how it feels to be in a very steep climb and descent. To that I replied, that it almost felt like my first lesson :)

It was the time to head back, so I got the controls and as to head to the airfield . Paul managed calls to the Belfast approach, and switched back to EGAC. At this stage he asked me to carry out the calls, but I just couldn't for some reason. Maybe it was too much for me to fly and talk, I don't know. So he managed the call, and again - he asked me if I ever landed the plane, and obviously the answer was no. We all know what happened next, and I knew I am in the trouble. I got to bring this bird down, and he is just going to sit there, tell me what to do, and in case I screw up recover from it. Again, I swear, he sat there very relaxed and haven't really touched yoke too much.

As we approached, he announced that we are on long final to the rwy 22 to which Ian (the guy from my 2nd lesson) replied that he is on base. That meant that we would have to either stop the approach or slow down, and let the man continue. Paul chose the later and made the call to Ian to tell him that. Obviously it was my chance to again manage aircraft's slowdown on flaps. I was told what to check for before landing, Paul told me that even tho C152 has fixed undercarriage it is important to remember that point on the list, as in the future I could fly one with the undercarriage retracted and, well.. shit could happen. Again, I swear I never flew the aircraft so close to the ground and made a conscious descent that if not interrupted would end up in high speed impact... But somehow I managed to overcome that, and following Paul's commands (and again, I was so concentrated that I couldn't see what he was doing, but I swear that he didn't helped me much) I commenced my very first ever landing. It was so smooth, that the stall warning buzz never sounded, either I passed out for a second, or something. Dunno. After landing, Paul told me to be gentle on breaks as we slowed down. I honestly thought we are still on the flare. But the front wheel was already rolling !. I did a shitty attempt at taxing, and we had to vacate rwy for somebody else, so Paul took control.

We went around the 'triangle', and when backtracking to apron Paul told me to try going in sine pattern on rwy. I started to like it so much, that I probably failed to understand Paul's instruction to do it once, so he took the control over to get us on centre line. Once again, I gained control over rudder breaks, and started to roll us back off rwy 22 to the apron. Yes there is after landing, and shutdown checklist too. :)

We did a quick debrief in the plane. I got a lot of compliments from the man. I really feel like I earned it, and he wasn't just trying to be nice. He also told me, that I'll be flying circuits and probably solo in no time. That remains to be seen, as I still have to go for the medical checkup, and pass the Air Law to do it (brr, quite broad subject).

Paul went over to the club house, and I got my logbook, pen and wallet from car. Got back to the club, and whilst waiting for Paul, started to fill out my logbook. Somebody asked me how was it, and how many hours I clocked, etc. Obviously the guy was nervous before the first lesson, which he will have with Paul. So I told him they all are very nice and friendly, and compliment you a lot. I guess he slightly misunderstood my attempt at being funny. So I just told him that Kiwi's (Paul is from NZ) are always very friendly, and when they need to tell you something - they will just spit it out flat, and right after that be friendly again. He obviously misunderstood my message, because it sounded like they all just try to be nice to customers (since we are customers there, no doubt about it). But don't get it wrong, if you screw up - the instructor will make you feel like you did. Otherwise you won't learn.

In general very good lesson. I am still cheesing up when thinking about it.

I am sorry but I failed at making this entry any short. And I still feel like I skipped few details here and there. But any ppl(a) student's blogs that I ever read, that were worth the read and enjoyable would be lengthy. The brief "I did ex 6,7,8" would be just not worth the read, let alone worth my time writing down.

Route: Departed rwy 22, then south from EGAD along west coast to the north of Strangford Lough and back up east coast. Landed rwy 22.

Exercises covered: radio calls (4.x), climb and descend (6b), and much more.

Weather: Hazy sunshine; broken cloud at high levels near south end of lough. Very light winds.

Milestones: Fist take off, landing, with only instructor's backup, and commands. Also, taxing and 90% of radio calls ! First lesson I drove to and from myself (I know it sounds cheesy, but I still feel great when I can drive my arse up [almost] anywhere I want).

Purchases: My first very own headset, and a nice bag for it.

Lesson 3 - straight and level

2009-12-31T15:10:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 3

31/XII/2009

Lesson time: 0.7h

Total time: 2.1h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-UFCE (C172)

Instructor: R. McConnell

It is funny how weather changes in this neck o'woods. You get whole week of beautiful weather, but deep inside - you know, that it is going to break down just on the day you were suppose to fly. But it is also works sometimes the other way. In my case, I had lesson booked for 29th, for the previous 4 days the weather was perfect, but the club was closed... On 29th I was told, there's ice on the runway , and they have no way of clearing it - so no flying. "Oh well" - I thought, and booked for 31th on 09:00, was told not to expect anything else than ice again ...

Now, I have no car - so bus is the only option. Takes roughly an hour to get from home to the UFC (home->bus station->newtownards city centre->ufc). There is someone in the club at around 8:30, which means I had no chance to enquire weather and indeed runway condition before leaving. Blind date.The whole christmas thing meant that I was pretty much sitting at home, with no good reason to go for walk or something - so a bit of walking and traveling was welcomed regardless.

In the end I was late for a bus, and forced to take a taxi to Ards, and still had plenty of time. Got there around 8:45, and to my biggest amazement - the weather was just perfect!. Now, there is a bit of justice in the world after all :) The other great thing was, that club was pretty much empty. 3 instructors, couple other people, me, and just one other student (his instructor - David - was amazed that the guy was able to go on QXC flight, solo, in December. Doesn't happen every year).

As it turned out I would fly Today with Roger, so far every lesson I had was with different instructor, which has its good and bad sides. Recently I've spent a little bit of time reflecting my feelings and concerns about it, and few other things I mentioned in my previous entries here, on the Flyer (a magazine) forums. Now, as it is pretty much a public forum, and as chances would have it - (at least) one of the instructors at UFC read my posts, and offered his response. I felt pretty strange, cos I never wanted to bash anyone directly with my comments. It was pretty much the " curious George " bunch of questions. Now, that instructor (David) was present Today in the club too. But back to that later on.

My previous two lessons were part of 'starter pack', which means that you get 2-3 lessons, first book, membership, etc. But that also meant that I didn't have my student record at the club. So the very first thing we did Today is mend that, which obviously meant that I had to spell my name, and explain where I was born etc. Always love to do that .. not ;P I mean, you never know what people are really thinking. There wasn't much to fill out anyway (2 entries from my log book, and my name - pretty much).

Next, I was surprised to be invited into a little class room (big name for small room, where single student and his instructor can fit, and maybe 3rd person). And Roger told me about what I was to do, answered all my questions (which I seem to ask always too many), and I was familiarised with straight and level flight procedure, abbreviated APT, for Attitude, Power, Trim. Basically, to fly straight and level after any manoeuvre, etc - you need to set the attitude: level wings, make sure you are not climbing or descending, aircraft is in balance, and the picture outside window is steady, vsi on 0, etc. Adjust power accordingly, if necessary. And than set the elevator trim, to relief any control column pressure. I was told that I will get to try that couple of times, and that Roger will demonstrate how (badly) it feels to be out of balance, even if you are level and fly straight.

I had a chance to try this before, but never was explained the whole APT procedure so thoroughly.

That brief lasted probably around 20 minutes. Now, going back to presence of other instructor whom I 'spoke with' on forums, I couldn't help to at least include the possibility that the very long and thorough brief was maybe slightly influenced by him. Dunno. I doubt it, but it was a thought that nonetheless went through my mind ;)

I am however sure, that my instructor for the lesson - Roger - is a guy that likes to make sure that the student understands the matter, and probably that's the whole reason - so please forgive me my silly suspicions.

Roger also underlined the importance of this lesson, just probably to assure me that it isn't because they love to keep me waiting before doing something else. I can honestly understand that flying straight and level and indeed setting and maintaining aircraft in straight and level flight is quite an important task.

I was initially told, that we probably will get to fly in the Piper PA28, but as it turned out C172 was free, and it was the aircraft I was hoping to fly Today. I wouldn't mind trying the PA28, as I never flew in it before - but Roger told me, that sticking to the training on one type of the aircraft is probably the best idea. So far I've been flying in C152, but Anthony (from my first lesson) had student in it, and I choose C172, because of the room, probably much better working intercom, and general comfort. Plus, as keen as I am to try out flying in the PA28, it is also more expensive than C152/172- for some reason.

So with all briefing done, it was time to head down to the apron.

We did a quick external check, I peeked in the fuel tanks - it was all topped up nicely, the aircrafts at UFC are fuelled up in the evening, to ensure no overnight water condensation. Hopped in, which is something I still need to practice in these high wingers, but I'll master that one day :P Went through all checks, and off we went towards runway.

Now, previously we would depart from RWY 22, which is matter of going straight out of apron, and we usually would be airborne just right after the numbers (22). Today we were suppose to depart from RWY 04, which means that you need to go all the way up to intersection with RWY 26 all the way to the west, turn south on taxi way. Here's the aerodrome chart for those interested: Aerodrome Chart – ICAO .

I couldn't help to notice, that there were few chaps in Van 7 aircraft (aircraft home built, from a kit), and both motor-gliders were set for flight as well. It indeed looked like it is going to be busy Today.

Roger did the engine checks before entering the RWY, and amazed me for the second time Today, asking me if I would like a go at taking off. Now, it may seem simple, and I did it many times in X-Plane and few other flight simulators on my computer, but for some reason I started to feel that this one is for real, and if I screw up we would end up on a fence in the C172 mash. But as always - very keen on the new task. I reckon, I could have done this on my 2nd lesson, but maybe Ian felt that I wasn't quite up to the task yet. Anyways, Roger told me that he will look after the rudder pedals thus keeping us straight on the rwy and my task was to pull the yoke on the 'rotate' command, and make sure that once we are off we are in the best (and positive!) climb. Sounded easy, but wasn't as easy. As much as you need to move controls around during normal flight, take off is no different. Especially if you encounter any gusts. And you know, that you are quite close to the ground. Now, I have no idea how these people cope with it on quite a bad day (like the one on my 1st lesson), must it take quite a bit of practice. Anyways, I did the task quite well, for the first timer (I think). It required constant lookout, and at glance at both VSI, and ASI to make sure that we are climbing up, and at 70 kts - that is the best climb speed for the C172.

Once airborne, Roger made sure that we left the circuit - as it was about to get rather busy - and off we headed over to the Strangford Lough. We left EGAD vicinity and quite quick in comparison with the C152, at around 110 kts. I don't remember how fast we were doing same thing in C152, but probably around 15-25 kts slower, which doesn't seem like much, but feels quit slower. He than changed freq to Belfast, requested basic service, etc. I noticed that airliners were passing quite low Today, or the air was so smooth and clear that I could just see it better. Dunno.

We climbed to around 2000 ft, and proceeded with the exercise. I first got a chance to just play around again, and see how it feels. Roger very briefly reminded me the whole straight and level business, demonstrated it as well. He than let me try few times, each time messing up the attitude and trim settings. I didn't get to try the power adjustments as it wasn't necessary.

I must say, I get the whole elevator trimming procedure quite well now. Probably because I never had a tendency to grip on control column (as oppose to what you see in movies, rather dramatised). It gives me better chance to feel how much pressure I am applying. Than, I need to make conscious observation as to weather I am pushing or pulling the yoke. And while constantly feeling how much pressure I apply, gently adjust trim until no more pressure is required. One other thing to remember, is to ease off the yoke as you trim to keep it in balance. I was actually quite proud of understanding that, and later on Roger will tell me that I am probably his first student to get it so quickly. Not that I do everything so great :P

I think I did it two times, when I noticed on the left side, above us, the bonker (C152 with Anthony and his student onboard), was making rather entertaining (at least to watch) stalling and spin recovery exercises. Now, Roger couldn't probably spot them, as they were on the left side, and higher, so probably outside of his field of view. And you don't really want to fly underneath aircraft that enters stalls and spins - which is partially uncontrollable manoeuvre , that is before you recover from it. Also you tend to loose rather random amount of height whilst doing so. So I prompted the danger, Roger took the control over, and moved us somewhere safe. I got a chance to practice few more times, I think in total I did 4-5 tries. Roger than went on, and demonstrated flight and level, but out of balance flight by crossing controls (opposite yoke to rudder), which felt a bit wrong. Now I can fully understand the meaning of 'flying out of balance' statement.

It was time to head back, and I discovered that I pretty much lost sense of direction. Maybe because I was focusing on flying straight, and took clouds as reference points and so didn't look on the ground so much. Roger told me where should I turn, so I got a chance to do my first turn for Today. I noticed that you need to apply quite bit of rudder in C172. Or it was because previously in C152 instructor would do it for me, dunno. Maybe it is because C172 is slightly longer. No idea. On our way back, I got a task to climb up again to 2000 ft as we needed that to join the circuit overhead, and of course got another chance to get us straight and level. I was explained the whole procedure of joining. The right hand circuit was in force Today, as we would approach for RWY 04. The air cadet's motor-glider was in the circuit as well and it is slower we need to make sure we would keep good lookout. Another one landed in front of us, and cleared runway while we were on our approach. It was all nicely co-ordindated over radio. I start to understand much more what and why they are talking, and some of the responses from ground.

Roger than explained to me how to approach, pretty much the same information as I got from Ian last time, but explained slightly different, which answered few questions that I had. That's one of the very good things about having different instructors - every person would explain things slightly different, and perhaps add different details to the information. The landing was rather smooth, but I noticed that the stall warning buzzer sounded for much longer than in C152. No idea if it is the type specific thing, or just the landing was different, or whether Roger does it differently. I noticed that he kept the front wheel up for much longer, which would tell me that he was trying to make the landing as gentle as it could be. And it was very good one.

Once the speed was down, I got offered a chance to try to taxi as back. Offer, which obviously I couldn't refuse :P . I had a chance to get a go on my 1st lesson, but I couldn't feel the breaks - because I was sitting too close, as I noticed later on. This time around, I felt that my input makes quite a difference. Roger told me to keep feet on the rudder and over breaks and push both to turn. I had a tendency to just push the upper part with my feet in the air.

There was a nice helicopter on EI reg sitting on apron Today, really beautiful machine, and in the only , the proper black colour - which made it look even better. Roger turned the aircraft just next to it, and I felt we are too close - but we were alright. Turned it around very tightly, towards the wind. He than did all the power off checks, etc. After the engine shutdown, I got a quick debrief, where I explained how I think I handle the elevator trim, and shared my observation on how I feel it on the yoke. Roger said, that after a while, you get to the point where you just adjust the trim wheel by right amount, and it is in balance after one turn. Well, I look forward to those times :)

Headed back to the club, where I got offered some help with my log book. But I could do it myself already :)

Whilst in the 'radio room', I introduced myself to David (mentioned before) from the Flyer forums. He either didn't noticed my previously, or just didn't wanted to make me feel watched and didn't introduce himself. We chatted briefly and shared our view on things we talked about on the forum. Especially regarding my questions on the training and my observations. It is very good that somebody really cares about my feedback and questions I have. I shouldn't really feel any resistance to share any of my observations as that is quite bad for both the club's business and my training progress. Somehow aviation world and people involved feel like the right type of people for me and the kind I really enjoy being part of, or - for now, aiming to be part of.

Filled out my log book, said good byes to instructors, paid for the lesson, and C172 checklist, and headed back home. One these days, I would sacrifice few hundred quid for some cheep runabout car, and will save myself 20 minutes walk to the bus stop. Of course, so far the only reason I haven't done this, is that every 100 quid gives me 45 minutes of flying. And I rather spend any excess in cash on that.

Overall, very enjoyable lesson. But as always, felt too short :) I was warned, that when I get to fly circuits, 45 minutes will be very exhausting. Well, looking forward to that. But that's still probably quite few lessons ahead.

Btw, if you guys feel like I am waffling too much, and you would rather enjoy reading shorter posts, please let me know. I have this tendency to write essays it seems, and I am deeply sorry if it puts you off reading it.

Route: Departed rwy 04, then south from EGAD along west coast of Strangford Lough and back up east coast. Landed rwy 04.

Weather: sunshine; very few scattered high clouds, calm wind, quite warm for the time of the year.

Milestones: elevator trimming, and straight and level flight now under much better control. Got a go at take off. First time in C172.

Lesson 2 aka Pigs in Spaceeee !

2009-12-19T07:14:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 2

19/XII/2009

Lesson time: 0.7h

Total time: 1.4h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: I. McFall

About a week ago, in mainland Europe temperatures started to drop. Well, here comes the proper winter. Wasn't long before South of England got a bit of snow, and there was snow forecast for Today in NI too. So I was pretty sure yesterday, what will the weather be and I was already expecting that the lesson will be canceled. Needless to say The forecast was wrong. Forecasts for the northern ireland are usually wrong. The general tendency that I see, is that usually whatever they say is going to happen anyway, but a for bit later.

I got some nasty infection last week. Had to stay at home for about 5 days, and just got back to work on Wednesday. But I was in shape for Today, nothing can stop me ! :)

Last time, I was a bit disappointed by (lack of/the) space available in the Cessna 152, so I changed my booking to 172. As it turned out, two of four 172s are away due to either maintenance or are being fixed after some minor incidents (I got two conflicting pieces information on that one). So, back to Bonker again (G-BNKR) for the lesson. Oh well...

Instructor asked me, what I wanted to do Today. I pretty much wanted to recap last lesson, and leave a bit of time to do something new. Learning from my previous experience, I paid extra attention to where my legs are with relation to rudder pedals. And I can see clearly that I've been sitting far too close to the 'dashboard' last time. Also, the instructor I flew with Today is quite a tall guy, so he would push his chair all the way aft. Great, more space for my arms :D

Going back to the lesson. The club was rolling on 5th gear Today. Probably by combination of aircraft shortage, nice weather, weekend, and proximity of christmas (and gift vouchers due).

We did the external checks pretty quickly I gotta say - I was under impression that things are being rushed. Everything was done throughly - it was just a bit sped up. Well, two planes short is quite a bit. Plus, this is the last weekend before Christmas, so there is plenty of gift voucherers (I am pretty sure, this is an actual word, serious ;P ) ;) .

During the checks, I noticed that even tho the Bonker wasn't flown Today, L magneto didn't caused any problems this time. Must have been fixed. Good :) This time around also, my mic was working. So I could actually talk to instructor. But everything in this world my stay in balance, something else must give way, obviously - and for change I could barely hear my instructor. I bet he thought that bloody Pole just doesn't understand the word he says, I got pretty upset about it - cos the whole point is to listen to what the guy says, and attempt to do it. I told him about it, as soon as we got back. His answer was, that there are indeed some strange issues with sound on that particular aircraft. I guess it is the age thing. In aviation, everything that has direct impact on flight safety is always top-notch even on a 50 year old aircraft (not sure how old the bonker is, maybe not that much - but oldish). But there are some bits, that are not essential, thus they tend to be overlooked, and aren't maintained to as high standards.

The air was very very smooth in comparison with previous lesson. The instructor demonstrated secondary effects of controls, etc. All the stuff that i read about for past 2 years, and I've seen already during previous lesson. After that recap, which seemed like forever, I got a chance to see if I could do it (again) all myself. Which I did (obviously ;p), and it actually felt pretty good and boosted my confidence.

Now, obviously that alone wouldn't constitute a lesson so I hoped we will try something new. And this time flaps were added to the equation. For the reminder of the lesson, I had a chance to try out trimming, power changes and flaps. And at the same time, keep the plane level, and trimmed in between exercises. That proved to be much easier than last time, I gotta say. But still, my workload was very very high. I got reminded pretty much all the times about keeping the plane level. This time around, I also tried to rely solely on visual reference. I read so many articles recently, about how the instrument flying in VFR can increase potential for accident. I also can see my tendency to not pitch up or down too much. I don't know where that comes from, but I suppose it is better to push the limits slowly, rather than the other way around.

After bit of playing, I was told to keep as at 800 feet, and head towards the EGAD and on top of that try speeding up, and slowing down, flaps, trimming and stay level. I am sure it is doable, but for me it was quite a workout.

On the approach, the instructor walked me through the landing, and how to control speed and pitch (which is done different to what you would do to achieve same effect during normal flight). Basically elevators control speed (which normally is used for pitching), and power controls pitch (which normally controls speed, and sometimes pitching). And use rudder to keep aircraft pointing in right direction, because in slow flight rudder can be actually used for small correction of heading. The landing wasn't as smooth as previous one, but I guess this time it was the unexpected gust during flare.

This time around I didn't get a chance to taxi the plane, like I said - everything seemed to be rushed a bit, because of the shortages. Oh well, hopefully I'll get a chance next time. I was kind of hoping I'll get a chance, since I failed to do it last time - due to quite bad sitting position. Which oh irony, is something I pay extra detailed attention when driving a car. It obviously is done for different reasons than (visibility, mirror setting, steering with both hands, etc).

As far as I read also, others usually get a chance to do bit of radio work on their 2-3 lessons. I didn't get a chance yet, and I hope I will get soon. Every club does things different, and since you get a fair rotation of instructors in that one - things might take slightly longer.

On that note, this lesson really felt like a practice. To be honest, when I left club and walked to Ards city centre to catch a bus - I tried to recap of what I did Today, etc. This definitely wasn't as exciting lesson as the first one. To be honest, probably due to my high hope I actually felt initially like I just wasted my 45 minutes. It is only as I write this stuff down now, that I can see how my previous experience set the hopes for this one slightly too high, in terms of excitement. Probably what added to that, was my oversensitivity to few things that happen in the Club before lesson.

Overall, this was rather calm lesson. Not only due to the smooth air, but also because my initial overexcitement is over. I can clearly see what is where now, and what is happening on the aircraft. Yes, I get used to things quickly.

I just wish the lesson would last 1h instead of 45min (apart from the fact, that it I logs in as 0.7, that leaves me off 0.05h short for every time I fly 45min) . Maybe I'll get a chance to fly 1h next time, altho Ian, the instructor told me that it probably be too much, and that 45 min is sort of an optimal time for a lesson. At least initially. Personally I could do just turns and level flying exercises for 2h, and still not get tired of it :)

At the club house I asked instructor to show me, where about did we fly Today. Map in some other room, and I said I have my own chart here. Took out the NI sectional chart. At that point I think the guy just was sure, that I am nuts/daft/muppet. In fact I thought the whole room thought so. Nonetheless, he showed me where we were, and it just perfectly matched my assessment .

In case you wonder about the title. It is a bit of a self sarcasm really. I am a bit on the podgy side, and I always loved that line from Muppets. Plus, it sort of became the code for 'I am flying Today/Tomorrow' in conversations with one of my friends.

Next lesson booked for 29th of December. It remains to be seen, if the weather will be on my side this time. I sincerely hope so. I will probably at that stage be bored after Christmas break, and just look forward to that lesson.

Route: Departed rwy 22, then south from EGAD along west coast of Strangford Lough and back up east coast. Landed rwy 22. (again)

Weather: sunshine; scattered high clouds, freezing cold, but calm wind.

Milestones: recapped exercise #4 part 1. Did #4 part 2, and introduction to exercise #6 .

Lesson 1 , and a bit of introduction.

2009-12-06T09:37:00.000-08:00

Lesson: 1

06/XII/2009

Lesson time: 0.7h

Total time: 0.7h

Location: EGAD

Aircraft: G-BNKR (C152)

Instructor: A.Smyth

After 3 unsuccessful attempts to get me chance to fly an aircraft on my own. Finally. This is the lesson that I booked originally two weeks ago. I tried also to fly last weekend, and during the week - but all the plans were ruined by really bad weather.

To make the matter funnier - every day that I have not booked for during the week was perfectly fine. But that didn't stop me from trying :) I was told Today, that despite the weather in that part of the world, there are plenty of days to fly in a year, apart from December, which apparently is the worse of them all. That remains to be seen, I still have another booking for December, and I would love to be able to fly that day.

Anyways. Why I ended up doing it? Well, I was born in Cracow, Poland - a long time ago (31 years, to be slightly more precise). But the winds blew me around the world (Austria, UK, Canada). So since I am living here (and quite happily gotta add) for some time now, it is time to start my training here.

The flying story here, is the usual one. I always wanted to fly... etc. Nothing unusual I suppose.

So going back to the lesson it self. I turned up an hour before the lesson. The very first time I traveled from Belfast to Newtownards on Sunday. Buses aren't going that often, so I was a bit worried, that I won't get there on time, etc. But it was fine, the traffic was really light. Than the usual stroll from Ards city centre to the UFC. Had a tea, and read few articles in one of the many papers available for visitors at the club, while waiting for my instructor.

I wasn't brieft by my instructor this time, since I had the lesson explained to me on the Friday. It is just, that the weather turned out to be not on my side back than. Plus, this instructor was already kind of familiar with my case (a nut case from Poland, that read too much theory, and tries to put it into practice now), as we spoke previously couple of times. Also the first one, to actually recognise my miserable attempts at faking the english accent.

I got warned about very violent gusts , and asked if I don't mind a bit of sea sickness. Etc. Well, needless to say, I was set to fly for the day, so nothing could stand in my way!

So off we went. We did a bit of walk about (external checks). I got a chance to do visual fuel level checks, for the first time (done with help of a little wooden stick). Than walk around, everything turned out to be okay.

Now, I gotta say, I was always under impression that C152 and C172 are kind of the same size inside. Big enough for 2 or 4 people, etc. Nothing further from the truth my friends. Even the RyanAir chairs are much more spacious. Words such as: cosy, cramp, and jammed come to my mind, when I try to describe it. I am not the smallest bloke myself, and on top of that - there's not enough space in the cockpit to keep my right hand on anything else than the throttle leaver, and the general area. Otherwise I could keep it on the instructor's lap - which he would not appreciate - I suppose.

After managing to jam my arse inside, we run through the pre-engine start checklist, than the after engine start checklist, etc. Turned out, that the L magneto gives a bit of rough run. I thought to myself - all right, this is the end, you got that far, but this is going to be another obstacle, and you won't fly Today. Well, nothing like it, as it turned out. The instructor was familiar with the issue, apparently this is something that happens often on planes like this one (old C152s). A little bit of warming up, involving changes in power and mixture - and 2 minutes later we were lined up on rwy 22. I was told, this has to do with spark plugs.

Now, I mentioned the weather. Please also bear in mind, that this was my very first flight in such a small plane, and in the left seat - on the top of it.

So, off we went - it was great, up until we were to about 150ft up in the air, and I started to feel the power of the wind. You get used to it, when you live here. But when you fly, it just moves one level up on the scale. Despite the constant power, plane went all over the place. At times, it felt like we are not only not climbing, but either stay on the same level, or are slammed violently towards the ground.

I was told that we need to climb to at least 1000ft (which I thought will look much higher, than it really was from my seat). Instructor made few more radio calls, and changed freq to Belfast Control- since we were further away from EGAD.

Around the peninsula (South towards Comber), I was given the control and explained how should I carry out each exercise. Now , remember, the weather was just not on my side. So there I was, trying the effects of each of the controls first - that was okay in it self, but in my opinion - there was just enough time to try each one 1-2 times, and that's it. Than we moved to banking, using both airlierons, and rudder. So I tried that couple times. On one occasion, I failed to notice traffic on our left side. The sun was just blinding me - so note to self, next time - purchase some sunglasses (C172 has sunvisors, C152 doesn't but sunglasses are a very good idea nonetheless).

So, now imagine me - trying to control the aircraft, whilst being blown around all 3 axis. Not the best first time experience. But my instructor was happy with my performance - since, he allowed me to try some more fun - trimming. Now that proved to be really hard under the conditions. I think of all the 3 attempts, I did it okay only once. My mistake, as it turned out later - was that I also tried to keep the heading at the same time (visually). Since already over 30 minutes have elapsed, we had to head back to the airport. (into the sun again).

I remember, asking my instructor - how was he able to even line up with rwy in the conditions. He just said "after a while, you just get used to it". Nice, I thought to myself. I know the wether wasn't on my side, but keeping the aircraft level was really hard in all that wind.

Landing on RWY 22 - very gentle. I was given a chance to taxi the Bunker (G-BNKR) to the apron, but I really couldn't feel the breaks on rudder pedals. They were just not where I expected them to be. I wonder if that's the error on my side, or I just need to get the feeling of it. Or perhaps, I got my chair too close to the panel. Well, no idea. All I know, is that the next time I'll fly in C172, because I know it is slightly wider, and about 2x more powerful than this C152.

After a very short debrief, I added my very first entry into the log book, checked my booking for the next lesson, and changed the plane on the booking to C172.

One thing I forgot to mention. As soon as we were airborne, I felt like on a rollercoster, but with no support. Which is what you are suppose to feel in an aircraft after all. But, it was a sort of this weird feeling. On one side, enormous pleasure. On the other side, quite scared, especially in banking (turns), even tho we only did 30 degree turns. You look outside the window, and it feels like if you are suspended over the land, and so close from falling down. Quite a peculiar feeling, I gotta say.

Route: Departed rwy 22, then south from EGAD along west coast of Strangford Lough and back up east coast. Landed rwy 22.

Weather: Hazy sunshine; broken cloud at low levels near south end of lough. Strong winds.

Milestones: First time in a "light" aircraft, first time at the controls of an airplane.