Day 9
Today is my last day in the 172 and we are going to do another Nav with an unplanned diversion. The flying is fantastic today very stable for a change. We flew to our set heading point and flew south. The airfield we were looking for today was a concrete strip much easier than the usual grass strips. My heading and times were spot on, but unfortunately for me I flew straight over the top of the field. They tell you to decide on your chart when you think that you have definitely missed it, and will turn back. I had nominated a nice road to the south of the field for this and when we got to it I turned round. It took a while but we did find it. I was now given my diversion, a small grass strip about 30 miles to the North West. I was surprised at how easy it was to plan using their method, and within a minute or two we were on route. Again the times were good but I just couldn’t see the strip. I now know that I am not picking the best features with which to verify my position. I tuned and identified Pahokee VOR and carried out a precision fix, I knew that we were slightly to the north, I turned around and just caught it out of the corner of my eye. These grass strips are so hard to see and this worries me a little for my test. We returned to Fort Pierce with a flapless landing and briefed for the next flight. This was to be intercepting various QDM & QDR from Fort Pierce NDB. The aircraft was up and down all over the place on this flight and it was a job to keep the correct altitude. I had briefed this flight yesterday and just could not get my head around what was required. The instructor had said if you want to fly a QDM then fly away from your desired heading by 60 degrees and when your ADF falls to the correct QDM turn onto it. With a QDR fly away from desired heading by 60 degrees, the needle will always fall (because that is what it does) when the tail of the needle indicates the QDR turn onto it and fly it. During the briefing this had completely confused me, but in the air it worked like a dream. We tracked for about an hour on NDBs & VORs, and then returned to land. My first flight in the Arrow is at 1000 in the morning so now I have to go and learn a new checklist.