Well, i've just been flying, and at last the wx and my brain played ball..... a Local area Famil and three ccts dual, then, taxiing back to the Flying club.....well, are you up for it??!! I decided, yes, I would go for it!
So off I went, to terrorise the goodly citizens of Newark, vale of Belvoir (Belvoir Castle), Grantham, Barkston Heath and Home. All was ok, until I got to the south of Grantham. I was thinking, ok, I need to call up Cranwell....looked on my map as I have put an 8 and 10 nm ring around Cranwell to remind me when I should call the TOwer....oh and I need to do Freeda cx...ok, so start doing my cx...then realise, where the hell am I?! Lincolnshire looks, well, samey.... i'd not been keeping a check on where I was whilst doing cx! I was infact doing a slight detour towards the coast! At least I suppose if I reached the Wash I would know where I was!!
But got back on course and was very relieved to see Barkston Heath and Sleaford...good, next issue...rejoin Cwl...Ummm Its runway 19 right hand. At this point of course, another club member was flying back, made a general call that he was "abeam the mast" (a telephone mast used as a local landmark v near the airfield) whilst i was south of Grantham...by the time I returned to the cct, and called Overhead join, he corrected me to Left hand join...so then quick rethink on which was deadside and which liveside, and .......where do I line up and join now? Did what I though I had to do and reported "Golf Foxtrot Alpha 2,500ft deadside descending (I hope!)" If he hadn't figured it out all ready, my mate now of course knew I was solo! I was a bit high at 2,500ft but I wanted to give him room as I did not have a visual which worried me a bit...to make matters worse, the sweeper was on the other runway and I was hoping he'd seen me!. So I had a lot of height, but managed to bleed it off and made a somewhat faster than i'd hoped landing which put a lot more wear on the brakes (thank god they work!!) So it was a bit of a spicy landing, but I got it down and arrived after 35 minutes out of the cct on my own for the first time...i'd survived!!
I guess this is old hat to most of you guys, but as a student, its a fab feeling to finally be let loose out of the circuits, and I feel that I have really turned a corner.
