I went up today for the first time in 10 days. I'm stuck at 2hr 35mins solo consolidation, and cannot get the other 25 mins to date 'cos of the weather on each subsequent lesson. Today was unbelievably turbulant, the little Warrior being thrown around all over the place, causing various expletives from self and instructor!! We were in the circuits, and at 1000', at the mercy of the weather! It was more like my old rallying days with armfuls of "opposite lock", and I earned a "well held" from the Boss when caught with one particularly violent gust. On one landing, we encountered quite bad windshear over the M1, the plane sinking rapidly, and then rising again sharply just as I shoved in some throttle!! We called and reported it to ATC, and our message was picked up by an Easyjet 737 landing behind us. When he landed, he too confirmed considerable windshear, and called it as "fun"!!
The strange thing was the wind was not too strong, pretty well on the nose, and16/20 knots - it was however, full of 'speedbumps, shoves and shusses!!'. We did various approaches, flapless, glide etc, and it was all good experience, but I did make a bad mistake on one landing, when I was told to "get it down on the numbers, not before or after....." As we came over the Motorway, we encountered the windshear, and this left me too high - in a sort of automatic reflex, as if I had a subconscious mindset that I would get the thing down on the numbers at all costs, I stupidly shoved the nose down - luckily, the boss retrieved the situation, otherwise I may well have touched down nosewheel first - not good!! This was hopefully a one off but a good lesson learned nevertheless.
I'm now beginning to wrestle with the Pooleys "whizzwheel" - it's as clear as mud to me at the moment, but I'll soon get used to it hopefully. Did a short nav the other day - EMA - Leicester - Nuneaton - Leicester - EMA. It was great to be away from EGNX, and from the circuits. Hopefully, we'll be doing more from here in.
Happy and safe flying all.....