Magnets and Circles...

more commonly known as Compass Turns...

So I was sitting in the pre-flight briefing (after having promised myself that I would read up on compass turns during the week... and not) doing the "Nod and Smile"(tm) routine as my new instructor[1], Dan, went through the basics of Compass Turns...

I didnt quite grasp some of the reasonings[2] for why the compass does wierd stuff when you're turning, but was given the old "it'll become clear when we are actually doing it" line... [cue Tui ad]...

BUT, sure enough, once airbourne (and with some more simulated IFR under my belt) and Dan demostrated the various effects of flight on the compass. It is quite interesting how the Direction Indicator (DI) turns at a completely different speed to the compass and hence why you need to make allowances for the compass error... and also how the compass turns differently depending on the aircrafts alignment to the Earth's north/south magnetic fields...

Still good fun, and some more valuable lessons learned... Unfortunately, Dan is away next sunday[3], so I am planning on using the time to brush up on some groundwork like P-Charts, weight and balance and maybe some nav and weather if I can find another instructor at the club on saturday who is bored :)

This flight: 0.9 Hours Dual (0.4 IFR)
Total Hours: 48.9 (45.1 Dual, 3.8 Solo, 1.3 IFR)

[1] Trevor has gone to the Sudan for a couple of months to get some Twin Turboprop time... good on him, i just hope he comes back... and not in a box!
[2] Another reason for reading things BEFORE i get to the airfield!
[3] kind of works out for me coz i'll probably be up late watching the FA Cup Final on saturday night anyway ;)

Dont believe your ears!

Got a first hand demonstration of the importance of trusting your instruments today...

I went up with the CFI, so he could check my progress and make sure that I am learning what i should be.

He seemed a little surprised that with the amount of hours that I had, that I was not up to where I should be in the syllabus... until I explained my history and 5 year gap between hours 32 and 33 of my flight training :)

He was also concerned my IFR flight was not as good as it should be with 3 or 4 hours of IFR... until I explained I only had 0.7 hours!

I'm going to put it down to a couple of things... firstly, my car was stolen on friday... I got back to the train station after work and after staring at the empty parking spot for about 2 or 3 seconds realised it was gone... grrrrrr

Secondly, I think I was a touch nervous flying with the 'Big Cheese'... silly I know, but there is always going to be a little performance anxiety when demonstrating in front of a senior aviator.

Anyway, back to the topic... don't believe your (inner) ears! I got a bad case of the leans... it was really wierd... I could have sworn we were straight and level, but the plane was obviously banked to the right as we kept drifting and I could see the AI showing a slight bank. Whenever I tried to correct it, I thought I was banking left and instinctively corrected that! The result being that I found it very difficult to maintain straight and level flight.

Later, Trevor told me that it was good that I had experienced that, and even better that I had realised what was happening... I just wish I had been able to correct it better.

Following that, some FLWOP practise, did OK... I am fairly confident that I will be able to put the plane down safely if the worst does happen (touch wood)... and then back to NZAR for some circuits.

Unfortunately, by the time we got back to the airfield, as the weather was just perfect for flying, world+dog had decided to go flying and there were planes all over the place, so we cut it short and headed for the grass... I did ok for my 3rd grass landing ever, but was a little fast on the approach... I think I will ask Trevor for some grass/short landing practise... I might even just go up for some solo circuits to work on it.

Next week will be Compass Turns and following sign-off of competency at that, I will be able to fly solo outside the circuit. ie. I can go to the training area on my own :)

This flight: 1.1 Hours Dual (0.2 IFR)
Total Hours: 48.0 (44.2 Dual, 3.8 Solo, 0.9 IFR)

Use the force Luke...

thats how I feel after the latest flight... that scene from Star Wars where Luke has the helmet on with the blast visor down and is trying to battle the little floating ball... only I was wearing these... they're called Foggles and work on the same sort of principle ie. you can't see.

So instead of looking out the window, it was scanning instruments and making turns and climbs as instructed... only today it was not "climb to 2500 feet"... "ok now, turn right to 040"... "now turn left to 250"... it was "turn right to 040 while climbing to 2500.... at 80kts"... "now, climb to 3000 while turning left to 020... at 70kts"... "now climb to 3500 at 90kts"...

I think the phrase is "Busier than a one-armed paper hanger"!!

And then a couple of FLWOP before back under the foggles and heading for home... Was making little 5 and 10 degree course changes and when I finally got the ok to remove the foggles I was about 15 seconds from making the overhead rejoin... its very disorientating :)

Managed to pull off a decent overhead join despite 2 others doing the same thing... at the same time... from different directions... NZAR is a busy place on a sunday afternoon!

Have been told that next week I will be flying with a B-Cat to get checked out for solo work in the training area! Sort of a mini-checkride... should be fun :)

This flight: 1.3 Hours Dual (0.5 IFR)
Total Hours: 46.9 (43.1 Dual, 3.8 Solo, 0.7 IFR)

Forget everything I've said...

and don't look out the window.

Those were the instructions as I started my instrument training to cover the required 5 hours of IFR flight necessary for my PPL. Having spent 40 something hours enjoying the view out the window and using the horizon as my reference point, it was quite disturbing to be robbed of all my visual queues, from 300' AGL.

Having said that, I think I did quite well for my first 0.2 hours of (simulated) instrument flying. Just some basic stuff like climbing and descending, and making "Rate One" turns (ie. 3 degrees per second, but i have been told by several people that these 5 hours of training are the ones that are most likely to save my life. Apparently, VFR-only pilots often get caught out in IFR conditions quite a lot and, without the visual references, get disoriented and crash and burn. Something similar to what many think happened to JFK Jr.

So after around 10 minutes my instructor let me look outside and I was amazed to see pretty much everything south of the bombay's and the hunua ranges (pretty much the entire Waikato region) blanketed in fog. This meant that we were unable to head down to the training area, so back to the airfield for some circuits and then shutdown.

On the plus side, as I got back early, I got to go for a joyride in a Cessna 182. Unfortunately, I was not flying (nor in the other front seat)... I was just along as a passenger so one of the other club members could classify his type-rating flight as a full load. The 182 is to the 152 as the Titanic is to a 10ft dinghy :) It was like sitting in the back of a Lincoln Towncar. So comfortable and with all the legroom a 6'3" guy could want... And I got a bit of a view of the V8 racing at Pukekohe :)

This flight: 0.9 Hours Dual (0.2 IFR)
Total Hours: 45.6 (41.8 Dual, 3.8 Solo, 0.2 IFR)

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday...

Not really... just more FLWOP practise... only this time, flying the complete procedure... down to around 100 feet!!! :)

Weather was a little rough, had a real rollercoaster ride heading over the small range of hills to the training area... a couple of light showers (if you can see through it, you can fly through it)... an engine that was 'occasionally' running a little rough (maybe carb icing?)... and about a 20kt westerly wind made for a challenging lesson today.

Good fun though...

The highlight being the circuit fun and games on return to the airfield. Made an almost perfect overhead join (only thing wrong was I made a minor error on one of the radio calls)... was cruising downwind, made my call... then heard '[callsign], Overhead Karaka, joining downwind'... meanwhile, some nonce in a grumman decided to make a straight-in approach for the runway... so I was left with no option but to extend downwind to be number 3 behind the guy trundling in on long finals.

My instructor then heard the downwind call over the craft that had joined downwind and realised that it was a twin-engined plane on a commercial charter and we were going to get squeezed... so we made a direct approach to the runway threshold, effectively making base and final legs into one... as I made my finals call we hear "Where did ETZ come from?"...

My instructor jumps in with "We joined overhead"... after landing, shutting down and securing the aircraft we were back inside the clubrooms and the phone rang... apparently the pilot in the twin was non too impressed with us... whatever, we're not the ones making straight in approaches!

so the CFI from the club went for a word with the other operator... nothing too dramatic, just a quick chat to clarify some things... apparently the twin didnt hear our calls, so figured he could steam downwind as fast as he liked ;)

'Advanced' stalling next lesson... the dreaded 'wing-drop' stall ;)

This flight: 1.2 Hours Dual
Total Hours: 44.7 (40.9 Dual, 3.8 Solo)

What goes up...

...must come down. At least, thats the theory. And funnily enough, if you put a Cessna 152 to idle power at 3000', it starts to come down :)

An introduction to Forced Landings WithOut Power (FLWOP) today. Just covering some of the basics like "immediate actions", site selection, the pattern to fly to ensure a 'positive' outcome should it ever happen for real etc.

Personally, I was just happy to be out of the circuit. And with all the circling and field spotting, I really felt like I was flying. I must have had the stupiest looking grin on my face today. It was great, a slight breeze, but visibility was almost unlimited, the sun was shining and I'm really starting to get 'The Feel'(tm) back.

Almost had the opportunity to start racking up the mandatory 5 hours of instrument flying today, as the flying out to the training area and back is essentially wasted time as you cruise along straight and level not doing anything. Unfortunately, one of the necessary instruments for IFR flight (the Turn Co-Ordinator) is currently unserviceable in JFY, so no-go... which was a little disappointing, as Instrument Flying is something that I have never done. Next week I have ETZ booked, so we should be good to go.

Anyway, we cruised out to the training area (I understand what my instructor says about wasted time), climbing up to 3000' and had my instructor demo a FLWOP, then I practised a few. I learnt some important lessons today... the most important one being that a light aircraft like the C-152 glides really well... and you do NOT need to be so concerned with not making it to your chosen landing site that you end up getting too close, too soon. I need to have a little more faith in the aircraft and fly the pattern as the aircraft really can perform like they say it does.

More of the same next week, and hopefully some instrument flying :)

This flight: 1.1 Hours Dual
Total Hours: 43.5 (39.7 Dual, 3.8 Solo)

2nd 1st solo...

Woohoo... survived my 1st Solo... again! :)

Headed out to NZAR feeling a little nervous (this isnt an april fools day joke is it?) and excited at the same time. Pre-flighted the plane to find 39 litres in the starboard tank... and 0 in the port tank!!??! Then I noticed the plane was sitting on a bit of an angle and all the fuel had drained from one side to the other. So I had to sit around waiting for the tanker to show, while reading some information on Mag Checks that the B-Cat had prepared for me (which ironically turned out to be quite fitting)...

So we headed up for some circuits to demonstrate my proficiency... and noticed the airplane was really struggling. At first we put it down to full fuel tanks and 2 quite large passengers :)

However when it started running a little rough on the 2nd approach, I finally noticed that the mags were not set to Both, so only one set of spark plugs was firing. We had double checked the setting after doing the Run-up checks, so the only thing I can put it down to is that my knee must have bumped the key. See what I mean about the Mag Check info?

Well the plane performance picked up dramatically after that, and the next couple of circuits went well. So the B-Cat put in the 'Full-stop, not complete, student continuing solo' call and jumped out telling me 'Stay in the circuit as long as you like, Have fun!'

Honestly, I could have stayed there all day, but sadly the cloud base was starting to get very low so I had to call it quits after only 3 circuits... but boy I was so stoked. There is still nothing like your 1st solo... even the 2nd time around :)

This flight: 0.3 Hours Dual, 0.7 Hours Solo
Total Hours: 42.4 (38.6 Dual, 3.8 Solo)