Hey guys,
I'm very very new to these forums here, and I came across this awesome thread. I've not read it all by any stretch, but what I've seen looks very interesting and informative.
I've just turned 17 and I'm well on with my PPL training at Blackpool in PA-28-140s. I went solo about a week after my 16th birthday, but due to the terrible weather you know we've been having, I've only managed to get about another 4 hours of solo in since then. I've got just over 40 hours total under my belt so far, and I'm down to advanced nav work now, and beginning to look at land-aways.
I've not yet done any solo nav work, but with the weather set beautiful tomorrow it looks pretty hopeful indeed.
I'm a little nervous about it - presumably that's to be expected? It's not so much the fact that I can get lost, because it would be very difficult to in an area that I know so well, and if you do get uncertain, you can just head towards the big "W" and you'll eventually hit the large Blackpool tower, hopefully in a metaphorical sense anyway. It's more the fact that there's so much more to think about doing nav work than in the circuit. For example, the flight my instructor's given me involves a left turn if runway 28's in use, which takes me straight into Warton's MATZ. It's a lot to think about, talking to Warton, trying to get MATZ penetration, maintaining your climb, thinking about turning onto your heading, getting the time, checking the chart etc.
Then of course, there are major problems that I know I could be faced with. Surprisingly, it's not so much something like an engine failure that I'm worried about, because I know there you just maintain your 75 knots and put it down wherever the heck you can. It's more something like a radio failure, where you can still fly, but I don't have a clue what to do. Blackpool doesn't seem to have any special non-radio procedures associated with it, so do I simply squawk 7600 and return to Blackpool, joining on a base leg to whichever runway I took off from and landing, hoping there's no traffic very close to me that I've not seen?
Are these normal thoughts to be running through my head at this stage of the training? From what I've read, it seems everyone goes through slightly tougher patches in the PPL training.
Also, has anyone got any quick tips before I take the plunge tomorrow?
Thanks for any help/advice, and I might just stick around here!