Catch up

Catch up

 

Hello fellow Sky watchers!

Looking back over the blog page it appears my last post was in March. And at that stage I was at the point of beginning the navigation phase of training. Gosh, I am pleased to say a lot has happened since then. Study - I have now completed all the theory exams. Great to have that in the bag. I started taking them in pairs to expedite the process. The most challenging one to me was Meteorology. A bit like taking GCSE geography all over again. Having that lot sewn up meant I could focus all my attention to the fun part- up in the sky. After an evening navigation theory class I was set to go with Flight planning. My whizzy –wheel skills are now slick as! 

Navigation

So it is pretty simple in theory: Just a case of flying between two points in a straight line and bob’s your uncle. If you fly a heading for a set time period you will end up at a definite location. You do need to adjust for the wind which can blow you off course, but the calculations are done in advance on the ground in slow time. The end results are impressive - the accuracy of the flight path comes out rather well, in short – it works. photo of Nav route with straight legs.

Portsmouth

 This phase of the course was particularly enjoyable because it took me to different areas I had not flown over before. I even got in a couple of solo nav flights and became well acquainted with the south coast.  There’s plenty to see and lots of obvious features to keep you orientated. Getting lost is always a risk, which sounds silly, but is a very real possibility. There is always the option to get help from atc to confirm your location because they have you on radar.

Cross country qualifier

Lydd Airport

 One of the PPL licence requirements is to complete a cross country flight over 150 miles and landing at two different airports. This is really exciting because until this point I had onlytaken off or landed at Fairoaks. Back in July I went with Rich to do a dummy run of the flight first, leaving Fairoaks and flying south of Gatwick to Lydd airport. It is right next to Dungeness power station. This airport has a truly eerie atmosphere to it.  The airport has a massive runway. It is long enough to take a 747. After a can of coke we then jumped back into the plane and flew along the south coast, past Bognor and Brighton and then landed at Goodwood. This place is a world apart from the concrete paradise of Lydd. Goodwood was a Spitfire base during WW2 with the classic RAF X layout and grass runways.

What’s next?

Spiffing

So all the theory side is complete. I only have two more hurdles before I can submit my licence application. There is a radio practical test which I am currently preparing for. It involves a simulated flight and making the necessary radio calls to the examiner. I don’t mind this hurdle because it is always helpful to have accurate RT skills. You are more likely to get taken seriously by ATC and they will not oblige your requests if you sound like an amateur. “Negative ghost rider, the pattern is full”.

The other obstacle to overcome is – you guessed it – the general flight test. The biggie! The first part of this covers handling skills – demonstrating you can safely recover from a stall and are able to handle an engine failure or two. Then there will be a navigation section; this should take up the bulk of the assessment. Finally, a few circuits around the airport to demonstrate the landing skills are up to scratch. If that goes well then I can send all the paperwork to the CAA and have it wrapped up. It all sounds simple on paper. Let’s see how we go.

Btw it is now a whole year since I started-time flies!!!