My first cross country!
Given what a great community PPrune is, I thought I would share (and I just need to tell people, too!).
I'm currently learning to fly in a Eurostar (3 axis M/light). Things were going well, but then I had an unexpected 4 month break (knee op) which meant that I missed most of the summer, and only got back to things in December.
Well, I haven't gone solo yet, but am finally starting to get the hang of this landing thing (though perhaps my instructor would say otherwise). That said, we decided that it would be a good idea to do a cross-country, just to remind me what it was all about.
After 2 months of false starts, with weather too bad to fly, or good enough to do circuits, but not get over the Chilterns, last week was the "go" week.
It was still a bit touch and go, given the band of bad weather hanging over the midlands, we gave our destination (Sywell) a call and it didn't seem to bad there. On the understanding that if things did start looking iffy weather-wise, and the knowledge that we were flying towards the lower cloud, so could always turn around and fly back, we decided to give it a go.
AND IT WAS GREAT!!!!
I am sure that those of you with many hundreds of hours under your belts will see this as run of the mill, but for me, it was the most fantastic adventure. For a start, it meant I finally really did understand what trimming was about. I mean, how else can you fly, control the plane, read the map, look out and look at the intruments unless your altitude is steady and its one less pressure to deal with.
And then following the map....it was like google earth, only better. No radio beacons for us. Just a nav plan, 2 turning points (don't want anything too taxing) and a stopwatch...and a chart, with forests, railways, other airfields, towns, lakes, and all of that.
On the way up I did tend to look at the chart, then look for the features, but by the time we were flying back, the idea of looking at the features, and then checking them against the chart started to become more obvious.
And, as far as I am concerned, after flying 25 minutes on a heading, following and ticking off checkpoints, it was little less than a miracle that we arrived at our turning point within 9 seconds of our target. That was just mind-blowing!
I loved every minute of it, and it wasn't till I got home that I realised that as well as doing a cross-country, I joined an unknown circuit, and landed, without actually panicing or even realising it was different from my home field.
So, next lessons I am back to circuit bashing, and seeing if I can finally get consistent, but in the meantime, I have the cross-country to look back on and go "Ohhhh, that's what its all about !"
Thanks for listening to me rave, and will tell you more as it happens.
IPZ