It was suggested in another thread that I make a diary of my night qual to help those of you who are thinking about it, and well its nice to tell people about what flying you do. My aim is to make this thread bigger then mazzys PPL diary (I only need another 1277 posts
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Well today I had my first lesson! I hadn't flown for a while (6months) and also had never flown from Kidlington before so we decided it would be a good idea to go up and do 30mins of practice just to get back into the swing of things. It was a really nice evening, only a small bit of cloud and pretty good vis. Getting back into the plane was pretty good, most of it all came flooding back. One problem I found was that the OAT PA28s are MUCH better equiped then the PA28 I trained on so I had alot of new switches to be learning, but that was good fun too. Alot of my checks were rusty, I got them all done but sometimes abit late and not always in the right order, but again they got better as the flight went on and as I got back into it. We went out to the east of oxford, did some turns and stalls just to get the flying magic back again. by this time it the sun was well gone, leaving a gorgeous sunset, amazing to watch from the air! as it got darker and darker the lights below all started to come on and become more distinct. One of the major things I noticed is how much harder it is to judge speed and distance at night. All the lights make citys and roads look much much closer then they really are. Once it was pretty gloomy we headed back to the circuit, which to my surprise was really busy! for the whole flight we had 3-4 other aircraft to contend with! We did an orbit in the overheard to get a good look at the runway and the lights and with this done we descended deadside into the circuit. The circuits themselves are pretty simple, much easier then I would have expected them to be. The secret is to do your manouveres using the instruments and then to look outside again. Basically it goes like this. rolling down the runway is as standard, just keep in the middle and do the rolling checks. just before rotate you have to go to instruments because as soon as you rotate you lose all references. At the specified circuit height (airfield dependant, usually 500ft agl, was 1000ft MSL at oxford) you start your turn onto crosswind. First you look out, aircraft really are much easier to see at night, thanks to the strobes ) once you know its clear you go back to instruments and start your turn. Once settled in the turn you again look out into the turn and make sure its clear. Now if you look over your sholder you'll be able to see the runway lights appear and you can use them as you usually do to judge the correct distances for your circuit. The turn to downwind is just the same as this, but you will either have leveled at circuit height or have to do it soon. Once down wind you have a nice view of the airfield. Usual RT calls and checks and then its turn onto base, same as before. Now you start the descent. Descent itself is the same as is turn onto final. Its here that it gets abit werid. Most airfield have PAPIs so they can be used as guidance, however when learning its a good idea to ignore them. You judge angle by the spacing between the lights on the runway. If they are all joined up in a long line of light your too low, if they are widely spaced you are too high. You need to find the happy medium that you get from expereince. The hardest part imo is the flare. As you come down you have to look to the far end of the runway, when you can see the lights coming up to the level of your ears then you flare the a/c and reduce power, then you just let it sink gentley into the darkness. its really is scary landing somewhere you can't see!!! you just have to have faith and all will usually work out (my first attempt I didn't flare enough and thumped it down, making it bounce
) I had 1.45hrs of circuits which was great fun, altho pretty tiring, mainly due to the large amount of traffic!!! Loved it tho, the views at night are supurb and its silky smooth. The main problem tonight was that it was a right hand circuit which meant it was pretty hard to see the runway during the first stages of the approach. This was then compound on the fact that there was a stonking x-wind 90deg off the runway lol. Right thats enough for now, I'm hungry!