(short) Lesson 33

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 P

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

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

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)

(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

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)

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

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)

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

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"

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