Hello all,
First of all,well done to LysanderV8 and Chequeredflag.
I've been a bit silent of late on this forum as I've been practising for my own GFT which was yesterday and which I'm glad to say I passed. Yippee! thank goodness for that, what a relief etc!! I've never felt so nervous since I did my driving test-I felt like throwing up before we took off!
Anyway, to the flight itself.
The first of 2 surprises was that after the rain and snow at Redhill was that it actually went ahead. The second surprise was that we were using runway 36 for circuits, and whilst I have landed on it, I've never done circuits! Oh well, Murphy's law I suppose.
For those of you who know Redhill, you may remember that the downwind leg points straight at Gatwick and therefore the turn onto base has very little margin for error. Anyway, the 3 circuits (normal, flapless and glide) went ok, but I forgot to brief my 'passenger' regarding what to do in the event of an EFATO, and rather worryingly we were nearly t-boned by a Cessna from another club who wasn't looking where he was going!
So with that over, we were off to Southend. No dramas, got my calls in and with a nice clear day, it was easy flying and actually quite pretty with the snow on the ground. Gave Southend a call overhead,and then off towards Lydd, carefully avoiding the danger area which was active by Sheerness.
After about another 10mins I'm asked to don the foggles and the examiner proceeds to wander around the sky, passes back control to me and asks me to do a few turns. This is ok, but he then asks me to do a position fix with the foggles still on! Dialled Detling ok, but then proceeded to have a 'brain fart' (as he called it), by marking 210 off, rather than 310. Ops, I knew something was up, and after a little helpful prod, I worked it out. Dialled Mayfield ok,and once I'm happy, he lets me take the foggles off and asks me to confirm our position map to ground - thankfully they matched!
So, with our new position identified I'm asked to divert to Rochester, which I plan ok, and head off, calling off the waypoints. Everything starts off ok, but could I find the damn place, could I heck. Anyway, after a comment - about there being 'a nice river down there', it all clicks into place.
That's the nav completed, and like others I've read, I'm starting to wonder if I've cocked things up.
Anyway, put it behind I figure and it's into the steep turns (ok), spiral dives (ok), slow flight at 55kts was a bit ropey, and for good measure he asks me to do some slow turns, and my HASELL checks at the same time. Stalls, Clean (ok), 1st stage of flap - what a prat, I try to pick up the wing drop with the aileron, and rightly get a b@ll@cking, and am asked to do another 2. These and the full flap went ok, and whilst we were climbing away, it's throttle back and into the PFL.
Nose down, but no decent fields visible, so a smart 180, and there she blows! But it's a bit tight, as it was only a stones throw from Tonbridge. However, I manage to squeeze it down without too much trouble, although my workload meant that I didn't brief the 'passenger', and I didn't do the shutdown checks. But at least we'd have got in.
Heading back to the airfield now, and after a bit more VOR tracking we rejoin the circuit and land. Flight time 2hrs and 5 mins
Yep I passed, but was given another talking to on the stall, and the briefing passengers re the PFL.
Regards to all, thanks for the helpful advice, and happy and safe flying.
C23