Friday dawned grey.
Prospects didn't look great and while I drove Rekha into work, the cloudbase was only 500 feet, though it was forecast to rise to ~3000 feet later in the day. However the winds were much lighter.
But Dick (who will likely be my main CPL instructor) said to come in anyway and I was going to suggest if it might be possible to do some of the required 5 hours of instrument flying since the weather wasn't suitable for the normal starting flight of general handling and stalls.
So I finally got to start my CPL by doing some instrument flying. In order to prevent the pilot from seeing any visual features and use them to judge his attitude (you wouldn't be able to see any features in cloud which is just like fog), simulated instrument flight uses slatted screens (or a in some aircraft a hood or "foggles", but I'll just be using screens) which block the pilots view of the outside, but still allowing the instructor to see outside for safety. So we put the screens up and took off.
Dick passed my headings and altitudes to fly to and we punched through the main cloud layer at about 3000 feet and into the sunlight above at about 4500 feet. We then did general instrument handling to get into the normal swing of instrument flying. Because I've already done IMC training I knew (in theory) how to do all this and how to maintain an instrument scan, but it was just a case of getting back into the swing of things since it had been a couple of years since I last flew on instruments.
An instrument scan is a pretty obvious thing to have to do - namely monitor all the instruments to check you're flying as desired (in this case, initially straight and level). In practice it's actually quite difficult to get to grips with because you can't fixate on any one instrument, say the altimeter because then you might gradually enter a slight turn (imperceptible to your body's senses) and lose your heading, or worse enter a spiral dive. So you have to constantly flick your eyes over each instrument in turn (usually in set patterns depending on what you're doing - straight & level, climbing/descending, turning etc.) only staying on one for about 2 seconds. So it's really quite mentally taxing until you get used to it, and it's easy for your scan to break down and you fixate too much on one instrument and your flying goes to shit.
So I was initially doing this and trying to maintain straight and level. I think the hardest part is getting the aircraft in trim. This is where you use a wheel to move a small control surface on your elevator (in all aircraft, but some also have rudder and aileron trim) that is independent of the main control column with the aim of reducing any push or pull pressure you might have to zero so you could take your hands off and the aircraft should remain flying straight and level. In instrument flights it only takes very small movement to start climbing/descending or turning, so having it in trim to prevent your slight control column pressure from putting you into a climb/descent is very important or you're fighting a losing battle.
Once I got the hang of it again we started doing rate 1 turns - 360 degrees first one way and then the other. In these you have to maintain your rate of turn whilst keeping your altitude constant. Then climbing and descent where you maintain your heading but monitor your airspeed to ensure the correct rate of climb/descent. The trick is not to devote too much of your scan to your altimeter when in a climb for example but just enough so that you know when you're approaching your desired altitude so you can then bring it into your scan and not overshoot your altitude. The same goes for the DI in a turn. Finally you do both at the same time.
Considering I'd not done and instrument flying for so long I picked it up again really pretty quickly and was not too bad by the end of the lesson. Flew back to the airport for a visual approach, but taking headings from Dick to position for right base for runway 32. And did a damn fine landing for my first time in a PA-28 for a long time!
Sunday, 31 August 2008
Saturday, 30 August 2008
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
CPL day 3
Unlikely to be flying again today because of the cloudbase and the wind :-(
PS. Have moved the glossary to the right so that it's always fairly close to hand.
PS. Have moved the glossary to the right so that it's always fairly close to hand.
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
comments
Please feel free to leave comments - I've opened it to anonymous comments.
But if you can leave your first name or some means of my identifying who made the comment it would be nice so I can see who's reading it and asking questions/making suggestions.
PS. I've updated the glossary to correct for recent omissions that have been pointed out to me.
But if you can leave your first name or some means of my identifying who made the comment it would be nice so I can see who's reading it and asking questions/making suggestions.
PS. I've updated the glossary to correct for recent omissions that have been pointed out to me.
CPL day 2
No flying again :-(
A persistent git of a dying front is sitting over southern Scotland. It's not really raining, but the cloudbase has barely gotten above 800 feet and there is periodic drizzle keeping the viz quite low (though still over 10k) meaning that there is next to sod all chance of doing anything worthwhile.
A persistent git of a dying front is sitting over southern Scotland. It's not really raining, but the cloudbase has barely gotten above 800 feet and there is periodic drizzle keeping the viz quite low (though still over 10k) meaning that there is next to sod all chance of doing anything worthwhile.
Monday, 25 August 2008
CPL day 1
Well, the day is finally here!
Only the weather isn't :-(
Yet another deep Atlantic depression causing more miserable August weather, though strangely no rain in Leeds. However, the wind is forecast to be too strong and all crosswind. Still needed to get all the paperwork done and so met with the other two who were starting the CPL on the same day:
Firstly it seems like it's not that trivial to correctly judge the positions and equalities of the power and prop levers, though I daresay you get used to them quite quickly. It does yaw about noticably if you don't use them in unison.
Secondly, I knew that on engine failure and simulated asymetric flight you get a large yaw moment from the opposite engine but I was still unprepared for how much you get. With no action it really does yaw very strongly and quickly Nick really had to put the boot in to the rudder to maintain straight and level flight, and even with max rudder trim on 25/25 (inches of manifold pressure/hundreds of rpm) he said he still had to put in quite a bit of rudder. I picked up an aide memoir for identifying the dead engine - because you have to put in so much opposite rudder you could have the other leg dead and still fly, hence the phrase "Dead Leg, Dead Engine" ie. if you don't need to use your right leg (all left rudder) then it's the right engine that had failed.
Finally another thing which I think will help me is that Nick observed that whenever you touch the throttle you need to be thinking about doing something with the Carb Heat (hot when reducing power for descent/asymetric) and/or the Cowl Flaps (closed for cruise/descent and open/half open for climb). Here's a mnemonic I thought of - "Throttle, Carb Heat, Cowl Flaps" Ten CC (as in the 1970's pop group). This will hopefully be a particularly useful one as I'm often forgetting about the cowel flaps in G-BFMH.
Really looking forward to flying the twin now! :-D
Only the weather isn't :-(
Yet another deep Atlantic depression causing more miserable August weather, though strangely no rain in Leeds. However, the wind is forecast to be too strong and all crosswind. Still needed to get all the paperwork done and so met with the other two who were starting the CPL on the same day:
- Nick - from the RAF having flown Jaguars and more recently instructing on Tocanos. He's only got to do the minimal time (about 10 hours) to get his ME rating and convert his IR.
- Dave - the same position as me being just short of 70 hours P1
Firstly it seems like it's not that trivial to correctly judge the positions and equalities of the power and prop levers, though I daresay you get used to them quite quickly. It does yaw about noticably if you don't use them in unison.
Secondly, I knew that on engine failure and simulated asymetric flight you get a large yaw moment from the opposite engine but I was still unprepared for how much you get. With no action it really does yaw very strongly and quickly Nick really had to put the boot in to the rudder to maintain straight and level flight, and even with max rudder trim on 25/25 (inches of manifold pressure/hundreds of rpm) he said he still had to put in quite a bit of rudder. I picked up an aide memoir for identifying the dead engine - because you have to put in so much opposite rudder you could have the other leg dead and still fly, hence the phrase "Dead Leg, Dead Engine" ie. if you don't need to use your right leg (all left rudder) then it's the right engine that had failed.
Finally another thing which I think will help me is that Nick observed that whenever you touch the throttle you need to be thinking about doing something with the Carb Heat (hot when reducing power for descent/asymetric) and/or the Cowl Flaps (closed for cruise/descent and open/half open for climb). Here's a mnemonic I thought of - "Throttle, Carb Heat, Cowl Flaps" Ten CC (as in the 1970's pop group). This will hopefully be a particularly useful one as I'm often forgetting about the cowel flaps in G-BFMH.
Really looking forward to flying the twin now! :-D
Conington
On Sat 23rd I really didn't feel like going flying; some days you just wake up like that. But I forced myself to go since It was a great day and I'd promised my sister & brother-in-law I would try to come down to Peterborough when the weather was good.
Quickly planned the route, cheating slightly and reusing all the headings, distances and MSAs from my previous trip down there when I injured my back (maybe even cracked a rib) doing a simulated skydive at bodyflight. Other than that did some quite accurate VOR tracking both inbound and outbound from GAM nothing really worth mentioning about the flight down. Approach to Conington was good but I bounced it once on landing and it wasn't even a crosswind :-( Got a friendly "telling off" by the admin guy there about flaring it more - not like I didn't know I ballsed it up...
Consequently I was a bit apprehensive about taking Jo and Pierre for a jolly round the local area; this landing inconsistency is pissing me off. Anyway, set off and did a nice trip round Peterborough, up to Rutland Water and back down past Spanhoe to Conington and showed them the many of the same sights as I showed my parents previously. Joined downwind for runway 28, did a decent approach and then absolutely greased the landing down short field style! :-) Inconsistency rules yet again... *sigh* I hadn't actually meant to land like that where you descend quite rapidly and do a quite abrupt flare and touch down just as the flare zeros your rate of descent; I meant to to the traditional flare and float it along and touch it down near the stall. Still, a good landing is a good landing and my confidence was back.
For the trip back again pretty good VOR tracking and a bit of practice in position fixes. Landing this time on 14 with a right crosswind instead of the usual 32 with wind from the left. Got it down quite nicely with a timely decrab and dip of the into wind aileron. I'm probably improving overall but progress is slow and I need more practice. Thought's just occurred to me - Why don't I head over to somewhere like Elvington (where the landings are cheap or even free) one day when it's a crosswind there and practice.
Now just need 2:10 P1 to be able to start the ME rating.
Quickly planned the route, cheating slightly and reusing all the headings, distances and MSAs from my previous trip down there when I injured my back (maybe even cracked a rib) doing a simulated skydive at bodyflight. Other than that did some quite accurate VOR tracking both inbound and outbound from GAM nothing really worth mentioning about the flight down. Approach to Conington was good but I bounced it once on landing and it wasn't even a crosswind :-( Got a friendly "telling off" by the admin guy there about flaring it more - not like I didn't know I ballsed it up...
Consequently I was a bit apprehensive about taking Jo and Pierre for a jolly round the local area; this landing inconsistency is pissing me off. Anyway, set off and did a nice trip round Peterborough, up to Rutland Water and back down past Spanhoe to Conington and showed them the many of the same sights as I showed my parents previously. Joined downwind for runway 28, did a decent approach and then absolutely greased the landing down short field style! :-) Inconsistency rules yet again... *sigh* I hadn't actually meant to land like that where you descend quite rapidly and do a quite abrupt flare and touch down just as the flare zeros your rate of descent; I meant to to the traditional flare and float it along and touch it down near the stall. Still, a good landing is a good landing and my confidence was back.
For the trip back again pretty good VOR tracking and a bit of practice in position fixes. Landing this time on 14 with a right crosswind instead of the usual 32 with wind from the left. Got it down quite nicely with a timely decrab and dip of the into wind aileron. I'm probably improving overall but progress is slow and I need more practice. Thought's just occurred to me - Why don't I head over to somewhere like Elvington (where the landings are cheap or even free) one day when it's a crosswind there and practice.
Now just need 2:10 P1 to be able to start the ME rating.
Windemere
Friday the 22nd and the weather was good again. Had offered to take Darren, a running friend up for a jolly if the weather was suitable so gave him a bell and he was raring to go. Asked if Julie (his wife) could come along and I was fine with that - the more the merrier (as long as the W&B are ok). Decided to just go for a local flight as it made things easier and beside, I wanted to practice some position fixing if possible over an area I knew quite well anyway. This local flight ended up going over Windemere in the end because they wanted to see the lake where they used to run a boat.
Did my plan and the passenger briefing and we were off. I expected it to be quite bumpy since there were quire a lot of fluffy clouds but it was remarkably smooth except in the up and downdrafts as we returned from Windemere over the northern part of the Dales. Still managed to do a pretty good job of altitude holding and I reckon it's not to far off what is required for the CPL now.
There was a glut of traffic when we came back into Leeds and I did get a bit nervous when I had to extend downwind way beyond normal and ended up being almost overhead the city centre - I even saw the C&W building where I work from the air for the first time which gives some indication of how far out we got (in the photo you can just see the nearby condemned semicircular building on the far left about a fifth of the way down) . But the approach from about an 8nm final was pretty good (two reds, two whites most of the way) and the landing was at least passable if I remember rightly.
Daz and Julie really enjoyed the trip and were impressed how I didn't get in a flap at any stage and sounded really professional over the radio which certainly gives me a bit more confidence about things.
Did my plan and the passenger briefing and we were off. I expected it to be quite bumpy since there were quire a lot of fluffy clouds but it was remarkably smooth except in the up and downdrafts as we returned from Windemere over the northern part of the Dales. Still managed to do a pretty good job of altitude holding and I reckon it's not to far off what is required for the CPL now.
There was a glut of traffic when we came back into Leeds and I did get a bit nervous when I had to extend downwind way beyond normal and ended up being almost overhead the city centre - I even saw the C&W building where I work from the air for the first time which gives some indication of how far out we got (in the photo you can just see the nearby condemned semicircular building on the far left about a fifth of the way down) . But the approach from about an 8nm final was pretty good (two reds, two whites most of the way) and the landing was at least passable if I remember rightly.Daz and Julie really enjoyed the trip and were impressed how I didn't get in a flap at any stage and sounded really professional over the radio which certainly gives me a bit more confidence about things.
Turweston
On Weds 20th Aug I flew down to Turweston which is about 12nm west of Milton Keynes. Unfortunately I can't remember that many details about this trip (except the obvious as you will see) so this will be a fairly short entry.
I planned to fly at 3000 feet since the forecast cloudbase at the time was supposed to be 2800 feet. In fact I never got above 2500 feet and kept having to descend going below 2000 feet on a number of occasions. Other than this the flight was pretty uneventful. Turweston have some very strict noise abatement procedures which include a final approach which is at an angle of 20 degrees to the centreline until you pass a farm about 1nm from the threshold. This makes for a challenging approach requiring some accurate flying. But it all went more or less perfectly... right until I landed...
The runway was 28 with a fairly breezy wind from 210 so the wind on touchdown was something like 210/13. I don't quite know what I did wrong but I think I landed more or less straight but somehow didn't remain that way. Most likely I still had some crab on but the result was that I started to veer off to the left of the runway and briefly tracked onto the grass! :-( Fortunately it was ok and I managed to regain the runway. Not wishing to make too abrupt a corrective action and risk damage to the nosewheel or tipping over I gently steered back onto the runway swearing and red faced an my ineptness even though no-one could see me. :-) :-(
Taxied in and went to pay my dues and get filled up with fuel. No one was in the tower, but the chap on duty with the fuel bowser however had noticed my landing incident but just laughed and said "I won't say anything if you don't". Anyway, once I'd had a sandwich I set off back and apart steering a heading to keep me well clear of Husbands Bosworth where there was a gliding competition in progress, the trip back went well. And I think the landing back at Leeds on 14 was a pretty good crosswind landing - why can't I be consistent :-(
I planned to fly at 3000 feet since the forecast cloudbase at the time was supposed to be 2800 feet. In fact I never got above 2500 feet and kept having to descend going below 2000 feet on a number of occasions. Other than this the flight was pretty uneventful. Turweston have some very strict noise abatement procedures which include a final approach which is at an angle of 20 degrees to the centreline until you pass a farm about 1nm from the threshold. This makes for a challenging approach requiring some accurate flying. But it all went more or less perfectly... right until I landed...
The runway was 28 with a fairly breezy wind from 210 so the wind on touchdown was something like 210/13. I don't quite know what I did wrong but I think I landed more or less straight but somehow didn't remain that way. Most likely I still had some crab on but the result was that I started to veer off to the left of the runway and briefly tracked onto the grass! :-( Fortunately it was ok and I managed to regain the runway. Not wishing to make too abrupt a corrective action and risk damage to the nosewheel or tipping over I gently steered back onto the runway swearing and red faced an my ineptness even though no-one could see me. :-) :-(
Taxied in and went to pay my dues and get filled up with fuel. No one was in the tower, but the chap on duty with the fuel bowser however had noticed my landing incident but just laughed and said "I won't say anything if you don't". Anyway, once I'd had a sandwich I set off back and apart steering a heading to keep me well clear of Husbands Bosworth where there was a gliding competition in progress, the trip back went well. And I think the landing back at Leeds on 14 was a pretty good crosswind landing - why can't I be consistent :-(
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Time Flies...
Where did the week go?!
I have a number of updates to post but haven't managed to get around to posting them yet.
Anyway, I start tomorrow (Mon 25th Aug) on the CPL, weather permitting :-)
I have a number of updates to post but haven't managed to get around to posting them yet.
Anyway, I start tomorrow (Mon 25th Aug) on the CPL, weather permitting :-)
Monday, 18 August 2008
British Weather
What is going on with the weather and the forecast!?!?
Saturday and Sunday were both forecast to be miserable, but in Leeds after an initial dull start Saturday afternoon was fantastic. But I'd cancelled my flying and made other plans that day :-(
And I cancelled Sunday too to give other guys in the share a chance to fly if they wanted and it was great too. I could and should have tried to go, but I didn't feel like it in the end (and ended up watching a lot of the Olympics - Damn the IOC. How inconsiderate of them of have the Olympics at the same time as I'm trying to do flying! :-)
I'm regretting that now since the weather today is crap again and forecast to be crap all the way into Thursday. Only need 2:05 hours to start the CPL course which should easily be doable in a week (if it weren't for the lottery of the British summer) and 10:00 hours dead to have my 70 hours P1 requirement to start the multi-engine rating.
Actually, the weather is flyable now but there is another sizeable band of rain heading this way according the the rainfall radar, so by the time I have gotten to the airport and planned everything it'll probably be raining again and I wouldn't want to risk heading out anyway if not.
Anyway, that's things up to date now - will try and blog daily from now on :-)
Tally-Ho!
Saturday and Sunday were both forecast to be miserable, but in Leeds after an initial dull start Saturday afternoon was fantastic. But I'd cancelled my flying and made other plans that day :-(
And I cancelled Sunday too to give other guys in the share a chance to fly if they wanted and it was great too. I could and should have tried to go, but I didn't feel like it in the end (and ended up watching a lot of the Olympics - Damn the IOC. How inconsiderate of them of have the Olympics at the same time as I'm trying to do flying! :-)
I'm regretting that now since the weather today is crap again and forecast to be crap all the way into Thursday. Only need 2:05 hours to start the CPL course which should easily be doable in a week (if it weren't for the lottery of the British summer) and 10:00 hours dead to have my 70 hours P1 requirement to start the multi-engine rating.
Actually, the weather is flyable now but there is another sizeable band of rain heading this way according the the rainfall radar, so by the time I have gotten to the airport and planned everything it'll probably be raining again and I wouldn't want to risk heading out anyway if not.
Anyway, that's things up to date now - will try and blog daily from now on :-)
Tally-Ho!
hour building progress so far - part 3
Thursday was another washout :-(
Fully expected Friday to be similar, but it was a fantastic day and ideal for completing my mandatory CPL 300nm QXC (Qualifying Cross Country) trip. Had been pondering a variety of routes in recent days, but in the end settled on Leeds-Bourn-Shobdon-Leeds. Did all the necessary preflight checks including checking NOTAMs, but here I made an omission. I use a program called Notam Plot which plots out all the notams on a map and you can superimpose your track on it and also apply a filter to show only those which are relevant
to your route. I did all that and checked en-route NOTAMs, but forgot to check the airfield ones. As luck would have it, both the airfields I was visiting had NOTAMs - Bourn because there was "intense pleasure flying" and Shobdon because there was an aerobatics competition. As it turned out luckily there was no problems, but I must make sure to check both enroute and airfield NOTAMs in future.
Anyway, back to the flying. Flew a very similar leg down to Bourn (which is about 5 miles from Cambridge) as to Spanhoe, and in fact passed overhead Rutland Water (see photo), the Wittering MATZ and Spanhoe en route (easily spotting the grass runway again), before extending on to Bourn. As warned when I phoned for PPR the circuit was very busy and quite challenging as you have to keep your eyes peeled and wits about you and your situational awareness has to be really good. Did a really quite good job of joining and slotting into the circuit and controlling my speed suitably in the circuit and on approach, only let down by a below par landing.
Had some refreshment and a chat with some of the many GA pilots there - the "intense pleasure flying" was a fly-in for GA pilots who then gave trips to various children in aid of the Burnt Childrens Charity. Felt somewhat guilty that I crashed their event and then left without taking any children flying, but I was on a schedule.
Took off and routed direct to the Daventry VOR and tried to establish a flight information service with Birmingham Approach fairly early on. But they were evidently extreemely busy and I was told you to standby and didn't get a callback for nearly half an hour! You don't realise how much value a flight information service is until you don't have the comfort of one. While in this limbo state I did pass quite close to a glider which popped out to the left and below by maybe 500-1000 ft which I no doubt would have been warned about if I'd had a flight information service. Anyway, for both this and the first leg my altitude and heading holding was pretty good. Having had a chat with one of the CPL instructors and the CPL examiner realised that while the tolerances for a CPL are much less than for a PPL, as long as you are on top of any heading/altitude drift and take positive action to correct it it's not a problem. Consequently I'm a lot more comfortable about that aspect of my flying being nearer the required CPL level than I feared it might be. Navigation and plog to Shobdon was pretty accurate and landed pretty much spot on my ETA with a good base join (no overhead joins because of the aerobatics), approach and reasonable landing.
Filled up with fuel (£1.70/litre - ouch!) and thought I might have to do a LOT of dishes as I only had 35 quid on me and their credit card machine wasn't working with my bill being £131.33! Luckily after having had a sandwich they had it working and I coughed up and got under way. My initial navigation went a bit to pot on the track towards Cannock
and again I ended up way left of track and again it was down to a large error in the DI which I didn't spot till too late. It somewhat screwed up things up because now my track into the Trent VOR would have taken me over the site of the V Festival (see photo) so Birmingham Approach had to suggest a vector to avoid it. Another NOTAM failing here - I knew about this one but didn't mark it on my chart since it wasn't that near to my planned track. In future I must mark these things on my chart and keep close eye on the DI, perhaps more frequently than a standard FREDA check. Anyhow, once I arrived at Trent everything went much better and I tracked outbound on a radial pretty closely and timed another good descent into the Leeds zone, topped off by an excellent flapless crosswind landing. All in all a very satisfying and successful QXC! :-)
Fully expected Friday to be similar, but it was a fantastic day and ideal for completing my mandatory CPL 300nm QXC (Qualifying Cross Country) trip. Had been pondering a variety of routes in recent days, but in the end settled on Leeds-Bourn-Shobdon-Leeds. Did all the necessary preflight checks including checking NOTAMs, but here I made an omission. I use a program called Notam Plot which plots out all the notams on a map and you can superimpose your track on it and also apply a filter to show only those which are relevant
to your route. I did all that and checked en-route NOTAMs, but forgot to check the airfield ones. As luck would have it, both the airfields I was visiting had NOTAMs - Bourn because there was "intense pleasure flying" and Shobdon because there was an aerobatics competition. As it turned out luckily there was no problems, but I must make sure to check both enroute and airfield NOTAMs in future.Anyway, back to the flying. Flew a very similar leg down to Bourn (which is about 5 miles from Cambridge) as to Spanhoe, and in fact passed overhead Rutland Water (see photo), the Wittering MATZ and Spanhoe en route (easily spotting the grass runway again), before extending on to Bourn. As warned when I phoned for PPR the circuit was very busy and quite challenging as you have to keep your eyes peeled and wits about you and your situational awareness has to be really good. Did a really quite good job of joining and slotting into the circuit and controlling my speed suitably in the circuit and on approach, only let down by a below par landing.
Had some refreshment and a chat with some of the many GA pilots there - the "intense pleasure flying" was a fly-in for GA pilots who then gave trips to various children in aid of the Burnt Childrens Charity. Felt somewhat guilty that I crashed their event and then left without taking any children flying, but I was on a schedule.
Took off and routed direct to the Daventry VOR and tried to establish a flight information service with Birmingham Approach fairly early on. But they were evidently extreemely busy and I was told you to standby and didn't get a callback for nearly half an hour! You don't realise how much value a flight information service is until you don't have the comfort of one. While in this limbo state I did pass quite close to a glider which popped out to the left and below by maybe 500-1000 ft which I no doubt would have been warned about if I'd had a flight information service. Anyway, for both this and the first leg my altitude and heading holding was pretty good. Having had a chat with one of the CPL instructors and the CPL examiner realised that while the tolerances for a CPL are much less than for a PPL, as long as you are on top of any heading/altitude drift and take positive action to correct it it's not a problem. Consequently I'm a lot more comfortable about that aspect of my flying being nearer the required CPL level than I feared it might be. Navigation and plog to Shobdon was pretty accurate and landed pretty much spot on my ETA with a good base join (no overhead joins because of the aerobatics), approach and reasonable landing.
Filled up with fuel (£1.70/litre - ouch!) and thought I might have to do a LOT of dishes as I only had 35 quid on me and their credit card machine wasn't working with my bill being £131.33! Luckily after having had a sandwich they had it working and I coughed up and got under way. My initial navigation went a bit to pot on the track towards Cannock
and again I ended up way left of track and again it was down to a large error in the DI which I didn't spot till too late. It somewhat screwed up things up because now my track into the Trent VOR would have taken me over the site of the V Festival (see photo) so Birmingham Approach had to suggest a vector to avoid it. Another NOTAM failing here - I knew about this one but didn't mark it on my chart since it wasn't that near to my planned track. In future I must mark these things on my chart and keep close eye on the DI, perhaps more frequently than a standard FREDA check. Anyhow, once I arrived at Trent everything went much better and I tracked outbound on a radial pretty closely and timed another good descent into the Leeds zone, topped off by an excellent flapless crosswind landing. All in all a very satisfying and successful QXC! :-)
hour building progress so far - part 2
Tuesday was a washout.
I was expecting Wednesday to be the same, but Leeds was luckily in a window with heavy rain further north and south. Had been planning to go to Carlisle but the METAR there showed low (<1000ft) cloudbase and it was on the fringes of the northern rain band, so I decided to go to Caernarfon instead. Had been there before as a passenger so knew the route was quite easy.
Out via Keighley and tracking the VOR into Pole Hill (POL) and then outbound taking towards the Liverpool zone's VRP of Seaforth. Called them up and asked for a zone transit which they agreed to readily as my RT was good and to the point. Transited their zone at 3400 feet (if I remember correctly) to cross the Wirral and into North Wales. Initially could almost see the summit of Snowdon
(see photo), but the cloudbase came down quite rapidly to less than 2000 feet, and considering my track took me over a ridge at 1900 ft I thought I'd have divert round it, but luckily the cloudbase lifted enough briefly to fly over. Then was instructed by Valley to transit the Menai Straights not above 1500 ft which wasn't a problem as the cloudbase was worryingly coming down all the time :-(. By the time I got to Caernarfon it was 800-900 ft at times which considering the overhead join was supposed to be at 1300 ft with circuit at 800 ft posed a bit of an issue. But managed to join overhead at 1200 ft and did a reasonably tidy circuit and ok landing. The navigation and plog worked out really well, and heading and altitude holding was generally quite good.
After a quick drink and snack set off again as didn't wanted to get stranded by weather or cloudbase. Did a slight modification of the route back to follow the coast which worked out better since the cloud base was still very low until Colwyn Bay. Didn't get a zone transit on the way back as I forgot to ask for one on initial contact, so had to cross the Wirral (see photo of Liverpool with the Wirral in the distance) below 2000 ft. Tracking the VOR back to POL went a bit wrong however as I set my heading and kept losing the VOR radial. Realised after doing a FREDA check that the DI was 30ish degrees out! Consequently was significantly too far left of track managed to get back on track and tracked in ok, but must keep an eye on the DI and perhaps do more regular FREDA checks. Landing at Leeds was ok as far as I remember.
I was expecting Wednesday to be the same, but Leeds was luckily in a window with heavy rain further north and south. Had been planning to go to Carlisle but the METAR there showed low (<1000ft) cloudbase and it was on the fringes of the northern rain band, so I decided to go to Caernarfon instead. Had been there before as a passenger so knew the route was quite easy.
Out via Keighley and tracking the VOR into Pole Hill (POL) and then outbound taking towards the Liverpool zone's VRP of Seaforth. Called them up and asked for a zone transit which they agreed to readily as my RT was good and to the point. Transited their zone at 3400 feet (if I remember correctly) to cross the Wirral and into North Wales. Initially could almost see the summit of Snowdon
(see photo), but the cloudbase came down quite rapidly to less than 2000 feet, and considering my track took me over a ridge at 1900 ft I thought I'd have divert round it, but luckily the cloudbase lifted enough briefly to fly over. Then was instructed by Valley to transit the Menai Straights not above 1500 ft which wasn't a problem as the cloudbase was worryingly coming down all the time :-(. By the time I got to Caernarfon it was 800-900 ft at times which considering the overhead join was supposed to be at 1300 ft with circuit at 800 ft posed a bit of an issue. But managed to join overhead at 1200 ft and did a reasonably tidy circuit and ok landing. The navigation and plog worked out really well, and heading and altitude holding was generally quite good.
After a quick drink and snack set off again as didn't wanted to get stranded by weather or cloudbase. Did a slight modification of the route back to follow the coast which worked out better since the cloud base was still very low until Colwyn Bay. Didn't get a zone transit on the way back as I forgot to ask for one on initial contact, so had to cross the Wirral (see photo of Liverpool with the Wirral in the distance) below 2000 ft. Tracking the VOR back to POL went a bit wrong however as I set my heading and kept losing the VOR radial. Realised after doing a FREDA check that the DI was 30ish degrees out! Consequently was significantly too far left of track managed to get back on track and tracked in ok, but must keep an eye on the DI and perhaps do more regular FREDA checks. Landing at Leeds was ok as far as I remember.
hour building progress so far - part 1
Felt a bit rough after my few leaving do (I'm such a lightweight!), so it was perhaps a good thing that the weather was so miserable on Sat 9th.
Sunday was a much nicer day, but the forecast was for strong winds later. I headed up to the airport anyway and after some indecisive dithering decided to practice some crosswind landings before the wind got too strong. For the first circuit the wind was 230/13 kts on runway 32 - that's 100% crosswind. Got bounced around a bit but made a passable landing. However on the secons ATC informed me the wind was 230/18 kts up to 29 kts. The crosswind limit on the Cessna 177 is 15 kts so this was, ahem, somewhat over the limit. Carried on as the wind had been very variable and got bounced around a lot more and at about 200ft called in that this was now to land rather than touch and go. Dreadful landing but was happy to be down and to be calling it a day.
Monday the weather was good if breezy. Decided to do the long intended trip down to Spanhoe which is about 1/2 a mile from my parents house. Left the zone via Dewsbury and tracked down to Totley (south-east Sheffield), then on to Belvoir Castle near Grantham though my heading & altitude holding wasn't the best (need to work on it for the CPL). Cottesmore radar asked me to route in to Spanhoe via Melton Mowbray which was fine since I'd just become visual with the castle so it didn't mess up my plog too much. Flew over the tip of the bottom arm of Rutland Water and almost immediately spotted the grass runway 14/32 which stood out verywell in the surrounding trees and wasteland. Standard overhead join while talking to Cottesmore since Spanhoe has no radio, and while I got a little too low over the forest in the circuit, the landing was perfect which I was very pleased about as a first visit to this airfield!
After some lunch with the folks did my mass & balance checks and checked my TODR/LDR to ensure it was safe to take off and land there with 3 POB and half a tank of fuel. No problems, so off we went, getting back on the radio to Cottesmore shortly after lift off and then heading back up past Rutland Water to Melton Mowbray again. Then turned south to fly past Rockingham Motor Speedway before routing to Peterborough to try spot my sister's house. Returning to Spanhoe approaching from the south the cirsuit was better, but sadly the landing was not as good being a little firm and bit sideways having not removed the crab quick enough. Still, my parents really, really enjoyed it (much more so than I expected) and weren't fazed by the iffy landing.
Had some tea and then headed back the way I came. The heading and altitude holding was better on the way back and I navigated and judged my start of descent into the Leeds zone well. The landing was a bit iffy, again not removing all the crab and landing a bit sideways and not having enough into wind aileron - definately need to work on crosswind landings :-(
Sunday was a much nicer day, but the forecast was for strong winds later. I headed up to the airport anyway and after some indecisive dithering decided to practice some crosswind landings before the wind got too strong. For the first circuit the wind was 230/13 kts on runway 32 - that's 100% crosswind. Got bounced around a bit but made a passable landing. However on the secons ATC informed me the wind was 230/18 kts up to 29 kts. The crosswind limit on the Cessna 177 is 15 kts so this was, ahem, somewhat over the limit. Carried on as the wind had been very variable and got bounced around a lot more and at about 200ft called in that this was now to land rather than touch and go. Dreadful landing but was happy to be down and to be calling it a day.
Monday the weather was good if breezy. Decided to do the long intended trip down to Spanhoe which is about 1/2 a mile from my parents house. Left the zone via Dewsbury and tracked down to Totley (south-east Sheffield), then on to Belvoir Castle near Grantham though my heading & altitude holding wasn't the best (need to work on it for the CPL). Cottesmore radar asked me to route in to Spanhoe via Melton Mowbray which was fine since I'd just become visual with the castle so it didn't mess up my plog too much. Flew over the tip of the bottom arm of Rutland Water and almost immediately spotted the grass runway 14/32 which stood out verywell in the surrounding trees and wasteland. Standard overhead join while talking to Cottesmore since Spanhoe has no radio, and while I got a little too low over the forest in the circuit, the landing was perfect which I was very pleased about as a first visit to this airfield!
After some lunch with the folks did my mass & balance checks and checked my TODR/LDR to ensure it was safe to take off and land there with 3 POB and half a tank of fuel. No problems, so off we went, getting back on the radio to Cottesmore shortly after lift off and then heading back up past Rutland Water to Melton Mowbray again. Then turned south to fly past Rockingham Motor Speedway before routing to Peterborough to try spot my sister's house. Returning to Spanhoe approaching from the south the cirsuit was better, but sadly the landing was not as good being a little firm and bit sideways having not removed the crab quick enough. Still, my parents really, really enjoyed it (much more so than I expected) and weren't fazed by the iffy landing.
Had some tea and then headed back the way I came. The heading and altitude holding was better on the way back and I navigated and judged my start of descent into the Leeds zone well. The landing was a bit iffy, again not removing all the crab and landing a bit sideways and not having enough into wind aileron - definately need to work on crosswind landings :-(
cleared to blog
Finally got around to creating a blog. :-)
Will do a series of big posts next to bring things up-to-date.
EDIT: I'm going to make this first post a glossasry of all these wierd and wonderful flying acronyms so have a look back here as required and let me know if I've missed one out...
GLOSSARY
Will do a series of big posts next to bring things up-to-date.
EDIT: I'm going to make this first post a glossasry of all these wierd and wonderful flying acronyms so have a look back here as required and let me know if I've missed one out...
GLOSSARY
- CPL = Commercial Pilot's Licence
- PPL = Private Pilot's Licence
- POB = Persons On Board
- TODR = Take Off Distance Required
- LDR = Landing Distance Required
- ATC = Air Traffic Control
- NDB = Non-Directional Beacon ( a simple radio beacon)
- VOR/DME = VHF Omnidirectional Range/Distance Measuring Equipment (a kind of advanced radio beacon)
- POL = Pole Hill VOR/DME
- FREDA = Fuel, Radio, Engine, DI, Altitude (a regular check of systems performed while enroute)
- DI = Direction Indicator
- VRP = Visual Reporting Point
- METAR = Actual weather at an aerodrome (see here)
- TAF = Terminal Aerodrome Forecast
- NOTAM = Notice To Airmen
- QXC = Qualifying Cross Contry
- GA = General Aviation
- PPR = Prior Permission Required
- MATZ = Military Air Traffic Zone
- P1/PIC = Pilot In Command
- PLOG = pilot log where you calculate your required track and groundspeed to take into account the wind and your ETA etc.
- Crab = the angling into wind to maintain a straight track on approach to land. Obviously you have to decrab so the aircraft is aligned with the runway before landing.
- MSA = Minimum Safe Altitude
- 2 reds, 2 whites = this refers to the indication from the 4 lights of a PAPI if you're on the correct glidepath. 3/4 reds is too low and 3/4 whites is too high.
- PAPI = Precision Approach Path Indicator
- W&B = Weight and Balance, aka M&B - Mass and Balance
- GAM = Gamston VOR/DME
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