Good work chequered, keep it up!
Well what a day I have had! Got to the school for 1030 as I was due a flight in the Chipmunk with a friend who has a share in it. When I was in the air cadet’s, I missed out on the last day of serviceable flying for the chipmunk, so this was to be my first time. We took off and I couldn’t get over how well it flies and how responsive it is! We set up to the north for some aero’s – now, it’s been approximately 6 years since I had last done aerobatics, and that was in the bulldog. I didn’t feel sick at all then, and I was hoping the same would apply today. Well it did – I felt absolutely fine, and there was no need for me to spew! We started off with a couple of loops and then a roll. I was amazed to hear Neil say “right let’s do a spin”. Oh what joy…….I had never done a spin before, but had heard how much fun they were. He killed the throttle, raised the nose then WHALLOP – booted the left rudder and pulled back the control column – over the top we went into a very fast corkscrew type spin – absolutely bloody fantastic! I had control for the flight back before I gave it back for the landing – a truly amazing experience, one which I look forward to repeating. Cheers Neil if your reading. Paul, sorry you couldn’t make it – see you again soon.
Now then – onto my lesson. It was possibly a bad idea but my lesson was on the same day, a few hours later. It was actually my decision whether we flew or not as the wx was a bit dodgy, however to the North it was perfectly clear with great vis. Ideal. So I planned for the northern route – this is the one that had gone so bad last time as you will know. Mistake number one was an appalling takeoff. Nose too high, too much crab and just a shambles. Mistake number two, turned onto the planned heading for Kirkby, which I do know and is the VRP but for some, peculiar reason, I was flying totally the wrong way. I was looking straight a ahead where I knew (thought) it should be and just couldn’t see it. After some hinting from my instructor, we got back on track. Not a very good start I know but it gets better. You may recall from last time I was having difficulty relating the chart to what was on the ground. Well, this didn’t seem a problem this time; I could see where we were and relate all the towns/features along the way. So basically, I knew our position for (most) of the flight. However, (there is always a BUT) this didn’t stop me from making any mistakes. When we were off track, as this was a navigation exercise, I couldn’t simply say “follow the M6 north” which would have got us to our destination, but instead I have to pick an estimated heading to fly, and stick to it. One thing that I just kept forgetting was to synchronise the heading indicator with the compass. This resulted in us being roughly 10 degrees off track most of the time. I need to get this into routine or I am gonna mess up every time. The call to Warton went well as I had planned what I was going to say beforehand. They only gave us a FIS and so I didn’t need to tell them any headings, but I did anyway, probably because I was expecting to. They didn’t seem bothered. I have learned some more features now and could spot Formby point and Southport pier quite well – and next time it wont prove a problem. I hadn’t planned to call Woodvale, as I never thought it would be necessary, but as we were to pass east abeam the field, it was sonly good airmanship. Messed up a little here as I had not planned, but nothing serious. Ok now comes my most shameful moment ever. Coming back to Kirkby, past Woodvale, abeam Ormskirk, I got the ATIS. Before I knew it, I was approaching Kirkby. I forgot to descend. Was at 2000 feet when I just ever so slightly popped the zone. Instructor promptly reminded me and made adequate correction. I felt like ****. What a terrible mistake to make, it was a real downer. Anyway, onward, trying to put my mistakes in the past as not to make anymore. We had to orbit Kirkby for quite some time as there was a huge snow front coming over, we had a non standard rejoin to avoid it and landed in a 15 knot crosswind quite nicely – this renewed some of the shattered confidence.
In summary, I felt much better about being able to know where I was and relating to the map and this instilled confidence. My RT was better than the last time and we actually made the checkpoints reasonably ok. Apart from the initial loss of Kirkby and popping the zone, I was relatively ok with it. Still got a long way to go, and hopefully I can nail this flight on the next one. I have made the mistakes and now it’s time to get it right! Apparently, so a mate tells me, one day I will have a successful navigation flight and feel very good about it, and from then on, they will all be better. I am still waiting but feel I will get there!
My fingers hurt now, sorry for the long post – cheers,
Lee.