LESSON FIVE
I finally competed my Night Qualification a week ago today, but due to excessive amounts of 'other stuff' happening in life I've not had a chance to post this message.
After cancelling last Tuesdays attempt my instructor suggested the following day. While still talking to him I checked the weather on the BBC website which was showing all day fog. "I don't think it'll happen - but hopefully see you tomorrow". Well, never trust a weather forecast. Needless to say the next day was perfect.
Darkness comes very late now and it was 18:00 brakes off. Upto that point planning was easy as I was going to be flying the same route as last time so the route was still drawn on the map and I still had last times PLOG with headings and distances on it.
After an uneventful departure I was off, climbed up to 3000ft out of the zone and trundled upto Trowell where I set course for the first leg to Chesterfield. Despite the few weeks that have passed since doing this with my instructor I still managed to visually recognise the route and the tell tale signs, like the bright red light in just to the north eash of the middle of Chesterfield which is a good clue.
On the way up I'd tuned into Gamston as I'd be turning in their overhead on the next leg and wanted to see what was happening. They seemed pretty active and there was an aircraft in the circuit. So shortly after turning at Chesterfield I left East Mids approach and talked to Gamston. I must admit that I cheated here and tuned the DME into GAM to tell them how far I had to their overhead. Not at any point, might I add, did I tune the GAM VOR as that would be cheating and I wanted to prove to myself my ability to navigate DR and visually at night.
Gamston appeared suddenly. I knew I was very close and I knew where the field was (by its position to Retford and the A1) but the lights just weren't clear. I knew they were on as an aircraft on downwind had just called touch and go. Since I was approaching the aerodrome side on to the runway they weren't visible until I was pretty much overhead. This is quite similar to what I had noticed at East Mids when circuit bashing.
I called overhead and tracked back towards Trowell. The track was something like 210, which happens to line up with Gamston’s runway. Just after leaving Gamston and going back onto East Mids approach I looked back over my shoulder towards Gamston. Fifteen miles away the runway was illuminated like a Christmas tree. Proves that directional light theory!
Some nice and easy RT got me back into East Mids.
"G-SM is that you over Hucknall Airfield?"
Well, I was over a big black patch - Hucknall is a weekend only grass aerodrome so not exactly well lit!.
"Affirm, G-SM"
"Do you want to come back in?"
"Yes please, G-SM"
"G-SM, your cleared for a LE arrival, etc..."
Nice....!
A slightly pressured landing as I was about a mile out there was a 737 up my chuff at six miles so I got the 'keep your speed up on landing' call. But already, approaching and landing at night doesn't seem a big deal now - just good fun!
Taxiing back to the school I was asked to taxi faster (and I already thought I was going too fast - very deceptive at night) but this was to avoid holding up the 737 who had now landed, vacated at M and wanted to taxi back to the apron.
It was now 19:00 and the school had officially shut an hour before. So my instructor helped me get the aircraft tied down, then we filled in the paperwork. All quite straightforward really so the next day I posted my logbook and forms off to the CAA. And today I got... a receipt...
for £70
but that means my night qualification is on its way
but with the days getting longer I'll probably not use it until October now...
Well - thanks for reading this diary. Hope you've enjoyed it. Good luck to everyone else who's currently trying to get a rating of any kind. How about a "snow qualification"?
